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Things had changed in this city, and all it took was a single night, created from a mixture of too much alcohol, a nagging sixteen year old, and a beautiful, spear-wielding psychopath. Richard Moreau may have been highly intoxicated that night, but no amount of alcohol could remove the images from his mind and the truth that he had seen. This city, his home, seemed to have been the battlegrounds of some strange turf war, and he somehow got dragged into it.

Well, not necessarily. It wasn't like one of them grabbed him by the throat and pulled him into the fray. In fact, at the first chance he got, he actually turned tail and ran, leaving the crazy spear lady and the black-and-white tiger... thing... to continue their little duel. He didn't stop moving until he had gotten home, and even then, he thought little of the subject until the next day, when the booze wore off and Baldwin's slobbery wet tongue assisting him in chasing away the lingering remains of his drunken stupor. Two things had hit him hard the next morning: the first and least important of the two was a killer hangover, but the second and more important, the rumors that he had willfully ignored up until now was true.

Richard wasn't sure which pill he took, the red or the blue (never did finish watching that movie), but regardless, he was now aware that something was going on in Destiny City, and part of him was eager to find out exactly what. Even now, as he was closing shop, closing the till and storing the register drawers in the safe, his mind was preoccupied by something besides his candy and his ongoing desire to chase tail. "How long has this been going on, and how the hell did I not get involved sooner?"

Thankfully, the last of his night shift had already left, so there was no one to talk to besides himself. No one to hear his thoughts or answer his questions, but he was curious if he wanted to find the answers. Which would have been better? Avoiding whatever was going on and keep pretending that he was merely imagining things that night (and perhaps the person that did hit him was, in fact, a truck and he was damn lucky to be alive), or would it be worth venturing down the rabbit hole, which meant to pick a side. And if so, which one?

"How on Earth can I possibly THINK of this without Mr. Daniels here..." Thankfully, with no one there, there was no one to stop him for reaching for his trusted whisky bottle (he was out of Bourbon again and a glass. No point in rushing home just yet, and he had gone three whole days without an indulgent, though this time he was content on limiting himself. The last thing Richard wanted was to run into another one of them in a pisspoor drunk state again! "This time, if I see one, I'll only be lightly buzzed, but aware and alert!"

Though, what were the odds of it happening again? About the same odds that Krishna from across the street would actually close his shop early and walk him home, he thought was a wry laugh, as he took his first shot.

Had the Candyman been less concerned with his liquor du jour, he might have noticed that, indeed, closed early. The bars on the windows had been set into place; the lights were out. It was uncharacteristic of the shop. The last time it had closed early was so that Krishna could attend the wedding of a family friend--a once in a lifetime event. Failing to operate outside of its normal business hours indicated that something unusual was going on.

The florist could not walk Richard home, however, because he currently walked with his General-King. As Lieutenant Serpentine, his uniform of golden brown and green were conspicious in their brightness. He was unashamed, and unconcerned; the thought that he could be anything but safe, particularly under Zinkenite's gaze, was laughable. Serpentine brushed a rare, roving bee from his uniform before ticking off 'the basics'--not so much as a question but a statement to verify he had understood, " I train. Fight Senshi. Attend meetings in the Rift. Gather energy."

Serpentine was not impatient, but he could be frustrated. It shone in his eyes as much as desire, not for a person, but for the power needed to wield more tools. He looked to the snake in his hands. It had proven to be a worthier instrument than he first imagined, but it was not what he wanted. What he needed. "I am ready. Tell me how I may prove it to you, if you doubt."

Several others had been demanding that the lieutenant prove himself in his short time in the Negaverse. Remarque, the youma (at least according to Bazzite and Wolframite), even the Senshi, it seemed, who continued to challenge him. The proud man felt no need to prove himself to them. This man in blue and black, the one who had given him his dark gift and helped him pull together his broken shop, was the only one who he sought to please besides himself. Zinkenite had given him the first keys to exacting his revenge: power and purpose. Serpentine wanted more.

“It seems.” Zink said after a time. “That we have someone following us.” He cast a glance discretely back over his shoulder at the person who was wending his slightly inebriated way behind them. The man had been there for some time, and while if he’d been sober he might have been more discrete, there were enough miss-steps and small stumbles that he was notable, despite his mortality.

“Someone you know?” He inquired, more as a tease than as a serious or studious guess about the nature of the man. “I wonder if we should see what he’d like.”

There was a hint of a dark look in his eyes though, a level of deep-seated suspicion. Whatever he suspected the man to be up to, or that he suspected he might be up to rather, wasn’t good.

Richard thought he was being stealthy. Even slightly inebriated, he felt that his footsteps were light and that his swaying was done at a minimum. Why, he didn't even talk to himself! At least, that's what he thought. Either he was much more drunk than he thought he was, or this organization he was following had super sonic hearing. Richard was willing to believe more in the latter, since it seemed that they were completely capable of teleporting. Or just moving very subtly and fast. Richard was drunk, it could have easily have been that!

So when someone, Richard assumed it was one of them, snuck up behind him and tried to wrap a weapon around his neck, he did what any self respecting man would have done in that situation. He brought a hand up to the weapon and was going to beg, but it seemed that his assailant had loosened his grip, and this would have given him the chance he needed to work on his sales' pitch.

Not that Richard wasn't GRATEFUL, and at least he wasn't spared from death in the same fashion as last time (though with the way he glanced around him, one could see that he was looking for a sign of a roaming senshi). He tried to relax into that hold and the way he held his hands up showed that he had no weapons and meant no harm. He tried to look back at the man that held him, all the while keeping the other in his line of sight- he knew who was the higher ranking one between the two, as no amount of alcohol could mask the authoritative aura that the one in black and blue seemed to possess.

"Yes, I have no idea who this fellow is, but he's right. I'm completely harmless! Not a single weapon on me- feel free to check if you don't believe me!" No, he didn't recognize this guy, but he seemed to have known him. Richard SHOULD have been suspicious of this, but in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't going to push the subject yet. Not until he was certain he'd come out of this alive. He couldn't get a good look at the one that held him, so eventually he gave up, but that didn't stop him from addressing him. "Forgive me for following you, but I have some important business to discuss with the two of you, involving this war and your organization. Do hear me out before you try to take my head or heart?"

This wasn't what he had in mind, but after his encounter with the woman with the spear, should he have really been surprised? Still, he was fairly certain he could talk his way out of this situation, if need be... 'Charm, don't fail me now!'

The stench of liquor was offensive to Serpentine as well, his nose crinkling in distaste. Yet, if he were being honest, he was somewhat used to it. Richard often stumbled about drunk or at least tipsy. Overindulgence was his business partner's greatest weakness, from what the florist had observed. Whether it be alochol, sex, or feeding Baldwin two whole packs of bacon and then panicking over his resulting stomach ache. Still, he could not help but be... intrigued. The confectioner was bold, but he was not blindly bold. Whatever 'business' he had to speak of, he clearly thought it was important.

"We have no interest in your wares," the lieutenant warned, daring to add something after his General-King had finished speaking. He felt the warning fair, however, given the links to which he had seen the red-head go to sell candy. "Unless you mean other business?"

A bitter laugh indeed for a moment, a wicked look in those pale blue eyes accompanied by a small shake of his head before he spoke in reply to the initial question “No, candy would not help the cause, I know that very well to be sure.”

He straitened as the man stepped boldly closer, eyes narrowing in some distaste as the pang of alcohol increased with proximity.
“Attacked was it…” He sounded amused. “Well, we can’t have that can we… terrible, I can’t –imagine- why anyone would do such a thing.”

Hard to miss the slightly sarcastic edge to his voice, but there must have been something like good humor in him at that moment to so risk a drunken unknown. Else… he was banking on the apparent knowledge of the Lieutenant beside him, who seemed to know something of the drunk.

“I think, were I you, I might have asked the cost of failure… but then, I never had the chance to ask questions either.”

He touched a hand lightly to Richard’s chest as though he meant to push him back out of his personal space, tilted his head slightly to one side with a smile creasing the corners of his eyes.

“Welcome to the dark Kingdom Lieutenant, I hope you’ll be sober enough to survive.”
His hand plunged into the chest he’d been so lightly touching, sinking in as easily as though it had been a pool of water to touch the warmth of the star seed within, and introduced to it the cold and pain of chaos.

Cost of failure? Survive? Richard may have been intoxicated, but he was sober enough to pick up on such key details like that. He wasn't quite sure what he was expecting when he was plotting out this scenario in his head, but the light touch to his chest hardly bothered the candy maker. It wouldn't have been the first, or last time, another being would touch him in such a manner, and he was more than prepared for his rejection to come in the form of a push. After all, the other one, the one with the spear, was more than willing to end his life or so he assumed- why should he think that this one wouldn't have tried the same? He didn't resist the touch and was prepared to step back, knowing that he had at least tried to get in on this 'deal', but that was when Zinkenite mentioned the word 'survive', and the sight of that hand passing through his chest simply blew the drunken man's mind.

Or would have, if the sensation of pain didn't cut through his entire body, chasing away any and all remnants of the fresh alcohol in his system and doing a fantastic job in sobering him up. He looked down at the hand that was in his chest, opening his mouth to say something along the lines of 'what the hell are you doing and HOW are you doing that', but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a strangled cry, and Serpentine's sudden grip was surprisingly welcomed.

He had no shame in admitting to the pain he felt, and in truth, he wanted to be able to tell others about it. The bitter cold feeling that was introduced into him and beginning to spread throughout him, not at all smooth but like jagged crystals made him scream, but he wanted to tell others about his ordeal later. Because that meant that he'd survive, and there was nothing Richard wanted more than to survive. Survive. Survive this pain. Survive this new sensation that pulsed through his veins and body. Survive this war that he had volunteered to join, when he could have easily tried to stay out of it. Richard wanted to survive...

Survive for Baldwin. Survive for his candy store. Survive... for himself.

Something inside of him snapped- perhaps that was the chaos that finally consumed his entire starseed, all of its shine, luster and warmth swallowed whole by the darkness that General-King Zinkenite introduced it to. Just when the pain had become almost too much to bear, it happened, a part of him that once laid dormant, waiting, gave a mournful cry, before it, too, became lost in that overwhelming darkness. A darkness that he willingly welcomed into him, a darkness that now pulsed through him, so much that the world had faded into black before him, consuming the street lights, Zinkenite, and Serpentine. Richard was scared of the dark, but only for a moment... he shouldn't be afraid. He had to survive.

It was as though someone had finally decided to flip a switch, and standing before General-King Zinkenite and still in Serpentine's hands was a man that was happy to have survived. The pain had died away, bit by bit, but not too quickly. And he didn't want it to. He savored the last lingerings of pain, the fact that he could feel the pain was enough to tell him that he was alive. He had survived, and that made the newly awakened lieutenant laugh. That, too, brought some pain, but he didn't question it. He merely looked to the general-king before him, giving a breathless sigh, before sputtering out his words. "Well... that was certainly enlightening."

He continued to laugh until the pain was completely gone, and he waited for the two officers to release him. He was waiting for something else, though he wasn't quite sure what it was. A name? Rank? He knew his rank already. It was Lieutenant. Zinkenite had said as much. Name? It was Richard Valentine Moreau. Or was it? No, that was a different identity. This one required a different name, and he waited to be addressed, to ashamed to admit that he wasn't quite sure what his name would be. He had survived the painful ordeal... surely he could survive a few more seconds of being nameless.

Serpentine held onto Richard's arms as tightly as possible, his face hardening as the other man screamed. It reminded him of his own initiation. He could not--would not--interupt such a ritual. When the General-King's task was done, he would not have known that the lieutenant he held was the booze and woman loving Richard Moreau, candymaker. The black and red uniform, the military chapeau... those did not catch his gaze as much as the twin roses, little blood-red blossoms at the hat and coat.

When he was addressed, the green-and-gold clad lieutenant released the newly awakened Negaverse officer to allow him to stand on his feet. If he was to act as the guide for Richard--no, Serpentine corrected himself mentally, Buddingtonite--, then the lessons would begin now. They might be partners... of a sort, but he would not support him forever.

The florist bowed to Zinkenite, partially out of respect and partially to retrieve his 'weapon' from the ground. When he straightened to his full height, Serpentine tucked the snake into his sash and uttered three simple words, "As you command."

Then, his attention belonged entirely to Buddingtonite. He did not know where his business partner lived, but he was apparently going to find out. As well as spend much more time with him. The aloof man preferred solitude... but orders were orders. "Lead on, Buddingtonite."