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Twelve hours of sleep and something like sixteen hours of anime -- in other words, Veer's usual schedule, once upon a time -- and nowhere in that time had Veer quite remembered that he needed to eat. It meant it was about one in the morning when he finally ventured out in search of something other than the contents of the fridge. There wasn't a cent in his pocket, which meant he had to innovate.

It meant powering up into uniform. It meant a bit of trouble, and a bit of theft.

At this hour, there was only one lone young man sitting in the Chinese restaurant, and one bored-looking staff member running both the desk and the kitchen. A dark-moon Super, all on his own, would have very little trouble easing in while the one was in the kitchen and drain the other.

Then steal his dumplings.

Al-Janah was humming as he left the restaurant, take-out box in hand and a dumpling in his mouth, to make his way down the street. Not toward home, not yet. He'd wander a bit, first.

A beacon; Al-Janah paused with a second dumpling almost in his mouth, the box clutched under one arm, and considered the white moon light that flared up like a signal on radar. He, at least, knew what it meant, was even well-versed enough to realize one very important thing: easy target.

With a hum, he downed the rest of the dumpling and took off at a quiet trot -- keeping in close to the buildings, dark against dark, and eating as he followed her down the street. He had, after all, been looking for trouble, and this seemed like just the ticket.

A year ago, Al-Janah would have charged blindly into the hallway, unthinkingly tumbling into just about any trap. Now, instead, he hesitated. He paused. He counted to about ten, took the time to finish off the last dumpling, and then eased around the corner to trigger whatever might be waiting.

He was lucky that Lyceum was even less well versed in these things than he was.

Newbie that she was, at a glance she might think he was a regular senshi: a fuku outlined in the light of the street, a silhouette that hid much of the black. As her eyes adjusted, though, he'd come into focus as the DMCer he was. She just needed to learn what that meant.

He squinted at her, too, eyebrows raised in a somewhat speculative sort of way. "Lost?"

Al-Janah still held the dumpling box -- now empty, except for the leftover juice and the small pot of dipping sauce. He considered it for a moment, and then the retreating knight, and took the only logical course of action.

He threw it at her.

Of course, he wasn't a very good shot. It meant that he missed her head, and the box was more likely to careen off her shoulder, to smash against the narrow alley wall. No way it would do damage, but it would probably splatter her with the aforementioned goopy, cold, salty-and-sticky contents.

"Good thing I'm not one, then, huh?"

For a moment, Al-Janah thought about that -- crossing his own arms in a mirror of her own, cocking a hip out to one side, and raising both eyebrows. His reply, when it came, was clever enough to leave him pleased with himself, but perhaps dumb-enough to leave her rolling her eyes:

"Good thing you're not one, then, huh?" And there it was, his flash of a grin, his chin raised an his eyebrows narrowed as he took her in.

"What are you supposed to be?"

"I'm fully into the realm of miniskirted warrior of...well, not of justice, at least." He echoed her again, in an easy sort of way: hand settling onto his hip, as well, and his jaw tipped up. It didn't look like her insults had hit, judging from the grin on his face, but in reality that was just a veneer laid over some annoyance. He actually was a bit sensitive about the damned tiara. Fingers crossed for something better at eternal --

"Al-Janah, Super Senshi of the Dark Mirror Court." He didn't bow. He wasn't a gallant gentleman, nor a knight in shining armor, as they'd already established...and she wasn't a lady, anyway. Also established. He grinned again.

"I think you were expecting something else. I'm here to kick your a**."

Al-Janah even let her go about ten paces, head tipped to the side to consider that a**, poorly obscured by the tight costume she wore. She had a point there, at least, one that raised his eyebrows and his shoulders in a quick shrug, but not one that changed his opinion --

"Janah Rake." It was rolling, amused, and she'd miss the careless gesture that went along with it, Al-Janah's finger up toward the sky. She'd be less likely to miss the shriek from above, the circling, ghostly falcon above her.

"One more step and he'll take your eyes out."

She'd get it: the bird diving from above to rake its claws down her spine, to shred the back of her costume. It wasn't, probably, enough to do any real damage, to leave lasting scars -- but it was enough to draw blood, and to leave angry rents in the cloth. Had he used his stronger attack, she would have been knocked to the ground, too; as it was, at most, she'd be off-balance.

Still, perhaps that was long enough for him to swallow a few steps between them, his tone dry and his movements casual. "Interested or not, you put on your outfit this morning. And painted a huge target on your back. Want to try that again?"