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As a matter of fact, there was more than one thing about Quail's field that made it a certainly unique place to be in. Wings were, nowadays, the most noticeable part of the equation: those who entered this area wouldn't go for long without growing a pair of their own. However, before that discovery had been made there was something else about the place that very literally assaulted your eyes the moment you entered, and would have made the field incredibly difficult to navigate around in were it not for the wings.

And that was the grass: it was very tall. Maybe someone like Tanzanite, or Marthozite, or Charonite (were he still alive and trusted) would have been able to peek over it... Captain Zinkenite, however, was completely screwed on that regard. The damn grass grew a good head higher than he did in some places. So it was either fly over the landscape and risk looking a bit silly, or walk through it and have almost no idea where you were going.

Thankfully, he was not alone.

Figuratively and literally speaking.

If he chanced a look upward, he might have noticed that he had drawn close to one of the sparse, twisty trees that dotted the field occasionally. And if he'd caught sight of that, he would also notice that one of its broad branches had been occupied by someone. The power signature was telling. So were the mint-colored corkscrews of hair.

General-Queen Laurelite's gaze drifted downward, in the direction of the audible rustling of the grass. She had been watching him explore the area and test his wings for a while -- something that she made no effort to hide, with a knowing expression on her face.

"Do you know what this place is, Zachary?"

"Elysion is the name of the place, yes... and this is the domain of a certain Quail, that is also correct..." Laurelite confirmed, a hand reaching up to fiddle with a corkscrew of hair. "And you must have gathered that this is no place on Earth, but yet it is a part of the Earth all the same..."

With an invisible twitch of her feet, she suddenly jumped down, landing gracefully in front of her subordinate. The two of them were just about the same height. Not only that, but Zinkenite might have caught a glimpse of heeled shoes during her descent, which implied that perhaps he might actually have been just an inch or two taller than the demure-appearing General-Queen. "Elysion... is a sort of gathering place, for the dreams of all people on Earth," she explained. Then her eyes narrowed slightly, her expression darkening just a tiny bit. "To invade this place like our adversaries have... do you understand what that means, what they must be trying to do?"

Her own wings were devoid of feathers, and looked more like they might be fins from some sea creature than flying appendages. The end result was that she sort of resembled one of the sirens of legend: it was frighteningly easy to imagine her lounging on a rock in a river, luring sailors to deadly rapids and waterfalls. "You should be working, you say. Perhaps the problem is that you just need some work that would be a bit more challenging... a bit more... rewarding?

"They could take all those dreams away," she finished for him. Zinkenite might have been afraid to utter those words, but it seemed that Laurelite most certainly wasn't. "Or worse... they could change them completely... turn them into something that fits their twisted designs." She let the Captain's imagination run wild at that suggestion, because the possibilities really were endless. Effortless subterfuge. An entire planet brainwashed, all with just the right exercise of willpower.

It wasn't Elysion's location that was important, it was what it was.

"No living creature on this planet will be unaffected by what takes place here." Laurelite walked a few steps closer, until it was possible to reach out and touch her if he wanted. "The senshi have managed to tip the balance to their advantage, but there is still a final battle to win... knowing this, what will you do to make sure they're driven out for good?"

Laurelite's eyes had closed while Zinkenite was speaking, and for a moment she remained perfectly still and silent. Her facial expression provided no hints about what she might have been feeling or thinking, but that wasn't needed to be able to hazard a guess: she was thinking about his response. Appraising it. Judging it. A tension in the air was created by her weighing of words on a metaphorical scale, and it only increased with the advent of a breeze shuddering its way through the grass, the atmosphere becoming heavier and heavier until her eyes finally opened again.

"Interesting answer," she decided. "But not one befitting of a Negaverse Captain."

A pause.

A hint of a smile.

"Thankfully, we can fix that."

It happened in a flash. Laurelite's movements proved just how much power and experience she had, as it was in an immeasurably small instant that her hand had moved from its position at her side to where it had appeared now. Up this close, he could see a series of burn scars running up and down her arm and clear up to the ends of her fingertips; the skin was discolored and disfigured, looking like that part of her otherwise flawlessly ivory visage had been given an amateur's glaze job.

Her fingers clawed remorselessly into Zinkenite's chest with neither a warning or a second thought. The grip she formed around his star seed was blindingly agonizing and electric, and with this there were no words, no explanation, no apology... she simply looked at him for a moment while her hand curled ever deeper behind his sternum, her expression all the while seeming more appropriate for someone working on a flower arrangement than it was for someone who was literally holding his life force in the palm of her hand.

And then it began. The General-Queen's grip gently pulled Zinkenite's awareness from the field they were standing in, to the suffocating abyss he had already visited twice. Except this time it was ten times more real, a hundred times more vivid, and a thousand times more harsh. The power he'd earned -- the power he'd craved -- was pressing on him on all sides, making it impossible to move or breathe, threatening to swallow him whole and leave nothing of him behind. And even then, even when the pressure passed the threshold of what any living creature should have been able to survive... he was dragged down even further.

His lungs were burning.

He was going to die.

His nerves were screaming.

He was going to die.

Zinkenite couldn't even feel the hand in his chest anymore. The sensation had been drowned out completely by a million brutally cold fingers wrapping around every bone, every muscle and blood vessel, every last insignificant molecule that made up his entire insignificant being: they were brutal and yet serene as they pulled the very building blocks of his existence apart... and then it rushed in. The power. The reality. The sudden, sharp awareness.

The struggling of his hands against Laurelite's arm did him no good. She was too strong, had too much control, and so his fingers scrabbled helplessly against her splotched and charred skin as she fed more and more of that dark energy straight into his star seed. Her gaze watched coolly, placidly, as Zinkenite convulsed and reflexively fought against it, her expression and grip both unchanging... until, finally, she had let go, and he was free to breathe and move once more.

"Zachary..." she murmured, the feel of her icy eyes practically tangible upon its shoulder. "...are you a General now, or just a lowly lieutenant? Try and assume a more respectable stance, unless you're out to disappoint me..."

He could hear the grass rustling again -- she had taken a couple of steps away, and turned her attention up to the sky.

"More responsibility awaits you now. Along with possessing authority over all those ranked below you, you may now invite others to join our cause, so long as you're not foolish about your decisions... not that I doubt you can be trusted in that regard." Laurelite's features shifted to a small, unseen smile at that. "However... in order to convert a senshi, you will still require some assistance. Unless, that is, your aim is to commit suicide."

She didn't seem to be joking.

"I assume that's all simple enough for you to grasp."