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Something different was happening in Destiny City, Foramen decided, crouched over a dead body slumped in a backalley. He didn't know if it was the Negaverse playing new tricks, or some new organisation entirely, but strange new things were happening that didn't fit with the starseed MO that Foramen was used to.

The body before him had been dead for some time. There was no trace of warmth left. The winter cold made it hard to guesstimate further, apart from Kirin having passed the man on the street earlier that morning. His first thought on seeing a body collapse din an alley had been Negaverse - it always was, these days. But, he concluded, handling the body carefully with his gloved hands, there was no cavity in his chest. No missing starseed.Foramen had never seen the Negaverse kill a human in any other way, so he was understandably confused.

Police might write the man off as a bum. Or say he died from the cold. But despite the fact that the man was under-dressed for the weather, this was Kirin's neighbourhood. So Foramen was well aware that this wasn't a homeless man. And surely even the most amateur detective would point out that someone who 'fell alseep' in the snow wouldn't have his eyes wide open, face frozen in an expression of horror and disbelief.

So, despite this kill not involving a starseed in any way, Foramen had a very strong suspicion that the Negaverse was behind this. Had he missed some change in their methods, he wondered with a frown. He couldn't afford to be out of the loop, or he'd never be able to track them and their movements. And then how would he steal starseeds from them?

He sighed. "How pointless." The quiet words echoed loudly through the alley. It made Foramen glance up at the rooftops suspiciously. This wouldn't look good if he were found like this, he realised, hands all over a dead body. Civilians would take it as proof that the 'terrorist' senshi were cold blooded killers, and a senshi might assume he was a Negaverse agent in disguise or one of those rare senshi who actually worked for their side.

Foramen straightened. He dusted his hands off on his pants, glancing around in a manner that might be interpreted as guilty...

"s**t!" Foramen leapt as someone spoke up behind him. He jumped back, arms up. So much for not letting the sneak see he was ruffled. Huffing a little, he calmed himself. With one hand on his hip, he used the other to gesture at the girl as he demanded, "Didn't anyone ever tell you it was rude to sneak up on people?"

It took a moment for the way to girl was eyeing him to sink in. That was the look most senshi gave... to the Negaverse.

"You simply couldn't give me a short break, could you?" the girl asked, glaring holes in his head.

Foramen's arms fell. "What? You think that I - what?" He blinked, simply unable to believe what the girl was saying. Sure, a civilian would immediately assume Foramen had killed the guy. But for another senshi to think the same? Maybe they were buying into their own bad PR.

"Look," Foramen took a step towards the girl, arms raised. He tried to give a reassuring smile, but considering how heartfelt that wasn't, suspected it came off looking more deranged. One eyebrow began to twitch as Foramen saw his entire night going down the drain. "I don't know what you think you're seeing here, but I can guarantee you that you're mistaken. I'm a senshi, right? Just like you. So how about we both continue on our way and not this any more difficult than it needs to be, hmm?"

By the end of that, Foramen's eyes were glinting slits, and his 'smile' more of a sneer. He took a few more steps towards the girl, who was coincidentally blocking the alley exit. "So, how about it? Go on about your business?"

"What the hell?" Foramen muttered as the girl refused to move along. And she spoke like an old professor or something, who bothered using such fancy words any more?

He was stunned when the girl - senshi, he had to correct himself - shouted out what had to be an attack. She couldn't seriously-! A burning slice up his side later, he was forced to reconsider. Darting to the side, he stared from the crystal spike back to its owner.

"What the hell?!" he shrieked at her. "Are you insane?"

They were meant to be on the same side! Why would another senshi-? Foramen paused. The dots connected (in entirely the wrong way, really, but how was he to know that). She must be like Hel, the 'little red riding hood' senshi he'd met and had to fight a youma she commanded. A 'corrupted' senshi, was it? So chances are this one was corrupted too, attacking him like this for no reason. Hell, Foramen thought, maybe she was the one who'd killed the human in the first place and then hung around waiting to see if a good senshi showed up.

"That's a nice trap," he commended the girl through clenched teeth. "Very well planned. But I'm not so easy to ensnare."

The good thing about alleys was that they always had a nice supply of trash and abandoned objects. A smirk appeared on Foramen's face as he targeted an overflowing trash can.

"Foramen Rift, Slice!"

The metal object disappeared into the rift, when then opened above Aeria's head.

"Aw, crap!" Foramen dove out of the way of the next crystal spike. Not fast enough to prevent it from slicing down one boot. He hissed as the pain followed a split second later. A glance down revealed the edge of the cut through the material leaking blood. He supposed he should be grateful it was a cut and not an impalement, but Foramen didn't tend to look on the bright side of life.

"You suck," spat the redhead. "And your fellow corrupted senshi suck. And your Negaverse sucks. And your b***h Nega queen sucks the most a** of all!"

A quiet fighter, Foramen? Not a chance. In fact, he might just be the polar opposite of the mostly-silent senshi he was fighting.

There was one thing Foramen always tended to forget in any kind of battle or meeting with other senshi. It was only because Scylla had reminded him the other day that he remembered now. Pulling his senshi phone out of subspace, Foramen pointed it at his opponent and set it to scan.

"Aeria," he read off the screen. "Senshi of Crystals. Well, duh, figured that one out for myself, thanks muchly, cats." He scowled and shook the device. "How do you make it update that a senshi's gone evil?"

Foramen wasn't going to fight Aeria on the charge of being vulgar - though who under forty called it that these days? He didn't bother watching his manners when transformed, possibly because it pissed him off something huge to be recognisable as male half the time. He did, however, take exception to being considered useless and a waste of time.

"You're the one who stopped to annoy me, y'know," he took great pleasure in pointing out. It wasn't that he wasn't ecstatic to have the other senshi leaving, but leaving with the last word? Unacceptable. Plus, he still had no clue what had just gone on here.

He peered at the cellphone Aeria was holding. "Wait, so you're not corrupted?" He couldn't imagine one of the cats giving their precious Mau technology to the enemy. "So what the hell were you attacking me for?"

One of Foramen's eyebrows developed a twitch, but he held back the instinctive retort concerning his intellect. Not to mention the fact that miss snooty-pants over there had been the first one to mistake the other for the enemy and attack.

He gave a cold smirk, instead. Perhaps his words had been misleading. "I never claimed to be a nice senshi," he taunted. "Maybe next time introduce yourself before attacking? Or ask for someone's name, in case next time you mistake a Negaverse agent for a fellow senshi."

He wasn't touching the idea that he might do the same thing. He had, in the past, not realised a corrupt senshi wasn't on his side right away. Oops.

He glanced back at the dead body. "It's strange," he said, unsure if he was speaking aloud to himself or to Aeria. "There's no starseed missing. I was trying to determine if it was a Negaverse attack at all, and if so, what exactly they're up to this time."

Foramen rolled his eyes at Aeria's 'war' spiel. "If we really are at war, shouldn't information gathering be a priority?" he asked, going along with her outlook for a moment. He didn't consider himself at war. Or if he was, he wasn't on anyone's side but his own. "You'd be surprised how much information you can get out of the newer Negaverse agents if you hold back on attacking them for a while."

True to Aeria's comment, Foramen certainly was hoping to pry the information out of the enemy. He'd just have to find a talkative one. That hadn't been a difficult task so far. Or just be in the right place at the right time and observe for himself.

He sighed. "It's a pity the new phone database can't just ask everyone else if they know anything about it." For all that they - all the senshi - were supposedly in an open exchange of information, limiting it just to Negaverse names and abilities left a lot to be desired.

"Should I let you know if I am successful?" he lightly mocked, since she clearly didn't believe it would happen.

Foramen chuckled, granting Aeria that point. Though the Negaverse agents who did run were just giving themselves away as the cowards most likely to spill information once a senshi got their hands on them. Not to mention, running in itself wasn't so useful against a senshi who could teleport into your path. Still, it seemed to Foramen that Aeria had a decent handle on tactics, even if hers were wildly different from his own.

"I'll have a think on that, then," he murmured to himself as he watched her leave. For better or worse he had her number. He could use it or not, as the mood struck him.

He turned and gave the cooling corpse a final look. It seemed there would be no answers on that front tonight. Leaping back up onto the rooftops, he made sure to head off in the opposite direction from Aeria. That one had a caustic tongue to rival Astraea herself. The kind of fight Foramen was looking for was less verbal and more physical - rather ironic, considering the discussion of tactics he'd just been having.

A smirk on his face, Foramen pushed on. One final lap of the neighborhood and then perhaps an early night for once.