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Back straight, pen in hand, Emily didn't power up again, but simply answered, "It does. And I will."

"Faustite," greeted Borax, all easy confident formality, not even minding that his Superior showed up in a bundle of irritation. Did Hestia realize who his boss was? Did she even care? Would it draw in even further what she was stepping into, considering he had very much helped attempt to stem the destruction of the bank?

Did it even matter?

He felt Emily's glare on his back, but he paid it no mind. "If you're confused, so am I. The last time we met, I just about killed her. Saw her homeworld in the process. Was working on an update to her entry when this all happened instead. She showed up, has some kind of water rushing ******** attack that lasts for 45 seconds and causes the sensation of massive burns. Great. But she has submitted that she wants to join us with this thing."

He waved the resume around, perhaps revealing an angry blister in the process. He didn't want to give it to him directly, because he was pretty sure the fire that he felt would just burn it alive, but he did turn it so it could be read if it was desired.

"I figured our only shot at getting her was simply forced corruption, if we did not just murder her instead, but she wishes to join us herself. She has taken everything she had and put in a storage unit that is locked with a key in her subspace. She's apparently an influencer as this," he jerked his head towards Emily, "and while converting means she's going to burn all of that we could definitely use that kind of infiltration superiority. Someone who can build that once can build it again."

He smirked in her direction, and nothing about it seemed anything but dripping in the things he was known for.

"She says her Hestian mission is to serve us, and that she will be fulfilling what she is expected to do via that."

He laughed.

"And if she's lying? Really don't think she stands a chance against the general-sovereign."

Faustite made no attempt to take the paper, but he did glance it over while Borax was holding it out for him. In truth, he had never seen a resume before. Never built one. Never needed to look at them. The information seemed oddly laid out and more like a page of gloating and self-aggrandizement. Maybe that's what resumes were for. How would he know? He wasn't Lepidolite.

So the information on it was largely useless to him, especially since it pertained to social media. All of that meant technology, it meant learning how to manipulate an audience by boosting them up, and all sorts of s**t about metrics and analytics that Faustite always glazed over for whenever Aue or Lilith thought to mention anything to him. The only parts he cared about were the end results, as he only ever expected all that influencing crap to, well, influence people to join the Negaverse or donate to the cause or whatever other s**t they could do to be useful.

If she was good for that, then maybe they could set her back to it. Get her to convince people to cough up their energy. Sell laptops enchanted to drain energy or something. Have a Mauvian to rig up some sort of signal to drain when her videos were broadcast.

Her magic was fair to middling. That didn't bother him terribly; she made up for it by having a background that Infiltration could use, and she was trained well enough in hand-to-hand that it was unlikely they would have to expend many resources on her to keep her in fighting shape. Sounded like she'd planned this out, though there was no evidence of this storage unit or her key, nor was there anything to state that this resume was correct, that her name was Emily Moffat, or that anything about her being an influencer was true. He doubted she was lying about her intention to join, though.

The part that earned Borax's scorn was the part that fascinated him — her Hestian mission? He didn't know what a Hestian was. Some kind of cult? Or something to do with her planet? That would be worth exploring.

She had manners to her, though. Respect, though it chafed him for how it felt a little undeserved — more assigned to his rank than anything he ever did. He frowned only briefly, then motioned with a clawed hand for her to stand.

"Tell me how you can serve, then. Need you to prove you'll be more useful than your starseed." He paused, then added, "and power up. Need your planetary name, too."

Standing at his gesture, Hestia promptly powered up as ordered. It was a much more calm and subdued transformation than the spectacle that had appeared before Elliott, the guardian cat, upon her rise to eternal. Within a moment, she stood before them, looking very much a maid if one ignored the wings.

She tried to ignore Borax, who seemed increasingly intent on making her regret not punching him earlier at least once. But…did he hurt his hand? Did she hurt his hand? How very oops if so.

“I’m Eternal Hestia, Senshi of Housekeeping.” A small bow followed the introduction, and she went on to answer his question in much the same tone as a devout believer talks about their sacred texts and duties. “And I wish to serve in the most mundane, simple, and powerful way I know: as a housekeeper.”

It didn’t seem fitting, or particularly honest, to try dressing up her abilities and purpose the way Dwight had written up her civilian resume, glossy and dressed-up in high-sounding terminology to be more than it was. (Of course Borax liked that resume, though. Too bad Dwight would never hear the questionable compliment.) To Hestia, housekeeping was more, of course, but it was a role meant to be taken comfortably for granted by those she served.


“To provide a clean and comfortable environment for others. To make sure enjoyable meals are at hand or delivered as they should be. To assist those who need help in caring for themselves." Her voice turned both soft and heavy, as if making a vow. "To serve others is to ensure they can think and act without being stumbled or blocked by daily necessities. That they aren’t distracted by something so small as a cluttered room, or having to get groceries. It is filling needs and removing problems before they have a chance to be noticed. Such is the role I’ve been trained to fill, and it is also my role as Hestia.”

Looking slightly up toward the General King, her posture was straight and full of pride at that role and purpose. “To serve. To tend. To clear the way. That is the Hestian oath.”

Borax let her make her case to his superior.

Honestly, she was a maid. She was dedicated to clean environments from the top to the bottom. Hestia wanted to cook them food, get groceries, fulfill their needs, and block them from needing to be concerned about anything but their duties. For him, what would that be? Recruiting more people to join the Negaverse? Recruiting more to be his informants on whatever the hell the myriad White Moon was up to? Energy gathering? Starseed farming? Torment?

Being able to tell this woman what to do versus seeing her dead may have had its advantages.

When addressed, Borax nodded in acknowledgment.

And then, he simpered.

"Gladly."

While he was not getting to pull her starseed to kill her, this was just as good. This was better. Borax was going to be able to funnel the power that would alter her forever.

This was another medal and a servant atop of that.

He strolled to the front of Hestia, standing in front of Faustite and presuming he was to be nothing but a conduit. Borax didn't care. He reached to her chest, remembering vividly the way blood had pooled on her body just a short while ago. The images warred in his mind as he whispered, "Nothing personal, Hestia," before focusing and pushing his hand beyond that boundary.

His hand wrapped around the starseed once he reached it.

He could just--

but he didn't.

Was anybody going to stop him? He waited for it, felt for it on the still, humid air of the city's late night. The only Eternal in the area was Hestia. No other auras, even with Borax's hand in her chest.

Faustite thought about waiting for it. About challenging the silence for someone that might try to stop him. Someone that might stick up for a White Moon Eternal who was about to join them. But maybe they'd fight harder if they didn't know — if they chanced across her, one night, expecting someone with whom they used to patrol. Maybe that fleeting touch of surprise was enough to buy the Negaverse another starseed.

Faustite rested his palm against Borax's back, though the gesture pained his knuckles terribly. In another breath, they were elsewhere — no longer under the moonless night sky, but under the austere violet glow of crystals that had grown in patches on the ceiling. They were now in a spacious office with plush red carpet and a set of matching office chairs and desk. The furniture looked as though it belonged to a gothic villain, wrought of metal and glass with such stark personality, and sparse cushions upholstered with a strange vermillion plastic. Faustite's light and heat had filled the area at once, rendering the space more lived-in, though there was another Faustite sitting in a throne-like chair at the desk.

The other Faustite looked on with boredom, a hand curled under its chin. "You were too chicken to integrate her out there."

"You ******** off." Sparing himself a moment to concentrate, Faustite channeled the miasmic darkness that shot through him like feral lightning and spread next through Borax. It would rip thorugh him next, that shrieking, raw, untempered power, and slam into Hestia's starseed thereafter, engulfing it with no pause. It would be drowned, corrupted, changed into something more fitting to suit the Negaverse, just as she would be. Soon, there would be no more Emily Moffat. They were taking the avatar of Hestia for their own.

And there would be no bouncing back to the White Moon for this one.

The hand on her starseed and Hestia’s grim determination to not move back, or push, or attack made the change in location little more than a brush of strangeness at the edge of her senses. Her world narrowed down to a single point, until, much like the Hestian world of old, it exploded.

Tears ran down her face as it stretched into a wretched, silent scream and Hestia was gone.

It was rough and abrupt and all of her, all at once. It was a detailed and meticulous scraping that lasted an eternity as it stripped away layer after layer of her existence. And just as slowly, just as abruptly put her back together again. First the marrow and then the bone and then only so much meat and sinew to hold it all together, a gift to chaos wrapped in crisp linens and too much hair.

Tears ran down her face, glowing with what might be considered a sort of religious ecstasy. Hestia was remade.

Her world snapped together, cleaner and more precise. The eternal was now a darker, sharper thing, tempered with pain and chaos, but the palpable relief across her features was probably more fitting for a purification. The cost was high, and perhaps there were consequences waiting just beyond the horizon, but it was done and she was new. Hestia was as she should be, where she should be.

Stepping back from that hand, Hestia took a deep breath and…

Took another, wider step around Borax, ignoring the man completely and faced the…her General King. Gazing at him with a reverent sort of gratitude, she bowed once more.

“May you burn ever brightly, sir.”