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Ochre struggled to stand while the General loomed; his method of talking down to the senshi only solidified Ochre's disdain for the Negaverse and its operation. He wondered if talking heads were a fact of life here - if those of higher rank considered themselves entitled to subjugating free will, or that complete obedience was a trifle to be used as one desired. So this blonde guy thinks he can threaten me with punishment for treachery? Did he not realize that every other Negaverse officer here could see it? Fat chance quashing all of those voices for leverage.

And even if he did throw his weight around for that, it's not like my brother will stop from snitching.

Ochre sought to stand, but the Mirrored one's hand grappled his face immediately after. The corrupt loosed a grunt, sought the wrist of the boy, and immediately tried to wrench it from his skin. Instead, he was only greeted by a frigidity that offered deep, frostbitten pain before numbness set in on its heels. With it came a rot so pungent that he nearly vomited into the senshi's hand. And when Ochre finally pried the hand off its face (though it seemed to come off once this strange chill caught hold), he doubled over for dry heaves that left long strands of saliva connecting his face to the ground. <********, it smells like someone died in here... But a glance to his surroundings confirmed no such corpse rot.

While fighting was rendered a temporary impossibility, Ochre felt a keen and urgent intuition that something searched for him in darkness. At first he thought it was his brother, but he found the man further down near the bleachers area. Still, something beyond his senses searched for him, wanted him, and no amount of glancing back into the darkness of the equipment room could provide a visual on this disturbance.

After a time, he wondered if it was baseless paranoia.

He did recently out himself as a traitor, after ******** this, Ochre decided, straightening himself. <******** all of this. And ******** Ice Princess here for bringing it down on me.

He extended a shaken hand toward his target with the sunset eyes. "Sheikh's Prayer," he returned, and watched the white emulation of a soul form at his palm. It drifted toward the intended target, and Ochre wished it would travel at a more expedient clip.

xxx

His slide found no target, though Umber didn't complain; the reason behind the action met its goal regardless. With the rope dissipated, he could speak once more and not suffer the slow strangulation wrought by the magic. Since he target jumped somewhere beyond him, he half-turned from his position to ascertain a visual. Umber hadn't caught much more than off-white and deep purples somewhere further when a firm thump to the back of his head jolted him forward slightly.

His vision danced in two for a full second before he pushed himself upright. Attention turned had revealed a page of unknown descent, with gaze set on him. So it looks like they work together. Certainly more than we do. This is a waste of time.

The balls had flooded by as well, which contributed to Aegir's misstep. Umber caught this in peripherals and took cue to stay low to the ground in the interim. He settled into a crouch while he withdrew the communication crystal from subspace; it was tricky to signal commands over the device with attentions already turned to him, but he would not risk failure of the mission due to his own indisposition. Raising it to lips, he issued a request to the surrounding officers. "Agents, the red and blue senshi toward the back of the gym is our target. Please detain her for corruption as soon as possible."

He despised that she remained there, hampered as she was, without a single Negaverse agent hauling her away. Granted, he hadn't identified the target before, and it was up to the three of them to obtain the senshi, but it seemed both Benitoite and Elsa were more interested in the traitorous corrupt than the actual target. A raging urge to throw his communicator crystal at the back of their heads boiled to the front of his mind, but he swallowed that ire to banish the device to subspace.

He tired of this so quickly.

Balls or not, I've got to get to her. Then he stood, vigilance directed toward the ground, and tried to navigate the mess of sports equipment to reach his target.

Pyro had been slinking around while everyone engaged some type of order personnel.

His main focus had been his old friend who he only met once but had at least KNOWN Sandrine before. He had waited till she was on the ground and not in range of her magic before throwing his bus at her, making sure she wouldn't get much further. It would probably take more then himself to keep her down but-

"I know you haven't missed me Babe." Pyro grinned, "Sorry this bus line is closed for traveling, your stop is made here!"

"Was it a call for help?" Mintaka pleased, "Or was it a trap...again? Please I was there at the funhouse, they've been pulling these stunts every month since then to capture more and more of order kind. If they capture you..." She dreaded to think of what they would do to this eternal, the only one in here if they got him.

Added to that, she wasn't sure why she engaged the eternal besides her need to convey the danger.

She nodded her head.

"I understand, and I'm sorry. But remember not to take anything they offer, don't let them corner you..." She hurried out of his way, crossing her fingers together.

What use were words when she had no conviction behind them?

She didn't know what else to say to turn the order away, and she didn't think anyone in the negaverse would even attempt to listen.

For once, Mintaka felt her neutrality was a very useless ideal. She waited till Athene had disappeared in the mess before coming to stand by the door and watch. If she could not do anything, she would bear witness yet again to it.

It would be a shame she held for awhile.

The dry heaves mitigated as he adjusted to the smell, though soon he realized that the unnerving, invisible pursuit and the scent of rotted flesh were inexorably linked - the smell grew and faded in tandem with the paranoia. Ochre forced himself to straighten, to look this senshi in the eye and try to block out the feel of a looming creature.

Luckily he didn't need to wait long.

"Wanna know what it's like?" The corrupted senshi offered no pause for answer. Instead he peeled one of the gloves from his hand and sought the bare skin of neck. He clenched his fingers, wondering if Thraen felt the same sense of power when he had his grip on Ochre's throat. When he was certain his grip was solid, he muttered the name of the attack. "Wendigo Creep!" Why don't you have a taste of your own ******** attack, Snowflakes.

He watched the frost creep down his fingers and knew in full what the Senshi would undoubtedly be experiencing. And after that chill left his hand, he wrenched fingers away so he could turn attention more fully toward Sandrine; the welcome onslaught of acrid flesh and paranoia should keep the boy busy for a while. Ochre himself only recently recovered from it; any further time spent in the throes of that spell and he might've left the gym without Sandrine.

Sandrine --

Ochre looked past the general to see a cluster of people coming for her; he knew it was in part due to Umber's intercom declaration. Sandrine was the target. And how was he supposed to fight off the lot of them? Already Ochre felt exhausted, like his limbs gained weight over the course of the battle. Beyond that, a general stood in his way of assisting the girl. So much for all that effort. If I could've teleported or something...

And with the familiar feline turning up on the scene, he felt all the more keenly that his punishment would be severe. Instead he tried to ignore her, and push past the general to hopefully drag Sandrine out of her mess.

xxx

Vigilance was not sacrificed to his foray through balls.

While the blonde super dealt with his own injuries in landing, some other assailant approached with the pounding of footsteps. Intuition warned him before logic interfered; the cacophony of screeching feet and colliding bodies covered a great many actions nearby. The would-be assailant drew closer, and Umber abandoned his progress temporarily to widen stance and half-turn to catch any potential action.

Luckily the move was telegraphed early enough that he could catch wrist in hand, and the fleeting opening for a counterstrike allowed for one highly potent return. The concentration demanded in such a situation alone meant that he might not even push hand past the barrier of chest, but he summoned the fine crackle of chaos energy to hand before seeking out the very cavity that housed the starseed.

There will be no more interruptions from you, Page, nor any more from your senshi companion.

The funny thing about life was how quickly things could go to s**t - one minute Mont Blonc was rushing the lieutanant with everything he had. Then, he saw the tattooed man's stance change; it registered, but too late for him to do anything about it. His body was already a force in motion. There was no look of shock on his face aas the other man caught his hand by the wrist, sending his pen clattering to the floor; there wasn't much of anything, really, besides the lingering imprint of determined desperation in his eyes.

Was he afraid? Very, as he saw and felt the crackle of energy around the lieutnant's hand. There was just no time.

"Don't - !" Don't stop for me. Don't do it. Later on, the page wouldn't recall saying anything at all. He'd swung his free hand to try and bat the lieutenant's away, even tried to lean away from him, but it was just too late. He went limp, tumbling lifelessly to the ground in a mess of long limbs.

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Syrie

Deja vu for Aegir much?

Strickenized

POP.

Wathing Mont Blonc suide-charge (because that's what it was, he had no chance against the more combat-ready lieutenant without back-up) at Umber made him want to start shouting obscenities and flip tables. Literal tables. Instead he bit out a short '********' and made his way towards where Mont Blonc was being victimized, the poor Page didn't have any idea what he'd gotten himself into. To be honest, Aegir felt a pang of guilt...if he'd had a chance to explain Umber's wont to remove star seeds, then maybe the Saturn Page wouldn't be falling to the gym floor. And maybe Aegir wouldn't be limp-running after the lieutenant -- op, wait, the little s**t.

"You gotta be ********' with me!" Umber had tossed Monty's star seed in his direction but also under the goddamned bleachers! What a clever b*****d, he'd give Umber that much. The lieutenant had learned enough in their previous encounter to know that Aegir wouldn't sacrifice Mont Blonc - couldn't do it. <******** Negaverse. ******** Star-seed stealing shitheads. I swear on my life I will ******** take you down someday you tattooed b*****d.

It was Ploutonion all over again. What the <********> was it with the tattooed lieutenant and Saturn Knights? Or was it just that Saturn!bros were foolhardy and headstrong enough that this sort of thing happened to/around them a lot? He could think on it later, when he wasn't skittering after a goddamned star-seed and worrying about the senshi in red and blue that had originally been their purpose for being there.

s**t s**t s**t-- this is bad. Getting worse by the second. Christ, are we gonna be able to save that senshi? Or are we gonna lose another soul? His ankle throbbed as he put weight on it when he shouldn't have been, it was just a sprain - he was sure of it - but...if he wasn't careful, he could cripple himself and then the civilian life he'd sacrificed so much for would be wrecked. Gotta hurry-- Aegir caught the glittering bit of Mont Blonc's soul, but at the cost of Umber being free to operate as he wished...and the 'target'...well, Sandrine's life was out of Aegir's hands for the moment - or forever, depending.

The page's life, however, was literally in his hands and he limped back to his body as quickly as he could, knocking errant balls from his way as he went. Aegir was filthy, nose bleeding slightly again from sneezing at the dust under the bleachers, pissed as hell at the whole situation, smelling like ******** lavender laundry detergent...and sliding to his knees beside his fallen comrade. He pushed the beautiful gem against Mont Blonc's chest and covered it with both hands. "Get the ******** back in there--" It found it's place and he breathed a sigh of relief when the page started looking less like a corpse and more like a person again.

"C'mon Mont Blonc, rise and ********' shine!" He hauled the page half up into his lap to better protect his head from stray ball strikes while Monty returned to consciousness. "I don't ever wanna see your star-seed again, Jesus."

The page inhaled deeply when the starseed settled back in his chest. By the time his head had been pulled into Aegir's lap, his exhale was escaping in a low hiss, his hand settling onto his chest as though that did anything to ward off the lingering ache. Still, his eyes opened mere moments later. At first, they were as bleary as they were red, and he mumbled, "Aegir? What - "

He could hear someone shouting French in the background, a woman. Between that and Aegir's voice, somehow the moment felt distant and surreal. But he knew where he was, and knew he couldn't waste time - god, what had he done? He blinked furiously, sitting up like someone had lit a fire under him, and twisted his body back around to face the super senshi. "Are you okay?!"

Kind of ironic, considering. His starseed - he didn't even want to think about it.