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Had he been feeling a litle suicidal, he might have laughed when Tobernite got his a** not so eloquently handed to him. Served him right, seriously. Then again, the threat of getting the punk assigned for babysitting duty was not a good thing. Hopefully his orders kept him safe from that s**t, or he might have to accidentally shove him in the way of a car. Linarite was next, and he watched her thoughtfull from the corner of his eye, though his attention snapped back to Charonite.

Should have been the time to address him again.

Definitely didn't get addressed again.

Asspats for Nealite, who the ******** would have guessed that one? But, hell, whatever. She looked like s**t lately, and he didn't mean that in an overly cruel way, either; the whole probation thing had killed her a little, so it was to be expected she'd throw her way back into work doing anything she could.

He was tempted to ask for a dress for himself and Hematite, he really was, but the man instead focused on the vague orders he'd been given. Full attacks, patroling locations, etc. He could handle that and more.

Last chance to get his hands on a dress for him and his best bud. How ******** easy would starseeds be then? Just rip it up a little, use their fabulous hair to hide their faces, and pose as hookers. Obsidian was sorely tempted.

Not tempted enough to sacrifice more play time with Sailor Nerissa, however, and so, it was a sad and reluctant Obsidian that held his tongue.

The idea had potential though, hilarious potential, and he would most certainly be sharing it with Khaldun whenever he had some free time on his hands. Moonstone and Variscite--he belatedly recalled he had no idea who the hell those were. And Hematite was on duty cycle? Did he mean with Nealite, or...?

Hematite made a very small groan of annoyance, which he tried to cover up with a cough as soon as he realized it might have been audible. Everyone else was reprimanded with working less, while the General-King kept looking for every reason to give him more work. Khaldun knew damn well about the expectations of lieutenants but never did any more than the bare minimum. Sometimes less. Lately, a little more, but only because his skirting was finally catching up to him in the form of 'no more second chances'. He continued to keep his head down and look at the floor, which was a lot less dangerous than looking at the General-King. Hematite still hadn't completely gotten over the... incident... that had occurred after he was debriefed and assigned to take out Sailor Tisiphone.

He just wanted to get back to his blackmailing and take his mind off all this new Negaverse work. At least he had some semblance of control over the world when he was busy with extortion schemes.

"All right," said their General-King, and ended the meeting with the formality and respectability it deserved: "get the ******** out of here, all of you. Touch the crystal on the table to go home. I'm bored of your ******** faces."

He stood up, cloak swirling, but crooked one finger demandingly in Nealite's direction. "You," he said. "Ursula. You come with me. Lieutenants, you're dismissed. Get back to failing at your jobs and getting me star seeds."

And he stomped off the dias and left to the dusty room next door, left of the throne -- cutting the tension, and leaving all of the Lieutenants to their own devices, whether they wanted to go home or not. At least this was possibly talky and "hi" time. Or maybe just "pissing off and going home" time. Charonite was gone, that was the most important part. The Boss had Left the Building. Everything was coming up roses.

Hematite had been planning to leave, quickly and wordlessly. He didn't want to get stuck in small talk or give Obsidian another opportunity to take a verbal shot at him. It seemed a change of plans was in store, though. The lieutenant's eyes flicked briefly over to Charonite as he walked away, and then to Nealite, but did his best to avoid any sort of eye contact. After a minute or so of a head start, Hematite casually crept over the dais and around back as well. Linarite, Torbernite, and Obsidian were preoccupied as he took off - they probably wouldn't notice or care.

Maaaaaybe it was a bad idea.

Still, a little eavesdropping couldn't hurt more than the life he'd live without it. There was no other way to find things out around here except by taking acceptable, nonviolent risks. If this was more about that Sailor Nea thing he was getting dragged into participating in, he wanted to at least know what the hell was going on. He didn't even have a weapon. Admittedly, he was just feeling low on 'so what the ******** am I supposed to do' knowledge. Knowing he wasn't going to be able to find Tisiphone in a week was not helping his mood or his cognitive follow-through. Mere details. This wasn't his first time eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. All he had to do was remember the golden rule above all others - DON'T GET CAUGHT.

While nothing in the room had changed, Nealite was now all too aware of the tomb that lay across the room from them. She hadn't been in this room since their previous meeting, when he had taken her hand and lead her to the mysterious crystal she'd watched him stay so fascinated by.

Eyebrows lifted as he approached her, and she held her breath as she felt his cold hands reach out and move her head. It didn't take long for her cheeks to betray her feelings, burning redder the longer his watchful eyes stared at her face. One arm lifted up to hold on to the other, and she bit her tongue to hold back from wincing at the pain as her hand ended up grasping around one of the many bruises scattered across her arm.

Her head lowered slightly as he let go; she knew what he'd been staring at. She'd done her best at attempting to hide the marks covering her, but there were some injuries that not even the best of makeup could camouflage.

It both surprised and delighted her to hear his next words, though, her former concern over him not caring quickly vanishing. He wouldn't have made such a comment if he hadn't been bothered by the idea of losing a lieutenant, right?

The smile that had dared to grow on her face quickly flattened itself back into an emotionless line, and her head tilted slightly as he cut off his own sentence. Charonite was exasperated, it was clear, but Hematite... hadn't Hematite been doing better, since their last interlude?

One eyebrow quirking up, she shook her head. "Surely he must be learning something, by this point? You've worked so hard to train him, General-King, I don't understand how he couldn't be!"

He never noticed the blushing: apparently he never did, or it was just never something that entered his system. Maybe his sunglasses were anti-flushing mechanisms, which for her sake was a good thing. And then again. "You don't understand," he said, and went to lean against the wall, eyes trained on that crystal again. "You don't understand. I've been training him twice as ******** long as any of you, get it, I was training him before this Negaverse even was -- "

He bit himself off, but Charonite wasn't good at biting himself off mid-rant, and the train merely went down another track. "That boy's my legal god damned ward, Lieutenant, he's an orphan of the state, he's been in my care since -- since -- since who ******** cares, he's been in my care. Has he made Captain? Has he <********>. He has nothing but the Negaverse. He has nothing but me. Normal survival mechanisms would have meant he'd have gotten his god damned a** in gear by now."

There was silence. Then: "He has a hide like a ******** rhinoceros. Know why I put him with you? Because he actually ******** listens to you -- when you're not encouraging each other to ******** up. I put him with Obsidian, they'll be clawing out each other's ******** eyes. Linarite would consider him dead weight -- and ********, Ursula, I'm not putting him with ******** Torbernite, they'd just have an a**-sitting failure championship."

It was becoming much harder to keep quiet from his hiding place just outside the doorway of the room, but common sense held him back. It wouldn't end well if he decided to interject. Hematite's face was burning again, not much differently from when he had been slapped around by the General King less than a day before for going too far into a forbidden subject - the reason he was right here right now, as a lieutenant. Anger. Embarrassment. Futility. He could do nothing, say nothing. And now Nealite knew... and if Charonite was going to start making this complaint to every lieutenant, he'd never escape the man's shadow or Obsidian's remarks. Hematite absolutely refused to think of Charonite as a father figure - and the General-King luckily did not seem to press the issue. Well, until now, though this wasn't exactly a face-to-face revelation from where Hematite was standing. Now he wasn't just a disgrace of a lieutenant, he was a disgraceful 'son' too. Well, Charonite could go ******** himself. Eventually. One day. And Hematite would make sure to remind him to, whenever that day came. It'd have to remain... unspoken... a while yet.

Hematite didn't see anything in life as an obligation, because he was suspicious. It wasn't obliged if he got something out of doing whatever it was. There were always ulterior motives; he'd be the first to admit he never did anything just because it was 'good' or to pay someone back. Charonite had damn well had his reasons to take Hematite in, and the last one on the list of possibilities was 'the goodness of his heart'. It, among other things, did nothing to endear Hematite to him. There was always something other people wanted out of him or to use him for, of which he was acutely aware and attempting to be at least a step ahead of with anyone trying to mask themselves. Most people put up an act, tried to make it seem natural. But Charonite never bothered with games - all roads apparently led to the Negaverse in his mind, no matter how secret or Escher-like the path was. Parents died and you were grudgingly taken in by the least understanding man on earth? Well it turns he just so happens to run a military organization out of a high school gymnasium. SO SUCK IT UP AND MAKE CAPTAIN.

And for what? To wait out the opportunity to rise above the abuse he received at Charonite's hands (or boots)? A nice thought on Nealite's part, but the longer it was scrutinized the more obvious it became that it could not possibly happen. The best he could hope for was command over everything but the one hated aspect in his life. The Negaverse, Charonite, they were practically synonymous by this point. Hematite didn't begrudge the organization - it was not an entity with an agenda like people were, merely a source of power he drew from the same as any other lieutenant. And that kind of power was an offer someone like Hematite could not refuse - and not just because there had never been any other choice. Hematite wanted respect, control, and vengeance. He was young and idealistic - with power, he could take the world, break it apart, and piece it back together as he chose. For his own purposes, no more than a Lieutenant's power had been needed. The responsibility of Captain had never seemed worthwhile to pursue, for the longest time. That was, until he had come across real enemies, enemies like the senshi, against whom his superhuman powers suddenly felt subpar. He was stuck for so long trying to appear useless that trying to finally look competent was proving harder than he had ever expected. And he had a time limit on his impossible little quest to not look like a ******** - one week to dodge sniper fire and take down the most dangerous sailor senshi in the neighborhood. Did Charonite even think he could do any of this, or were impossible tasks his way of offing Hematite instead?

A worldview like Hematite's had a border that ended long before it could encompass the entirety of others. Dark emotions were simple enough to comprehend and provoke, deceit was twisted truth and lack of it, and there was no easier reason to kill than out of revenge and display of power. As a civilian he was trying to cement a small base of power at the expense of his enemies (everyone else, pretty much). As a Negaverse soldier he simply sought to shield himself from the worst of Charonite's ever-present wrath through whatever seemed like a working system at the time. As much as he loathed Charonite, he and his 'guardian' could read each other rather well - the General-King had an amazingly good read on Hematite's capacity for getting along with the other lieutenants.

But Nealite was a different case. Trying to understand her was a completely different game for Hematite, and being unable to only seemed to keep him neutral on her. She was forgivable, somehow, in a way that no one else was to his all-consuming vengeance. It was moments like these that seemed to do it, times where she did something for no apparent gain. She didn't know he was even there to overhear her. The idea of anyone having actual concern for him had died with his parents, and did not even come up as a possibility in his mind. Something had to motivate her to do what she did. But no matter which way he looked at the question, he did not have the ability to answer it. Why was Nealite standing up for him? There was nothing for her to gain by disagreeing with the General-King. It made no sense. And it worried him.