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Unlike some of the other senshi, Athene didn’t have a particularly fixed patrol route, although he vaguely recalled the area he was wandering today as being one of the nicer areas. It wasn’t one that he’d visited often, but the dark-haired senshi recalled occasionally picking up cupcakes from a little bakery nearby as his civilian counterpart.

It had been a quiet evening so far, few out and about as Athene sipped at his hot drink of choice – a white chocolate mocha – opting for the extra caffeine hit from the espresso over the hot chocolate that he’d been buying lately.

The dark-haired senshi was making the most of the quiet – despite only recently being back on the patrol beat Athene knew from experience that ‘quiet’ didn’t mean that craziness wasn’t lurking round the corner – this was Destiny City after all.

It hadn’t taken too long for Athene to realise that he wasn’t the only Order person out and about in the area tonight. The dark-haired senshi had picked up on the aura as he walked past a small greetings card shop.

If he was to guess Athene would say that it was that of another senshi, the aura different to one that he associated with Knights, and it didn’t feel all that far away either. Close enough to potentially check out.

For a brief moment or two Athene hesitated as he contemplated whether or not to try and attempt to find the source of the senshi aura that he’d picked up on. Not being particularly wedded to his own company eventually decided him and Athene tried his best to try and walk in the direction that he thought the aura might be coming from.

Tracking down auras was not by any stretch a perfect science, the whole thing more often a trial and error thing – unlike GPS which at least came with handy notices to let one know when they had headed off track.

Luck however seemed to be on Athene’s side this evening, or mayhaps the other senshi had just been closer than he realised, either way it didn’t seem like he’d been walking for that long before he came across the source of the aura – a senshi in blues and silver, although their outfit certainly looked almost normal as outfits went.

“Good evening” he called out to the other, his voice friendly if somewhat on the quiet side.

“I apologise for intruding” Athene thought that there had been a slight of hesitation on the other senshi’s part before the taller senshi had responded to his greeting. “I’m Sailor Athene. I picked up that there was another senshi nearby and got curious.”

A bit of hesitation on his own part, then he added quietly “However if you’d prefer to be on your own, then I’ll leave you to it.”

“True” Athene’s return smile was slightly rueful as he started walking again. Chaldene had a point – the butt wings that marked his rank of that of an eternal alone was enough to attract attention – combined as it was with the rest of his senshi outfit and Athene couldn’t help but stick out.

“It’s nice to meet you Chaldene” he said after sipping some more of the mocha he’d picked up. “Have you been a senshi long?” The dark-haired eternal knew that just because the other was based-ranked that it didn’t necessarily mean that he was also new.

Athene shook his head at Chaldene’s question about whether him being new was obvious “Not by aura it isn’t.” Granted the dark-haired eternal may have eventually come to that conclusion during their conversation, but they hadn’t been talking that long.

He added “You can tell the difference between chaotic auras – like those from the Negaverse and Dark Mirror and white moon auras – senshi and knights and you can tell different levels of strength – but not how long someone has been at the strength if that makes sense.” Athene wasn’t particularly sure that his explanation did since it had been on the rambling side.

“I don’t mind answering questions to the best of my ability if you have any.” Athene figured that if Chaldene’s awakening had been anything like his own then he’d probably been given a henshin pen, phone and told some vague thing about defending justice and preventing soul crystals being stolen – that is not a great deal.

Athene thought over Chaldene’s questions “I don’t have that much information on the Knights” he admitted. “But from I gather a Knight is what a Negaverse agent would have been if they hadn’t been corrupted. Like us they also have ranks, but theirs are Page, then Squire and finally Knight.”

He hesitated before continuing quietly “I’m not sure if you’ve been told about the whole sensing aura thing that we can all do while like this” he gestured at them both, the gesture referring to their powered up states. “But a Page’s aura would feel around the same strength as yours or a Nega Lieutenant, a Squire's aura would feel like a Super or a Nega Captain while that of a Knight would be feel around the same strength as mine or that of a Nega General. I really don't know much about Knight magic – just that Pages don't seem to get any. There's a Knight called Camelot though – he'd probably be able to tell you about Knights and their magic.”

He bit his lip before continuing “The Negaverse – they’re bad news.” Maybe there were some okay members there – after Athene remembered hearing about a Nega General who had purified to a Knight – but the dark-haired senshi’s experiences with those of the Negaverse had all been negative. “I’m not sure what their purpose is, but the youma roaming around is linked to them. And the ones I’ve met don’t seem to have any regard for other peoples’ lives.”

His voice turned flat “By the way if you sense a Nega General's aura while on your own then you should call for backup. You should probably do it it you sense a Nega Captain too – but there's at least one Nega General that seems to hate anything White Moon – as in really hate.”

Athene nodded “Yes, their auras feel darker than ours. The stronger they are the darker they feel.” He added quietly “And youma are monsters that seemed to be linked to the Negaverse.” Maybe monsters sounded a little too fantastical, but the dark-haired eternal hadn’t been able to think of a better way to label them and wasn’t aware of the fact that they had once been human.

“There doesn’t seem to be a set shape or size for them – some of them are small, others can be really big.” The snakepillar youma who had threatened his friend had been one of the bigger ones – it had taken Grus, himself and some help from ********* to dust it. “And I guess both” he admitted to Chaldene’s question.

“The youma are dangerous and will attack both civilian and white moon like us, but I was referring to the Negaverse with my comment. The encounters I’ve had with them – their members have mostly been stealing energy, and taking people’s soul crystals – also known as star seeds. They killed a bunch of people at a city council meeting about a year and a half back.”

He bit his lip before continuing “And as for the general I don’t know her name, she’s taller than me” not that hard “and has dark hair. She has a few cogs on her uniform, steam punk-ish I guess” he thought it over. “She has one in her hair too with a couple of feathers – like a hair clip.”

He hesitated before adding “Negaverse members get weapons. I don’t think it’s much at Lieutenant rank, but above that then they get dangerous – that Nega General – she carries a spear as a weapon and she doesn’t hesitate to use it.” He had the scar to prove it hidden under his uniform.