Welcome to Gaia! ::

With it now evening time, crowds at the reservoir should have dissipated. At least Lavendulan hoped so since she had no intention of ridding up to the place on Talullah’s back.

Coming from the Dark Kingdom, she teleported herself and her personal youma to a spot near the snack shack where they remained partially concealed by the side of a building while she took a moment to scan the area for any sign of a threat; namely order but anyone who might see her as a monster was someone to be wary of. Fortunately, the only aura she felt belonged to that of a lieutenant and after nudging Tallulah forward a few steps, Laven noticed that the agent wasn’t moving from where he lay upon the squeaky sand.

“s**t-” she muttered under her breath. “C’mon” Laven nudged her youma with the heel of her boot, urging him forward with haste causing the sand beneath his hooves to squeak in what might have been a hilarious fashion if it wasn’t that her priorities were set to making sure the Lieutenant was alive and didn’t need medical attention.

“Lieutenant!” the General lept off the kirin-like monsters’ back sending a small spray of sand to sprinkle over the man’s pant leg.”Lieutenant, are you hurt?”

Lavendulan managed to tamper down the chuckle that she could feel building up inside her, but there was no helping the smirk that broke her previously worried expression. The way he got up so quickly was amusing in its own right but the way his posture remained rigid as he stared out over the reservoir told her that he hadn’t quite noticed that the General beside him was no ordinary agent.

“You can relax,” perhaps at ease would have been more appropriate but she didn’t care much for those kinds of formalities. She wasn’t here to oversee his energy quota or make sure he wasn’t slacking.

“I’m actually here for the same reason,” she commented calmly. Tallulah shifted beside her, unconcerned that there was presumably a monster even bigger than it was lurking in the depths. “I came out here a year ago to hunt the thing but to no success. It got away from me, and dove deeper into the caves than I could follow at the time. I assumed it had left for good but then last week I witnessed it grab hold of a small child.” Took a big risk diving down to save them but couldn’t pursue the thing without giving rise to suspicion. The last thing she needed was a search and rescue dive team scouring the reserve only to learn that the supposedly drowned civilian was alive and well because she had the ability to breathe underwater.

Troublesome either way…

The General turned her attention to the noticeably taller Lieutenant. “By the looks of it, I’m guessing the creature grabbed hold of you.” dampened hair clung to his face as his water-logged uniform hugged the rest of him like a second skin. “May I ask- what’s your name?”

“Lavendulan,” she offered her full name rather than the one she often went by when in the company of Lopezite or Wolframite. Although, she wouldn’t scold him if he were to call her Laven instead since the name she’d been given lacked the usual ‘ite’ ending of most officers’ names.

“I honestly meant it when I said you could relax. I’m not out here to supersede your General’s orders or make your night more difficult than it already is.” Assuming Staurolite was feeling overwhelmed by their sudden, probably slightly overwhelming, aura’s, she turned to Tallulah and placed a palm on his shoulder to nudge him back a few paces away from the lieutenant. Lavendulan then took a moment for herself to don her usual glamour; the same one she wore a few days ago with the long-sleeved bathing suit usually used for snorkeling.

Perhaps seeing her without horns and scales would alleviate any anxiety he was feeling by having, for lack of a better description, two monsters standing so close.

“If you’re hurt I can teleport you to a nearby hospital, otherwise I planned on diving down there for a few minutes to see if I could chase it off again.” Or kill it if the creature should reveal itself to her again.

A subtle chuckle escaped her.

It wasn’t long ago when she too felt apprehensive around superior officers. Standing rigid wishing that she had the ability to meld into shadows instead of bodies of water. Still, a neat trick but not very convenient when stuck standing inside a Sovereign’s office or before their Queen. It’d be a lie if she said her own wariness around other officers didn’t heavily contribute to her extended stays in the Rift for research and exploration purposes.

Nonetheless, Laven sympathized with his reaction to her and even appreciated how he refrained from balking at her appearance. Respectful and professional in light of his prior situation, commendable and note worthy if they were to meet again at a later date.

“I won’t keep you if you have other places to be. But if you choose to stay, I’d appreciate it if you would keep eye out up here with Tallulah while I dive into the reservoir for a bit.” She reached up with a free hand to remove a silver earring. “I’d like to avoid being ambushed by an Order Senshi or Knight.” Although she could easily teleport away, there was the Lieutenant and her personal youma to consider. Having Tallulah dusted by some stray magic would be most inconvenient and the young man likely had nothing more than a toy weapon at his disposal.

Troublesome either way but such is the way things end up it seemed.

“This is, for lack of a better term, a walkie talkie.” She offered Staurolite the cuff with an extended hand. “You don’t need to use words just thoughts to communicate with me.”

When the two were far enough away, Lavendulan dropped her glamour and waded out into the water. Once she was about hip deep she dove under and swam out into the deeper part where she waited idly for a few minutes to see if the creature would take the bait.

It did not.

At least not after what felt like ten minutes of waiting; it was probably only three but her uniform wasn’t equipped with a watch and she wasn’t about to pull out her tablet to check. ’So, Staurolite. Her thoughts filtered through the ear cuffs. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?’ A little idle conversation would be nice since visibility in the night-shrouded murky waters was low.

Tallulah made a noise beside him that, it had come from a human, would have sounded an awful lot like a chuckle. The cheeky youma was obviously amused but kept his attention on their surroundings the same way he remained on alert in the Rift when Lavendulan entered his domain.

’I’ve attended a number of Negaverse meetings over the years and don’t recall seeing you before.’ Even his name was unfamiliar to her. 'How long ago were you invited to join, and if I may ask, who extended the invitation?’ Surely not everyone had a similar experience to the one she did; conscripted into joining a war she knew nothing about.

Lavendulan continued to feel her way through the reservoir, mostly through muscle memory on how many kicks it took to achieve a certain distance. Still nothing tugged at her ankle or attempted to pull her under.

‘Must have been nice to have had time to finish school…’ Lavendulan lamented as a thread of envy accidentally filtered through their connection. ’My apologies. I’m sure you could understand how difficult it would be for someone like me to attend classes.

Eight years as an agent, she assumed that Staurolite had a base understanding of half-youma like her and their limitations with glamour. Even though she was able to finish most of her degree with online courses, the labs were much more difficult to coordinate. Then again, at the end of the day having an Oceanography meant little when the best kind of employment she could hope for was fieldwork but even that ran the risk of earning her a suspicious side-eye if not being found out due to a careless action.

’As a General I know I’m supposed to tell you how important it is to meet your quota, to step up when help is requested in service of our Queen, Metallia. But as someone who has lost almost all forms of civilian interaction, cherish the moments you have while not powered and do what you can to protect them. You’ll never know when they might be taken away.’ Before her eyes were opened to the war, Marissa lived each day in ignorant bliss. Believing the stories of vigilantes terrorizing Destiny City without a second thought.

Now she knew better, mostly anyway.