Welcome to Gaia! ::

The uniform felt awkward, the power coursing through his limbs felt positively alien. How long did it take to get used to it? Were people meant to? The Transformation hardly seemed a natural process. We are become the warriors and The Teeth of Fenris.

He wasn't ready yet to confront a scout in battle. Or anyone really. He didn't know much about 'fighting' anyway. Just the basics- hit someone hard enough and they'll stop moving. Which was frightening easy for him normally, let alone pumped up with magic. So he walked.

Nothing new, just the business district that he was already familiar with from shopping now and again for gifts or stopping for coffee. It was surreal to do so for the first time not fearing wholesale that some dark, black thing was going to come out of the shadows and try to consume all that he was. He understood he wasn't immune, as a lieutenant, but he was no longer as choice and vulnerable a target. He looked at the window displays as he walked, pulling idly at the epaulet strap that crossed his chest. He ignored the faint reflection of himself in the night-mirrored surfaces of the glass.

He didn't much like the skull. It looked fearful. It made sense that a warrior woudl WANT to look intimidating, but didn't the bad guys or savages usually wear the black with the bones all over them? Just from a general PR standpoint, good guys didn't dress like he was dressed. Bones and skulls meant things like death, violence, and the ending of whatever- limitations on time. 'Titanlåvenite' stopped where he was and looked up at the sky above- teaming with clouds and wind and winking lights beyond the furthest canopies.

Titanlåvenite didn't actually make much note of the nearby Chaos signature until it was literally standing next to him speaking. He hadn't expected to be on anyone's radar, really, being new and one of the many pieces of hay in a veritable haystack of agents. And he wasn't exactly up to anything either. Sh he startled at first, looking over at the smaller uniformed man a moment before blinking his brain into working up a worded response. "God kveld*...."

"Vegetables? I've eaten them, ja...?" Good or bad, that pick up line was completely lost on the slow bear. "Vegetables are what food eats, though."

He turned completely to the stranger, taking in the long coat and hat. Certainly looks more like an official uniform than this shirt I can't seem to keep fastened shut. More professional, anyway. At least magic can make a uniform in my size to begin with. "We are allies, I think? You feel...the same as I do. "

"I'm-" he paused a moment again, stumbling mind before mouth. No, he wasn't Björn like this. He offered out a hand, "Lieutenant Titanlåvenite."



*Good Evening (norwegian)

"I don't think that there is very much of an actual 'court'. " His memories of the conversation were hazy. He'd spoken to Lady Pomona some months ago, wondered if she would speak to him now. If they could speak. Did they have to attack each other? It hadn't seemed it then, and she'd seemed very reasonable and willing to look at shades of grey.

Buddingtonite didn't look or feel any more grey than Titan did himself. "Buddy? I guess they are long. Titanlåvenite is. 'Titan' is fine if you want."

Titan didn't look impressed or unimpressed. He just looked considering. "But we are knights, I think. 'Corrupted' ones. From places with royals. Who knows if either of us are just alien as well, or if we belong any more than they on this Earth."

He gestured broadly and vaguely around them, then to Buddingtonite's uniform and his own. "We're all from Earth now. It's just a matter of who rules. That is the difference. The rest is definitions. You define yourself as good? Our symbolism doesn't match it."

As his attention focused more on Buddingtonite's answers, and therefore on the other lieutenant himself, Titan couldn't help but notice the other man's eyes kept wandering. In a once over sort of way. Or directly to the open part of the shirt over his chest. Was he seriously checking him out?

He didn't know.

He was still answering with perfectly clarity, so Buddy's focus at least.....was still attending the conversation. Then there was that last bit that sounded like something creepy depictions of ***** said in public service announcements aired during rain days of gym class to students. Trying to warn them not to get into windowless vans alone. Tell anyone what exactly? It just sounded like allusions to 'kiss and tell'. Not that the guy was bad looking or anything. But this was a street corner, not a bar.

Maybe being a street corner makes it worse...

Titan frowned a little, "I'm wearing bones and you look like a Nazi, Buddy."

Graceful conversation point, followed up by another, "Are you checking me out?"

Titan was fairly certain that in the entire country worth of World War soldiers, there were men and women who had looked just fine in their uniforms. Also, it was a bit confusing as to how 'looking good' in a uniform was a notch off the creepo-factor of evil. If you were looking like evil, looking like sexy evil didn't negate the evil half of that two-word construction. "I'm not certain how it makes a difference..."

"Not that it isn't ...true." He conceded carefully, leaning back a little in stance to regard the other lieutenant more 'casually'. The red-head certainly had a more classically masculine-handsome thing going on with the sideburns. It was hard to tell much more other than a decent enough "v" silhouette, from shoulders to waist, because of the length and cut of the coat. 'Buddy' wore it well, and had his posture right - straight backed and confident. " 'Confidence makes the man', I have heard."

"As for what i would do, I would think you have big aspirations. " And he wasn't sure of which kind. "And I'm, more ...or ...less taken. So it's kind of you...but I am not looking. "

Not that he wasn't certain he wasn't already on Obsidian's hunting menu. He didn't know how that worked now that he was WITHIN the fold of the Negaverse. Did he have to follow orders of that sort? Did Buddingtonite? But just saying he himself wasn't looking he didn't expect would be enough to convince a confident creeper to back off. Getting into the direct and active awareness of the red-haired General seemed a losing proposition for both of them. "At least I wouldn't advise more than looking. I think I am already owned."

A glad ownership, even if it wasn't a safe one.

That worked a lot faster than he was expecting. Titan blinked, impressed. "Well, looking is free anyway. ....Thank you...I think."

"Honestly, you could see more if I'm out of uniform at training." Gym clothes were less covering by necessity. "As a performer, really, I don't or shouldn't mind. I'm just out of sorts..."

Beneath the uncertainties caused by life changes, he really did feel beholden, and glad to be so, to Obsidian. The strength that coursed through him now was owed the General. Power to act, to become something greater than bystander or chattel. He couldn't ever repay that debt, except by excelling. By making plastic and flimsy a hammer honest steel and thunder. But concern seeded still grew there, planted by instinct and watered by Pomona- was Obsidian alright? Was there anything to do for repairing what was unhinged in so great a man ?

Buddingtonite was offering help, they were allies....maybe he knew answers after all. There was no success except in trying. "How far can our orders go? "

Could they be ordered to suicide? It wasn't as though they could complain to the government they'd known and lived under with different names. That the Negaverse was separate was certain. So how many of any rights did they really have? "I ....follow my service beneath my lord. I am glad of it. But I don't...know how modern or old fashioned ....this service is. I know what I am willing to do, but I don't know what can or will be asked. Do you?"

"Is there one among our own that you swear to?"

Listening to Buddy's explanation was good. He'd been brief on it all, but he needed it more than once and more than one way to really have much sink in, especially with so little time yet passed. He wasn't sure he himself fit into any of the three branches. Infiltration would take cunning, gathering information would take having a brain of some sort-either to wheedle information or to even remember it all to report it accurately, and the special operations needed to be ....something. Frighteningly devoted and good, maybe. And here he was, already questioning the wisdom of his heart's pledges. Then Buddingtonite spoke the answer to his hardest question, and Titan quirked out of his mix of attention and consideration.

"That's a bold statement." It was toned with surprise, at least, instead of offense or derision. It wasn't the answer he'd expected at all from anyone. Surely there was always someone better, more equipped, experienced, some noble worth learning and inheriting from? It struck like hubris, that this man, only a lieutenant, would think himself so elevated that in himself was the only source of solidity and betterment. The source of the drive for those things, yes, but steel did not forge.

If Buddingtonite succeeded in all his aims, then he was proven founded in all his personal estimations. The tone lifted in question even if the phrase wasn't, "I guess... it is only pride if you fail. "

"I oath to General Obsidian, and follow where his steps go. I guess that means I must try to live up to the SpecOps. I believe that is the division he serves." Uncertainty knit Titan's brow. "I would that I were so worthy as you, Buddingtonite."

"Well,....the foam and plastic...it doesn't hold up well to swinging really hard. I mean...I guess it would sting badly to get hit hard with foam. Like in dodgeball in gym class when someone who plays baseball throws. But it's still just foam. "

"Better to use fists, ja? If I can get a hold of someone. " Titan heaved a sigh, "You were given a pinwheel? As the shiny paper kind? What are you supposed to do with that?"

At least a hammer, even foam, was an approximation of something weapon shaped. There had been warhammers in days of yore. "I have never heard of a war pinwheel. "

War. Pinwheel.

" I am so sorry. "

Pinwheel.

"If you ever need help, you will call, ja? Don't fight sushi with a pinwheel."

The comment about Specs needing strength? He hoped that was all they needed. If they were looking for much more, they'd bought a draft horse at auction when they should have been looking at the Akhal-Teke. Where there going to be exams of any sort, like school or apprenticeships? He could pass a fitness exam. Not anything written, that was for sure. Did they have some sort of secret code, negaAlphabet and language? Maybe Lieutenants didn't have to worry about that sort of thing. He squinched his nose, antsy. "Maybe we should keep walking. Standing still is standing a target, even if we look like comic convention costumers to everyone else. "

Everyone else being ubiquitous language for civilians, lacking broad hand gesture.

PINWHEEL.