Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was quiet.

In spite of the Negaverse's halls being filled to a claustrophobic level with demons and creatures in all shapes and sizes, from every sort of nightmare imaginable... it was still terribly quiet. The dim crystal lanterns set high up in the walls cast pale, graying tones over everything below, and there was no sound except for the meted echo of Ladon's footsteps -- and the occasional rattling breath or grumble -- as he wandered over the mirrored floor. It was dreamlike enough to be in the Negaverse for a meeting. The encroachingly lonely, deep-space atmosphere could only intensify when you were there alone.

There were steps, and silence, and the youma barely moved at all, as if they were shelved equipment waiting to be used instead of living creatures (then again, would it be correct to say they were alive?). Uranophane stood in the middle of the room regarding them with an appraising gaze, scribbling and checking things off on her clipboard. She had a look that suggested she felt being in a room full of monsters was mundane. It was busywork, who knew if Beryl really cared what the tally on dusted youma was, or which was assigned to whom.

After all -- and her eyes narrowed and turned downward at the thought -- they could always make more.

A sigh escaped her in a puff of cold mist, and she spun on her heels to regard the shorter individual who'd grabbed her attention. Uranophane's gaze was flat and stern, with a touch of annoyance that could be intimidating to some. To others, it might have looked like she was just trying entirely too hard to be Charonite.

Her clipboard and pen popped out of sight, and she folded her arms rigidly behind her back. "Captain Wolframite," she answered, "you're on time. Good. You'd be surprised at how much people these days don't care about punctuality."

Wolframite's first impression was a correct one: Uranophane really was all business, to the point where she practically hadn't a grasp of anything that wasn't. Her expression hadn't changed one bit upon seeing someone enter the room who was a bit closer to human than the monsters surrounding her, besides a bit of acknowledgement and interest that he was a Captain with an obvious handicap in need of compensating for. And even that was gone after a split second. It was a bit hard to tell if she didn't want to show her emotions, or just plain didn't care to feel them.

Though given how being corrupted made it a great deal easier to not care about certain things if you didn't want to, the chance of it being the latter was high enough.

"Good to know. Both of my parents work at the Memorial hosiptal," Uranophane replied conversationally, "That's taught them to emphasize the importance of being reliable." One of the youma snaked its head under her hand in a catlike manner, the officer responded by gently pushing it away. "And you at least know the first part of that formula -- in order to be useful, you have to be present." She stomped her foot, and a plantlike tendril withdrew itself before it could wrap around her ankle.

And then her gaze moved once again, looking over Wolframite, obviously giving him a secondary sizing-up. He was short. His uniform incorporated several bows, but she'd still class him as less frilly and frivolous than some of their colleagues. And then, of course, was the missing eye. Uranophane pulled her goggles over her own, which pretty much served to make her expression all the more inhuman. "I'm finished working with the youma, if that's what you mean. The only work I have left to do is with you. Did you want to summon your weapon, or stick with hand-to-hand for now?"

Her parents were both surgeons -- well, one was a surgeon, and the other was an anesthesiologist. If Ladon ever met Janice's parents he would notice right away the girl took strongly after her father both in appearance and demeanor: curt and stern and serious and professional. And, decidedly unphased by the grotesque things they encountered on a regular basis due to their lines of work.

"Very well," Uranophane nodded, and she backed up a few clacking steps to give both Wolframite and herself a little bit of space. "The rules of this exercise will be simple: there are none, so long as we don't hurt each other's ability to work." Unlike the shorter Captain, she chose to keep her weapon unsummoned for now, instead flexing her long fingers into loose fists and readying herself into a fighting stance. "If you wish to stop at any time, the safeword is 'petunia.'"

And then, without bothering to signal, she had taken off running to one side.

Uranophane's lack of a response seemed to be an answer all its own: Yes, Wolframite. Petunia.

Her ears caught the noise of the chain links clinking against themselves as he threw the dagger out, and she whipped her head around to get a look at the situation. Fortunately for her the blade harmlessly clattered to the ground a couple of feet away. Good for her. Not good for him in a real combat situation. Wolframite had zero depth perception, and he was probably well aware of it.

"There's another way you can use that besides trying to throw it at me," Uranophane suggested. However, it was hard to take those words into consideration when she was running straight for his blind side, hand stretched and ready to grab at his arm. She was aiming to throw him off-balance.

As soon as she threw him down, she had hopped back a bit so she could move in for another jab at him -- which gave him the split second needed to recover, but that also provided a window of breakable guard. However, Wolframite seemed to already know the value of thinking fast. The chain had caught on Uranophane's boot the instant before it could properly leave the ground. In just a couple of blinks it had wrapped around her ankle, threatening to trip her if pulled at the right angle.

And now that lesson 1 and 2 out of the way, Uranophane did not hesitate at all to throw Wolframite into Lesson 3: Your weapon has a variety of uses, and they can all be used against you.

This time, she thought first -- a swift kick of her boot propelled the chain into the air a bit, just enough for her to bend down and grip both her hands around it and give the whole length a good yank.

It was an incredibly fortunate thing Uranophane had those goggles on, or she would have rapidly found herself in a similar state to the one Wolframite was in. Which proved to both of them that his aim could, sometimes, be good -- if he was very lucky, or perhaps if he trusted his arms instead of his remaining eye. The blade of the chain dagger glanced against Uranophane's eyewear before she had a chance to dodge it.

She flinched, her hands twitching a bit, and that was the opportunity Wolframite needed to reclaim his weapon. A swift yank was all it took to get the rest of the chain off her ankle, which left the two of them back at square one, albeit slightly worked up from the scuffle. Breath was issuing from them both in rhythmic white puffs as they returned to their respective battle stances.

"Good," she said curtly, "I see you're not above teaching yourself some new tricks." And then she flicked her fingers in a beckoning motion, the universal signal of 'go ahead and make a move.'

There was one word to describe what Wolframite hit with his attack.

And that word was: Jackpot.

When the chain came flying in Uranophane's direction, she could guess right away that trying to dodge it would only result in an arm or an ankle being left open for it to wrap around. So, in an act of quick-thought desperation she summoned her clipboard in her hands in the hopes she could use it to knock the thing away instead. This was entirely the wrong move to make -- instead of it successfully swiping the weapon out of harm's way, it helped curve the chain at such an angle that its length rapidly whipped around her wrist.

Wolframite had just hog-tied himself a Captain.