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It wasn't as if Virgo Outpost were a huge place; only rumors of monsters down the road and a strange sense of obligation to the Zodiac's Captain were keeping Babylon Squire at his chosen post. There was work to be done, of course, and he felt lingering guilt that he was Finn Derouen under his glamour, and not 'Menachem.'

But back to the fact that Virgo Outpost wasn't terribly huge: Even with people coming and going, you eventually became familiar with who made up the general populace. Babylon had heard the mention of another Mercury Knight stationed at the temple, and that was enough to make him want to stick around even more, jumping at shadows and keeping a weather eye out in search of someone else wearing blue sigils and unseasonable fur.

His luck had been less than stellar. So far, no fabled Mercury Knight had materialized, or else he'd kept just barely missing her. Worse than phone tag and worse than a wild goose chase - because where could she be?

Maybe she'd already left for some other outpost, thought Babylon lowly as he made his way through the groves. Running another unbidden errand for Virgo, clearly, in search of more of her missing possessions. More than that, though, he was in search of her praise. After managing to make the senshi cry, he wanted more than anything to make her smile.

The squire paused between two trees, listening. Was that a crunching of leaves he heard? Was there someone else in the groves besides him?

Really it was the Ke$ha that should have clued him in. Babylon turned towards the source of the singing, curious to see who in the vicinity shared his musical tastes. He got an eyeful of blue: blue fur, blue coat, blue hair, blue light. It was blue all up in this joint and underneath all of it was a girl singing his favorite tune and rocking a Mercury sigil.

Babylon broke into a wide grin. Sometimes these things just fell into your lap!

"Well," wisecracked the squire, waving his arms to flag the girl down. "I'd say the party has definitely started since you walked in." He smiled crookedly at her, momentarily too giddy to really say much else because look, look, wasn't he just the cat who got the canary now? Because he'd found the other Mrcury knight and she was blue and she was glowing and she was so, so definitely real.

Let's not lie: as far as first meetings went, it was a bit awkward. "I'm Babylon of Mercury!" he introduced himself. "And I've been looking for you! Well, not stalker looking for you just looking for you looking for you because everyone said you exist and you do! I mean, whoever you are. I didn't catch your name. Just that you exist."

Yes, Finn. She obviously exists because she is standing right in front of you.

Oh. How awkward. Babylon grinned sheepishly at the blue-haired girl, trying to set her at ease. He didn't exactly think of himself as a particularly threatening-looking person, but you never knew. "Well, it's kinda just me," he admitted. "Personal quest. I'm of Mercury, you're of Mercury?"

The fireworks he'd imagined were clearly failing to materialize. Babylon fiddled with his lantern. "Anyways, I just wanted to... meet you?" he supposed. "You like Ke$ha?"

Babylon was, like, the biggest fan. His smile regained some of its usual spark. "I'm really, really glad to meet you!" he assured her, sticking out a gloved hand. "It's always cool to meet someone else from Mercury. You're, like, number two?" Well, her and Lina. He couldn't remember meeting anyone else.

"You know Lina, too?" beamed Babylon, recalling the conversation he'd had with the other Mercury knight just the other day. He was fond of Lina - maybe even excessively so, but in a platonic way. "Isn't she fabulous?" It was an adjective he was usually pretty reserved in using, but Lina had earned it.

"I have," he nodded, reflecting with mixed feelings on his three trips to his city. The ruins were stunning, to be sure - "It's sort of a mix of Safed and Petra, do you know Petra? Buildings carved into the walls of a canyon - it's in Indiana Jones?" He didn't really expect her to know Safed; Babylon only knew to compare it to Safed because he'd been there. "It's a little bit... Venice with staircases instead of canals."

Not the best description, but he thought it got the job done. "My ancestor's... kind of a jerk, though," the squire added. He was trying to think better of the ancient knight, but it was slow progress.

"Have you been to Hesperis?" he asked, equally curious. "What is it? A city? A park? Something else?"

"That's really cool," breathed Babylon, trying to imagine a cavernous city. "Mine's got all these lamp posts," he said, "Like it's supposed to be some kind of beacon?" He hoisted his lantern demonstrably. "I'm supposed to be able to light them all, but I can't yet."

His ancestor seemed exceedingly disappointed with his inability to light the lamps, but it was kind of difficult to do so when the old man wouldn't tell him where to find the Wick.

"I'd take cryptic and old-fashioned over Bitchy Dumbledore any day of the week," shrugged the squire, scratching his neck sheepishly. "Glowing seems like it's a Mercury thing, wouldn't you say?"

He glanced around the leaf-strewn grove. "Do you think we should look around for some of the stuff Virgo is missing while we're here?" he asked.

"I don't know, exactly," replied Babylon, pursing his lips as he began to search, dipping his toes into the gently lambent piles of leaves. "Altar stuff," he supposed after a moment, thinking back to what he'd recovered for the captain a few days ago. "Things that look fancy. I mean, I don't know how it would have wound up in here if it belongs inside, but who knows."

He shrugged exaggeratedly at Hesperis for emphasis. "It is a mystery," the squire declared in a hollow voice. Hammy, really. He stuck his arm into a leaf pile and gave a cry.

"Help! Help! Something's got me!" shouted Babylon, thrashing against some invisible foe deep within the root tangle.

Babylon yanked his hand (apparently unharmed) out of the tangle and stared up at Hesperis. "Your glowstick," he said, staring at the pole Hesperis had just summoned out of thin air, "is way bigger than my glowstick." A glowstick that, strictly speaking, he no longer possessed. Cal it bo-staff envy. It was a Thing.

Holding up his steady hand, he signalled for her to stop shoving the thing at the tree. "Clearly," said Babylon, trying his best to keep a straight face, "You've never seen Roman Holiday." Pity. Vacation on an asteroid and no one here had decent tastes in movies. He supposed he'd survive. At the very least, his ploy had gotten Hesperis to show him hers.

"I like this, though," he said, leaning in to get a better look at the bo-staff. He held his lantern up for comparison. "I bet you can do some serious damage with that! And. You know. Altar stuff. Virgo's been looking for it."

"We should team up," cracked Babylon, getting to his knees and beginning to search in earnest through the leaf litter. "Tie my lantern to your stick, make it a mace, get more range - we'd be unstoppable." His gloves reached dirt. Babylon inched around the tree, brushing more leaves around.

"Augh, the first thing was so easy to find, it was just kinda staring at me!" Babylon got to his feet and moved to another tree. "It'll probably be metal, and, like, Greco-Roman? Because Virgo's all Greco-Roman?" Well, he'd gotten it backwards but it was descriptive enough. "I know she's still missing stuff, and she'd probably like us a whole lot if we found something-"

Getting Virgo to like him was pretty high on Babylon's list right now. "What do you mean, you don't get to see movies often?" He asked Hesperis with a frown. That almost sounded criminal. "Besides, Roman Holiday is ancient, I mean, it has Audrey Hepburn in it. It's got to be ancient." He even thought it pre-dated his dad, and that was hard to do.

"It's cultural literacy or something, it's a classic, if anyone ever offers you the chance to watch it, you take it, understand?" He shot her a level glance, just to be sure she was taking him seriously.