Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hiro's jaw almost dropped open into the feline equivalent of a grin before he caught himself. He liked the joke, but a grieving cat quite possibly wouldn't find it so amusing. Instead he went with the tried-and-true feline stare. Head titled slightly, tail slowly swishing side to side, single teal eye staring into Camelot's soul (well, it was really only staring quite hard at something just beyond Camelot - a bit like those strange 3D pictures, but without the headache).

"Perhaps," he said after holding the stare for an uncomfortable minute. A flick of his tail - Hiro quite liked his stripes, after all, he wouldn't want to be a boring black cat.

Hiro was getting worried. Camelot still looked a bit sceptical. Perhaps it was time to grab what info he could and then make excuses and run for it. If he was lucky, there wouldn't be any animal abuse before he fled.

"So how many of you Pages are there so far?" Hmm, though if Camelot hadn't met many, he wouldn't know exact numbers. "And who awakens you? If you have your own version of Guardian Cats they might have a better idea of numbers. We could always collaborate, as fellow awakeners of mystical warriors."

Hiro had to bite down on a loud purr. Yes, that was exactly the kind of thing he needed to know. So these Knights or Pages or whatever had no other entity awakening them. It would make it much harder to prevent them from appearing, not to mention making counting numbers near impossible, but this was information that Tanzanite and Zinkenite needed to know.

He allowed himself a few lazy swishes and curls of his raised tail to show off his smugness. Who had a genius plan? Hiro had a genius plan!

To Camelot, he said, "Very interesting. So it's more like the universe itself is awakening you, rather than any kind of guardian. Or some form of evil soul-sucking, like the Negaverse," he tacked onto the end. Best to keep up the suggestion that Hiro was a good, pure, anti-Negaverse cat.

Was he overdoing it a little? Hmmm... maybe it was time for a quick getaway before suspicions were roused. Hiro could always chase Camelot down some other time and see if the ruse was still effective.

"Well, it was very informative meeting you." Hiro rose up onto all four paws. Busy cats couldn't be lay-abouts. "Did you have any last questions for me? I have to get back to making my rounds, checking on the new senshi and all..."

Because Hiro was grateful for the information, and perhaps also because Camelot was quite insistent that the Negaverse wasn't evil (though Hiro still had issues with his side being thought 'misguided', pah, silly human!), the feline decided to answer the question honestly.

He considered what he and the Negaverse were expecting of their warriors. "I do believe I am doing the right thing. For senshi, at least, you need to understand that they are reborn warriors, chosen by their home planet. Yes, perhaps they could go through their lives without being awakened - but that isn't what their soul was created for, was shaped to do."

And it didn't always take a Mauvian to awaken a senshi. Hiro could have the best of intentions not to awaken a senshi (perhaps Alkaid, if he'd been the one to find her first), but another cat could always interfere, a senshi could sometimes awaken themselves if they were placed in a life-or-death situation, plus the Negaverse itself had awakened a few senshi when they tried to recruit promising humans without being aware that they had selected a sleeping senshi.

"In any case," he said with a flick of his tail, "despite everyone's good - or misguided - intentions, there appears to be war brewing on this planet. Wouldn't you rather be able to do something about it, rather than live in ignorance or in powerlessness like the other humans out there? Can you really say that you preferred your life before you were awakened yourself?"

Not to mention, Hiro took very good care of his senshi, thank you very much! The BMC kidnapping and rescue had been very hard on Alkaid. But he doubted that she wished she wasn't a senshi. Hiro just did his best to be there for her, to give her the support and love she needed when things seemed so bleak.

Hiro turned to leave, his tail weaving lazy patterns in the air. As he padded slowly away, he shot a last look over his shoulder. "Besides, what makes you think all of those kids had nice, normal lives to begin with? Humans can be cruel and children are often the ones made to suffer. Powered beings aren't the only ones fighting wars on this planet, and not all wars require large factions or countries. Some take place within so-called 'normal' homes."

Perhaps Camelot had only been referring to the children of Destiny City. But Hiro had been active in Africa, under Marthozite. He'd seen the worst of what humans did to each other, without magic or super powers. Many of the officers that had been recruited there had lived much better lives under Marthozite than they otherwise would have. Destiny City might not be a warzone in the traditional sense, but that didn't mean that it didn't have its share of unbalanced or rescued officers.

Something for the Page to think on, anyway. With another flick of his tail, Hiro disappeared into the shadows of the alleyway. He ran several blocks, until he could no longer feel Camelot's energy signature, then disappeared back to the Negaverse. There was a General-Queen who would be very interested to hear what Hiro had learned tonight.