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“Ajoite, Bixbyite, Chromite, Fukalite, Petalite, Proustite, Richterite-

Welcome to the Lieutenant Awareness Program, kids. Before you ask yourselves what you did to deserve this, I just want to let you know it’s nothing personal. I despise you lieutenants all equally.”

Lugging their sleepover gear through the Negaverse, the unfortunately chosen lieutenants probably had begun to suspect what they’d all been ordered to get teleported over for. But none of them would have expected to be led to the massive doorway down to the Rift. Past the tunnel of guardians, youma were everywhere, and the unusual energy of the rift obscured even the general’s energy signature with the sheer power that radiated from below the city. The crimson sky made slow swirls overhead, devoid of sun and moon and stars. Small youma scattered away from the group as they walked the old stone paths through the fallen city and beyond. But there were always eyes watching hungrily as they passed, belonging not just to monsters and behemoths but also to creatures that could almost be mistaken for humans – at first glance.

“But that’s the problem, I think. The new ways aren’t working. You all collect energy, not starseeds. You can call for help when you’re in trouble. And you’ve got access to information about this war a lot of dead soldiers could only wish they’d had. But unlike them, all this coddling and help has just made you weak and spoiled. You’ve probably never survived anything worse than a standardized test. You’re not soldiers, you’re walking cadavers.”

Anyone who explored just past the decaying spires of the capital would find natural scenery, permanently sealed in stone and crystal. Trees composed of a murky quartz-like stone jabbed out of the ground like spines. Hematite and Uranophane were leading the group off the path, right for the petrified woods and up into the hills.

“That changes tonight.”

They finally emerged into a clearing where some of the crystalline trees had been uprooted and tossed aside. Shattered logs had been dragged into a circle in the center in a parody of a campsite, with an empty space where the roaring campfire should have been. Captain Uranophane set down a package of water bottles, to which Hematite made a show of rolling his eyes at her. It turned into a mutual glare before Hematite broke it off to address his seven presumably worried charges.

“Alright, lieutenants, you can set your stuff down here. This is where you’ll all be staying for the night. Out under the open…” he glanced up and frowned a little. “I’m not even sure what the ******** is up there.”

Uranophane had so far gone on with the procession in silence, not offering much to Hematite or the lieutenants beside an occasional unpleasant glare. However, at this moment she broke in out of turn to glance up at the roiling redness above them, back down at the new recruits, and simply said: "I hope you're all prepared to take cover if it ends up being something that falls."

“Well, falling sky aside, the goal tonight is simple – you’ve just got to survive on your own here till morning. The more of you the better, but things happen.” He shrugged. “If you’re about to die, or you’re just a complete p***y, feel free to call either myself or my assistant tonight, Captain Uranophane. If it’s a real emergency, we’ll probably show up. Try to handle it yourselves though, please. Oh, yeah, here’s a bag of marshmallows. Something in this hellhole is bound to be flammable enough for you to start a campfire.”

“Happy camping,” he smiled viciously and waved before calling Uranophane over. The two were out of sight among the trees in no time, and the lieutenants were finally alone together.

Chromite lugged her backpack along behind the General and Captain silently, but with a subtle smirk turning a corner of her mouth upwards. Unlike the rest of her peers, she assumed, she'd more or less ... volunteered to be here. She didn't have any grand designs of favouritism or safety, but the cockiness was there-- There was a time, not that long ago, where she would have come to something like this over her dead body. A time just before a lung was pierced by a senshi and she had no one to call for that she would have hated being snarked at and called weak. The truth of the matter though was that Chromite was weak. Still. But she had every intention of changing that here.

It didn't stop her from wanting to very clearly show off her scars and prove Hematite wrong however when he made the quip about standardized testing. Narrowing her eyes at something else further off she kept her mouth shut and instead focused on what else was going on. So she walked quietly, not saying a word, until they got to the campsite. The blonde watched as Uranophane set down the water, she watched as a bag of marshmallows were dropped next to the spot where a campfire should have been, and then she watched as their two superiors walked away. It was then that she looked up and shuddered just a bit. She was pretty sure there wasn't anything that could protect them if The Rift itself decided to come crashing down upon them.

Pulling her attention from the abyss overhead before she started to hyperventilate, she looked at her fellow lieutenants. She didn't know a single one of them.

Placing her hands on her hips, she smiled as genuinely as she could at all of them. "Well! Should we get started then?" Bending and digging through her over-stuffed back-pack she pulled out a steel flint and a small box of tinder. Grinning like a loon she presented her prizes. "Always be prepared!"

When she had been told to bring sleeping gear, Fukalite was unsure of what exactly to expect. She was going to spend the night somewhere—that was a no brainer, and she even bothered to phone her parents that she was staying the night at a friend’s house. Stressing over this sudden overnight mission was enough; she did not need her parents frantically calling up friends and family and then hounding her with frenzied questions when she returned home.

Clutching her possessions, Fukalite warily eyed the general. I’m glad the higher-ups treat us all equally. It puts me at so much ease. She kept her expression blank to hide the mild disdain bubbling within her, but his words held a harsh truth that tasted bitter on her tongue. She was new, perhaps not as green as when she first visited the Rift, but still unskilled. Unlike her superiors, Fukalite could not fathom reaching into someone’s chest and tearing out their starseed, the source of their life. She discovered that she quite liked the idea of having power, of being able to drain away at someone’s energy at her discretion, but taking a life was still a step too far for her.

As Hematite led the lieutenants into the Rift, butterflies began to flutter in Fukalite’s stomach as she started to form a decent as to what the general’s solution was. She masked her horror with dread, scowling as she plopped down her things. Her gaze followed Hematite’s as he looked up and she held back a despondent sigh. This night was going to be long and grueling, and Fukalite was not pleased.

“Simple. I like simple goals.” She attempted to be positive, but as she walked over and picked up the bag of marshmallows she figured she was better of being cynical. “Marshmallows. How kind.”

Fukalite looked over at the rest of the lieutenants, focusing her attention on Chromite as she brandished steel and tinder. She quirked her eyebrows at her, somewhat impressed with her foresight. “Splitting into groups sounds good. We’re a bit uneven, so how should we split it? Two-two-three? Three-four?”

Even with General Hematite’s heartless reassurance, Lieutenant Ajoite couldn’t help but to feel that he had ******** up somewhere along the line to wind up here. He thought he was doing well enough and keeping up with his energy quota. Hell, he even had tonight’s quota with him, stashed away in his pocket to turn in to his commanding officer at some point.

Though that “some point” didn’t appear to be coming up any time soon. He bit his tongue as the general lectured them, throwing an uneasy glance over his shoulder at the ruined Rift-city as they left it. The General was correct; Ajoite had only heard stories of how different the Negaverse used to be. Starseeds were still a mystery to him, and he did feel like a walking dead man at this moment. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. Maybe...?

Before they reached the campsite, Ajoite reached into his hoodie pocket and grabbed the glass-like energy he had gathered. It only took a quick flick of his wrist to cast the energy off into the bushes. Ajoite was not keen on attracting any youma tonight, and he would rather take the time to regather energy than to hold onto it. He recalled the demon-like General Queen informing them that youma would kill for a starseed. Hopefully they wouldn’t do the same for gathered energy.

Either way, Ajoite was sad to find out that not long after he mentally patted himself on the back for his cleverness that they had reached their mockery of a campsite. He felt himself tense as he looked at it -- this wouldn’t do. And with the energy thrown away recently, he was beginning to wonder if he had made a serious error.

He did not relax when the superior officers left. A quick glance revealed a few familiar faces: he was pretty sure he played cards with one, and the other had spoken to him in the Rift. The others? He simply shook his head in disbelief at Chromite. “A fire might attract unwanted attention,” he said as he looked away, his gaze sweeping the forest. As a city boy, the closest experience he had to camping was rooming in the Hillworth dorms. While he had played video games where camping occurred, he was pretty sure watching cutscenes didn’t count.

At Proustite’s words, Ajoite looked around again. “Survive, yes. But here? This... This sucks. I’d rather find a more defensible place. The only thing this place has going for it is a cleared area to move around in.”

“Anyway,” Ajoite shrugged, using one thumb to jerk over his shoulder indicating the way they just came. “Any chance I can bribe one of you an energy drink to help me out real quick? I... ah, dropped something.”

Unlike several of the others, Richterite hadn't packed a kit full of survival gear. It wasn't that he'd thought it was stupid, or that he didn't think there were things that might be considered critical needs to spending the night in what some people might have viewed as the equivalent of hell... It was more that he had no intentions whatsoever of falling asleep in the Rift, so he didn't want to bring a sleeping bag with him to risk it. He didn't think he deserved the comfort of a pillow, and he might learn something, for once, from listening to something other than the demands of his stomach.

Shuffling his cards in his hands he stepped up to Ajoite. "Count me in. Not sure bribery is needed, though. Anything has to be better than just waiting for something to pop out and go 'Boo'."