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The man who called himself Gunn Killingworth was seated at his desk, scribbling idly with a report: whenever Charonite used a pen, he wielded it like a dagger, stabbing it into the hot heart of the school write-ups. As Moby d**k went, if his heart had been a cannon, he would have shot it; but it was only administration, so what was the use?

He didn't look up. "Ursula," he said, and that was always something, wasn't it -- only she and Hematite were called in private by their first names, Ursula and Khaldun. With Khaldun it was a sign of contempt. With Ursula it was a very rare, slight show of respect. Which only added fuel to the fire of her dreams of ambition and her hope for the future.

He stood up, and slid his sunglasses on his face. "Come with me," he said, and reached out his hand.

The moment he touched her, they were gone.

The subspace pocket that the Negaverse called their home base (well, Charonite called their home base) was a twisted series of caverns, dark, glassy caves with walls made of shiny smooth rock, multifaceted and gleaming. The cathedral of the caverns was reserved for their meeting-room -- an enormous crystal throne that Charonite rarely sat in. Something about the place warped you so that it only ever showed your true self, so Ursula was suddenly Nealite, high heels clacking over the shining black marble of the floor.

It was freezing. It really could have done with central heating.

There was a large mass of crystal in the middle of the room which served as a table, which sometimes they sat around -- if Charonite was in the mood to let them sit -- but that way, his cloak swirled around him melodramatically as he stalked forward: whip at his side, expecting Ursula to follow naturally, following a small and winding path out of the throne room. The Negaverse's lair looked broken-down, somehow: often there were paths closed up by rubble, or the walls were in disrepair, or the rooms were unnaturally dusty.

He lead her into a room with a pillar of opalescent crystal fixed into the floor, where incongruously one of the crappy plastic chairs from the gym was carelessly tossed to its side. Charonite paused to look at it, seemingly lost in thought, before he moved forward to a desk and stood over a bowl of what appeared to be water.

"Lieutenant Nealite," he said, finally, not turning to look at the pretty flame-haired girl. "Answer me this: what is the biggest goddamned problem facing us at this moment?"

For long moments the General-King didn't say anything, and his face betrayed nothing: and that was something -- if his face was going to betray anything, it would have been anger, and Nealite would have had to steel herself for some brand of explosion. This never eventuated.

"Lieutenant," he said. "You know that your opinion has gained... weight with me."

He looked at her, the sunglasses reflecting nothing nor revealing nothing: blank black lenses. "Incompetence is the cancer that has wormed its way into our ranks," he said. "It wasn't always so. But let's focus on another word, which I think has more ******** emphasis, Lieutenant: outnumbered."

Finally, the sunglasses came off, and he stared down at the great stone bowl in front of them. "Linarite's a child who needs discipline before punishment," he said dismissively. "But she has more sense than Torbernite: Torbernite is out of control -- he's a bundle of ******** nerves and urges, he's an animal. I'll bring him to heel. Celestine is promise -- a lot of ******** unfulfilled promise, the little s**t. Obsidian has promise too, when he's not being goddamned impressed with his ******** self. And Hematite -- "

He did choke up with anger this time, a breath snorted through his nostrils until he pinched the bridge of his nose and calmed himself. With difficulty. When he was at a little peace again, he looked at her. "Here," he said. "Look closely."

He touched the water, and it rippled. Two faces appeared. One was handsome rather than pretty, an elegant-faced girl with very dark hair and very blue eyes; the other was dark-skinned with her hair in a long plait, with wide brown eyes like a deer's in the headlights.

"Variscite," said Charonite, gesturing to the first. "She'll be our Crystal Academy agent. She came willingly. The second, Moonstone -- not so much."

Which said everything it needed to say.

"Nealite," said her leader, "you work for me and only me. You and Caine. I don't abide failure in ******** either of you. Especially you. Caine's mind is a ******** soup, Ursula, he does what I tell him to because he no longer knows anything else. Training? I do what I ******** can, and we're out of ******** time! Astraea's on the move. She's managed to even infiltrate Hillworth -- and you breathe a ******** word of that..."

He looked at her, long and cool, his pale grey eyes extraordinarily pale. "Be discreet. You've been discreet before. We're outnumbered," he said. "Brutally outnumbered. Answer me this, Ursula, your second question: what does the side that's outnumbered do?"

The General-King laughed. It was a short, barking noise, slightly humourless. "The sentiment," he said, "is appreciated. Yes. But specificity, Ursula. What's the phrase -- the devil is in the details."

He folded his arms over his chest. The images in the bowl disappeared. He was looking now towards that odd crystal pillar; it had something deep at its heart that Ursula couldn't quite see, some blemish, as though something was hidden deep inside. "Lieutenant," he said. "Crushing the senshi is one ******** business. That's useless. That's wasted meat. No. There's something more difficult you can do -- more difficult we can do..."

He trailed off. Then he eased his sunglasses back on his face. The crystal shone off the lenses. "You know we corrupted the cats," he said. "Grendel. Caine. I've got bigger god damned fish to fry, Lieutenant. If Astraea's being so ******** egotistical as to invade here, my turf, most of my Lieutenants right here under her nose -- well."

Charonite stared at the crystal again. "Engaging them," he said. "You're right. You're too ******** right. Most of the Lieutenants are pieces of s**t. I try, and I try, but all this goddamned sneaking around -- there's no time to really train them; not how it used to be... So. We corrupt the senshi, Lieutenant. We take the cream of Astraea's shitty little crop and swell our ranks. That's what I want from you and Grendel: observation, Ursula."

He was looking at her again, boring into her. "Get me names. Get me fighting styles. Get me ******** details. Send Grendel out. Be another pair of eyes for me, because every other pair of hands -- ******** that. Are you clear?"

Unusually gentlemanly, Charonite took Ursula's hand. He walked towards the crystal pillar, and guided her fingers towards it; he placed her palm flat on the cold, smooth surface.

There was something inside it. It was merely a blur, though, and she couldn't make it out. It was something deep purple, like a bruise, with a splash of blood red; the inside of the crystal was murky and no matter how hard she squinted, she couldn't make it out. The feel of the crystal against her skin was a shock. For some reason, she'd nearly expected a heartbeat.

Charonite's fingers were interlocked over her own on the crystal's surface. There was a strange expression on his face, one she'd never seen before. Dissatisfaction was natural to the General-King; so was rage, in all of its spectrums, irritation to fury; but his mouth had a strange reverent twist, and even briefly something like grief.

And overlaid, a terrible want.

"Not it, Lieutenant," he said. "Much more than ******** it."

He pressed down on her fingers -- for one moment, the pressure was too much, and it was painful -- but then he let them go. "She, Lieutenant."

And for the first time she'd ever seen him, he addressed a brief, terse bow to the thing in the crystal.

He turned away, face having gone back to its mask as quickly as the emotions had shifted, making her wonder if she'd ever seen them shift at all. "We go," he said.

He reached back to touch her, just on the shoulder, light. Quickly, a little nauseatingly, they were back in his office -- he as Killingworth again, she in her secretary clothes as Ursula Johnson. He was closed off again, closed up tightly in a shell, and it seemed unwise to ask questions.

"You've got your orders," he said, sitting himself down in his chair again. "Dismissed."