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Some of the time he spent patrolling was relaxing, somewhat like a Tai Chi exercise on a great day. Other times were absolutely infuriating, and then he just wanted to go home. Such a time as that was usually accompanied by one of the younger, more immature Negaverse officers, such as the one that had been chattering at him for the last ten or twenty minutes.

He liked Domeykite. He did. The younger man was childish and immature, but it was a kind of decent immaturity born of innocence rather than deceit. And while it sucked that every single starseed theft had to be made into some kind of game, it was also sort of an endearing trait. It meant they both took more starseeds in the end, since they were competing and Spinel didn't like to lose. Still, today he was being particularly annoying, talking about things he didn't remember being concerned with at fifteen if he was being dishonest with himself.

Very, very patiently, he took a deep breath and rolled one of the bells from his sleeves between his hands. After henshining up, he'd stripped himself of all extraneous bells--that way he wouldn't give himself away, and besides, he always felt ridiculous for the bells on his toes. "Domey," he said, calmness he didn't exactly feel pervading the words, "please. Shut up. I will thank you for it."

Almost perversely, he was hoping that soon they'd encounter another senshi--something more challenging and distracting than mere civilians. Maybe then they'd stop talking about garlic's aphrodisiac properties for five minutes.

Domeykite had to admit that Spinel was becoming his favorite person to patrol with. Sure, the other officers were nice, but Spinel indulged him in playing games. A cherry on top of that trait was that Domeykite could beat the man in starseed fetching. There was nothing more that the young man liked than winning. It was why he played every game he got his hands on to the very end, even if the game wasn’t up to par with his tastes. He couldn’t put it down without finishing it to the very end - he would be damned if a game beat him.

“What?” the boy asked the senshi with a curious arch of his brows. He had noticed nothing wrong with their current train of conversation. Domeykite thought this information would be helpful to Spinel in the coming years. “You know you’ll need the aid down there one day, and I’m saving you fifteen minutes of googling by telling you about it now.” He gestured flippantly to the man, negaphone held firm in his grip.


It wasn’t a very useful weapon, but Domeykite was fond of his negaphone. He happened to drive a few of the people he patrolled with mad with how often he screamed into his negaphone. It was fun, he didn’t see why people thought he should be more tactful and quiet. If the lovely starseed-filled citizens of Destiny City really cared, they would have told him to shut up just like Spinel had.

“Let’s see who we can draw in tonight,” he said, diverging from his earlier conversation. Really, he liked Spinel, so if the man truly wanted him to talk about something else, he would. Domeykite just wouldn’t be all that thrilled about it. Spinel should have expected what came next, Domeykite sucked in a deep breath, brought the negaphone up to his lips, and screamed into it. No matter that the negaphone would already amplify his voice. “ATTENTION, ALL YOCTOGRAMS!”

He nodded tersely, certain that if he ignored the boy's assertions eventually he'd drop the subject. Maybe Domeykite was just like a younger sibling in that he wanted to get into his head and be irritating. There probably wasn't any malicious intent behind it at all, he assured himself. "Are you calling me old," he said mildly after a moment where he closed his eyes and took a calming breath. "I have years and years before I could even be considered 'mature'." Although could anyone really call the very calm, very centered Negaverse immature? He was patient and didn't over-react to many things. Infantile he was not.

The dark-haired man saw the megaphone coming up and (calmly) placed his hands over his ears. Long practice at patrolling with the younger Negaverser really prepared you for some of his little idiosyncrasies, so he wasn't really bothered much; it sucked if he was trying to be subtle, but he ran faster than a human being. He could still hear Domey quite clearly despite the hands, and he slotted a glance down at the green-clad boy that held a quite fraternal exasperation. "A yoctogram? Surely you can think of something better."

Gunn hadn't been having a good night. She was tired, and irritated, and her fuku looked pretty disheveled. Burned, in fact. Her power felt pretty full, though; she'd sat down to relax on some kind of machine. The metal was warm, and the night was cold, and this was one way to keep herself from dying due to the autumnal chill in the air. Well, she wouldn't actually die, but.

The quiet of the evening made her a bit introspective, and not for the first time she wondered. Both the little cat and Europa had mentioned Negaversers--people in uniforms, people who had weapons and wanted to kill her. The ones who made the monsters and killed all those innocent people… they were real, she knew, they were enemies and that was important. But she hadn't ever actually met one. Not yet, not now. Maybe not ever. She was kind of excited for the someday-occurring meeting; the fight would be exciting, and she wanted to know if she could really fight a humanoid enemy. So far it had only been monsters, but if the Negaverse officers were her real enemies, she had to be able to fight them, too, right?

She was sitting up to head home when she heard a yell. Attention, all ye octograms, it sounded like. "What the ********," she say, tripping to the side of the building.

Immediately she was hit with a terrible feeling--like her skin was trying to crawl off her body. And she knew what they were--Negaversers. An excited smile spread over her face. Time to use her destructive abilities for their intended purpose! She hopped over the side of the building, landed a bit behind the Negaverse pair. "What the hell," she asked, "who the hell is an octogram?"

"You're older than me," Domeykite responded with an impish smile. It was likely that Spinel was one of the few people who had a high enough tolerance level to put with Domeykite's antics. For all the skills he claimed to have learned from playing so many video games, he was still a little impulsive. If he wanted, he could sit back and think a situation through to the bitter end, but most of the time he just prefered the thrill of battle. "Ah, you're leaning," he commented as Spinel covered his ears to block out some of the noise, forgetting that he still had the negaphone held up to his lips.

"If you'd play a few more games, you'd understand the meaning." Well, he couldn't expect EVERYONE to know what he was talking about. He'd have to encourage Spinel to play a DSi and some TWEWY, so one day he would understand why Domeykite was so amused by having a megaphone as his weapon, and why he spouted silly little quotes.

It was then that he noticed her. The edges of his lips curled up in a wicked grin. It was definitely a senshi - she had the same silly outfit that Spinel had. Of course, her's seemed a little more modern... Spinel must have just lucked out. "A yoctogram, it's like, ten to the negative twentieth power or something like that. You." This was perfect! He was going to drag a senshi home for his queen!

"How much EXP do you think we'll get for taking her down? I bet you that we'll level up." Oh, there was no denying that Domeykite was excited. That was a senshi! That was THE ENEMY.

"Oh, very mature," he was saying, and then he dropped his hands. He took a grip on the rim of the megaphone, dragged it down and away from the green-haired boy's lips. He'd heard something, and he tilted his head a bit to see if he could catch it again. Yeah… up there, a bit of a scuffling noise. Shoes? He looked up just in time to see a redheaded girl jump from a building overhead--definitely someone powered, but--

The uniform settled it. It was simpler than the others he'd seen so far, her collar clearly just that, no real lace to speak of. She was attractive, extremely so--young, too, he'd guess about Domeykite's age for all she was tall. And she'd clearly taken a few hits from another negaverser or youma, to look at the charred ends of her bow, the smear of ash on her jawbone. He tilted his head at that. "Well, we have to play this game first," he said, directing the younger Negaverser's gaze towards the other senshi as he drew out the sixth bronze bell from its housing on his chest.

He looked patiently amused at Domeykite's excited question. "Definitely enough to level up," he said. Then he launched himself forward, around the red-haired senshi's back. "Clear out a bit!" At least a few more feet backwards; Spinel drew his bells, rang it thrice, and suddenly the redheaded senshi went flying towards the other Nega.

Gunn felt pretty confident, even faced with two opponents. She could even ignore the weird talk about games. One of them was clearly another sailor soldier--he had a bow, and a weird collar, even if his colors were weird--but he was the source of the disgusting feeling that her skin was crawling. Such mutation had to mean that he was weakened somehow by contact with the darkness.

At the explanation of the insult, she bristled. "What? Hmph!" She tossed her cascade of red-orange curls over one shoulder, said, "I've heard of your type. You're Negaversers, aren't you? You make the monsters and kill all those people." The talk about ee-ex-pee made her even more irritated, but she barely had time to parse it before she felt herself being thrown forward.

Had the other senshi attacked her? What the hell!

"How'd you know this was my favorite game?" he asked Spinel with a glint in his bright green eyes. Domeykite had fought with Spinel plenty of times before to know what was coming next. To be safe, he skipped a few steps back, well out of the range of the attack that was about to catch their yoctogram enemy completely off guard. The confidence was etched into every minute feature of his face. It was him and Spinel against one lousy senshi, it should be an easy victory. Hell, this was going to be fun! This was better than all the video games he spent hours playing at home. Nothing beat this real life game, not when he was one of the main characters in it.

The senshi was thrusted forward by Spinel's invisible barrier, and Domeykite seized the chance to greatly tip the odds of the battle in their favor. Needless to say, this combination attack may have been practiced once or twice before. It was Domeykite's turn, and he knew exactly what to do. He stepped in front of the senshi, jumping on the opportunity his partner had opened for him. He swung his negaphone promptly at the side of the girl's head, almost as if he was swinging a tennis racket to hit the birdie. It was just as likely that he was picturing her head as the birdie. In fact, it was a guarantee.

His negaphone wasn't the greatest weapon, and not nearly the most useful, but it had its perks. It would do enough to further disorient the senshi if he could just make contact with the birdie -- ahem, head.

For once, Spinel's mocking grin was wide and obvious; it matched his partner's in confidence. His brown eyes were gleeful, his posture straight-backed. There hadn't been an enemy yet who had been immune to his attack, and things always went especially well when he was partnered with Domeykite. Mostly because the two of them usually patrolled together anymore, and they'd done this quite a few times to civilians. "Very good," he praised, watching the megaphone lift up and then arc down, as sure as a guillotine's blade. "I didn't, Domeykite. I just guessed." He was intuitive like that. and then--

He was interested in seeing how this worked against another senshi…

She caught herself on her feet, but the megaphone's hit to the side of her head sent her off her feet, flying sideways. No sparks, she registered dimly; nothing to attack with. But Gunn slapped a hand out against a wall, registered a dull and aching pain in her wrist but didn't say anything. What the hell had happened there? She remembered the taller Negaverser running towards her, standing behind her, and then a bell?… Her blue-eyed gaze struggled to focus on him; she was disoriented, the hit to the side of her head shaking her up. But she got up, and when the short one--Domeykite?--moved towards her again, she pushed herself out towards him.

There was one sure-fire defense against men doing things to you that you didn't want them to, whether it was rape or attempting to steal your starseed. It was called your knee.

When she was close enough, she brought up her knee sharply.

"Nice guess, then!" he replied with an elated grin, not from the invigorating conversation, of course, but from the battle. Look at the poor widdle senshi getting beat up on by the big nasty Negaversers! She wasn't putting up that much more of a struggle than normal civilians did. He wondered if all senshi were like this, this weak. "Maybe we won't get as many EXP as I thought we would. This is... too easy," he chatted. Domeykite was comfortable enough with the way things were going to indulge in some over-confident conversation. He knew was well as Spinel did that they had this victory practically in their hands already.

Of course, he might have spoken too soon, or he might have started talking too much. The senshi made a quick recovery, and before he had time to dodge she had-- "******** YOCTOGRAM," he exclaimed vulgarly as the senshi kneed him where it definitely counted. Hell, his eyes were watering! "Cheap blow," he wheezed. Right, he was going to pluck that senshi's starseed out of her chest and offer it up to his Queen as soon as he could walk straight.

Spinel sighed. "Maybe she's a newbie. A… a redshirt, as you said? Just leadup to a boss, and not really worth it at all." He wasn't so good at video-game talk, though he was getting better with Domeykite's impassioned lecturing. One hand ticked off the seconds until he could move without breaking the barrier; long experimentation and a conversation with Grendel had given him the exact parameters of his powers. Then the girl was back up--how the hell? Civilians went out of consciousness almost immediately, and then things were simple as hell.

His wince was sympathetic and powerful; the second he was free to move, he ran forward to grab the girl's shoulders and haul her off, back into the wall.

There was an intoxicating flush of victory; her cheeks were red with it, even if she was swaying and leaning on the Negaverser with her hands like a vice on his shoulders. When she had herself together enough, she was bunching up her muscles to hurl him aside, but the other sailor soldier got there first. She was thrown into the wall like a rag doll, and her head cracked audibly against the bricks. There was a helpless, almost inaudible cry as the redheaded girl fell limply to her knees, curled on her side; her arms came over her head.

What the hell--she'd never encountered enemies like this, the monsters were easy but this was almost impossible--maybe it was just because they had the sheer advantage of numbers.

If Domeykite wasn't currently incapacitated, he would have praised Spinel for catching on to the gaming lingo. He was making a breakthrough with his current partner if Spinel was starting to understand the lingo well enough to make comments about it. But, this damned senshi had her hands on his shoulders like CLAWS, and he was experiencing a pain that he hadn't QUITE had the pleasure up until now to indulge in. He was too infuriated to even come up with another TWEWY quote.

Domeykite did not like losing, and he would NOT lose, he refused to lose to a senshi!

Spinel came to his aid, prying the senshi away from him and tossing her into the wall of an old brick building. "Thanks," he replied, his voice strained by tension. He was not happy, but he still had mind enough to thank his partner when Spinel probably had saved him from getting kicked THERE again. "Time to die," he growled softly, straightening himself and approaching the sailor scout quickly. He had every intention to end this now, to plunge his hand into her chest and snatch her starseed from her.

"You've lost." He extended his arm down to the girl, not to help her out, no, but to plunge his hand into her chest to retrieve what it was he desired to have.

She saw the hand reaching down for her, and knew at a subliminal level that he wasn't offering to help her up. Why would he? She'd just kneed him in the family jewels. More like he was going for her starseed, and there was no Europa to save her this time. Her head hurt so much, she could feel something sticky against her fingers--blood? Was she bleeding? It seemed entirely hopeless when she brought her hands to her chest to ward him off, the red fluid clinging to her, webbing out into thin strings when she spread her fingers. Hopeless, she couldn't even push herself up.

But there was a small book of matches resting beneath her bolero, the cardboard edges poking into her chest. She scrabbled for it the moment she remembered, leaving reddish stains on her throat; the taller Negaverser had an expression of confusion on his face when she pulled them out and flipped open the cover. This turned to hesitation as she dragged the heads of every match across the asphalt under her face. They caught, and if they didn't their brethren lit them up like a miniature bonfire--she threw them towards the boy's feet and called out her attack's invocation, and her hand dropped weakly to the ground.

The senshi was dead, Spinel decided; it just wasn't quite official yet. Domeykite was already reaching for her starseed, and there was clearly no need for an older person to intervene. The kid wanted the… experience points, he could have them. It always made him feel odd inside to consider actually murdering another senshi in cold blood, though he knew he could. He really was just supposed to observe and assist, anyway--

She went for something under the dark jacket she wore, and he tipped his head, a frown creasing his features. What could possibly help her? Was she going to save Domey the trouble of ripping out her starseed and do it herself?…

There was a little white matchbook in her hand, and she dragged the heads along the ground. He started forward, just in time to see the fire flare up--and, in a blind panic, he grabbed onto the younger man's arm. Without even a sound, they teleported away. If he was lucky at all, the girl would die. A senshi dead was a senshi dead, whether they had the starseed or not.