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It was something of a personal tradition for Arian to grab a hot from the late night diner near the hospital before finding somewhere secluded to powering up into his senshi alter-ego and this evening was no exception.

Once Aikido classes were over for the evening the dark-haired teen had headed for the diner, picked up some hot chocolate before finding somewhere relatively out of the way – behind a dumpster in a nearby alley had worked – to henshin up into Athene.

Since his meeting with *********, the dark-haired senshi had tried to make sure that he remembered to bring some treats with him just in case he came across the silvery-furred guardian cat while on the patrol beat. It didn’t seem like his paths would cross those of the bell-wearing guardian cat tonight though – it seemed his patrol was shaping up to being a pretty quiet one.

Or perhaps not, it looked like thoughts of a quiet patrol had come too soon as the relative quiet of the evening was broken by the tinkle-tinkle of crystals and a voice cheerfully calling out his name. As he turned in the direction of the voice Athene realised that he recognised the Page – Sutai – a fellow Shepherd. Polaris had introduced them on that second trip (at least second for him) to the Moon, although he didn’t really know her.

“Good Evening Sutai,” although quiet his voice was friendly as he smiled at the Polaris Page and he slowed down his foot steps to allow her to catch up to where he was should she choose “I hope you’re well.”

It was probably just as well that Athene had no idea that his fellow team mate was forbidding herself from touching the sash that seemed to be his outfit’s equivalent of the senshi butt bow, considering his embarrassment when she had attempted to do just that during their visit to the Moon.

Instead he nodded, waiting until she had finished directing what seemed to be a flurry of questions his way before answering “Yes I am well thank you” the dark-haired senshi had kind of managed to forget being bombarded with questions by the Page during the trip to the Moon.

“I’m glad you’re doing well as well” he gave Sutai friendly smile, he found the Sugar-Plum fairy outfitted Page kind of sweet, despite not being used to her particular brand of enthusiastic cheerfulness.

“And I agree it’s nice being part of a team.” It helped that although Athene didn’t know his fellow members that well yet, his fellow Shepherds had all come across as pretty decent.

Athene nodded “Yes I had self-defence classes earlier, but thought I’d patrol for a bit before I head home for the night.”

He shook his head at the mention of bad guys, the movement of his head causing the beads braided into his hair to tap into each other with a series of little ‘click-clack’ sounds “Actually it’s been pretty quiet tonight so far.” The biggest disturbance had been Sutai bouncing over his way in a ‘tinkle-tinkle’ of crystals – although it had been a nice disturbance – not like his usual disturbances that tended to be of the youma variety more often than not.

He looked solemn at the mention of what to with the bad guys “I’m not sure what to do with the bad guys either” he admitted quietly. “Some of them when I spoke to them didn’t seem that bad” his conversation with Remarque during his bout with the runny nose of doom had been pleasant and Virtus had seemed okay, if confused as to what was right. “But the Negaverse and Dark Mirror senshi did really bad things at that meeting of ours that they crashed.” He wasn’t sure if Sutai had been there at the large senshi and knight meeting.

Given the things that had gone down at the gate-crashed meeting, Athene was also glad that Sutai wasn’t there. “I was a little” he admitted quietly – although considering he had ended up having to go and get stiches maybe ‘a little’ was a bit of an understatement. He thought about the Nega-General who had cut him with her spear and repressed a shudder – hoping that his enthusiastic team mate never had the misfortune of crossing paths with her considering how callous she’d been.

“I’ve not heard of Lesath, but I’ve talked to Remarque too and he seemed okay” okay he’d been suffering from the mega runny nose of doom at the time, but Athene remembered that their conversation had been pleasant. “I have no idea why members of the Dark Mirror Court were attacking Knights like that though.” He bit his lip. “The Negaverse and Dark Mirror left what was left of us for the Police.” Athene remembered being terrified about the Police bursting in and finding them, worried that they might decide to shoot first and ask questions second.

“But the Moon Queen saved us by taking us to the Moon somehow” he frowned slightly. “Well her ghost did.”

“It was definitely a ghost” Athene said awkwardly. It hadn’t been his intention to upset the Polaris Page and Sutai’s reaction to his earlier comment had left him feeling flustered. “But I think that time was special.”

He bit his lip “I mean she saved all of us that night.” Well at least she’d saved all of them that were left. “And I’m really grateful that she did – but it must have taken a lot of magic.” There was a note of sincerity to his voice – he truly was grateful – Serenity’s ghost had saved him, saved them from the ‘tender mercies’ of the Destiny City Police force and to the dark-haired senshi’s mind had most likely saved their lives given the fact that he doubted that the army of Police crashing their way into the building had been doing so with the intention of trying to chat.

It also didn’t change the fact that he’d seen a ghost rather than a flesh and blood woman that night.

Athene thought it over “To be honest I don’t know” he said at last. “I know that it must have taken a lot of power to being to rescue all of us like that, but I don’t know why it happened then and not at some other time.” He bit his lip “Maybe it was because that time was really dire.” Imminent discovery by the, what had felt like an army of, Destiny City Police probably counted as dire.

At Sutai’s second question Athene shook his head slightly, the movement setting the beads to click-click against each other again “No I don’t think it bad” he said quietly before admitting quietly “To be honest before that night I had my doubts about whether the Moon Queen really existed.” He didn’t any more – having the Moon Queen’s ghost whisk them off to the Moon like that had a way of kind of squelching doubts.

He sighed before adding “I don’t think we can rely on the Moon Queen’s magic to end all of this – I think…” he hesitated briefly “I think that we’ll have to find the way ourselves. Whatever way that is.” And Athene didn’t have a clue about that either.

Was it simply enough for everyone to simply get together and use their magic to somehow do a mass purification? Privately Athene wasn’t too sure, but Sutai’s enthusiasm was infectious and he found himself smiling at the Polaris Page.

“You’re right it is a good idea” he said in agreement. “I mean we’re stronger together – much stronger than if we’re on our own and mayhaps if enough of us work together we can find the right way.” There was probably more to it than all of the Order members simply getting together, although it was a start and a start was always better than no start at all.