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There really was nothing about her dress that suggested warrior. Hvergelmir Page often had this same thought, each time she came out patrolling and found her dress snagging on uneven pavement, or picking up trails of rocks and sticks in its extra yard of train, or simply each and every time -- and there were many -- that she took a step forward and tripped.

She tried to convince herself this was a good thing. After all, she was learning about her physical capacity, be it her reflexes to catch herself on her hands when she toppled over, or her ability to land face-first on asphalt without sustaining heavy scratches or knocking loose a tooth. Laney couldn't have boasted the same remarkable constitution, certainly -- but as Hvergelmir, she was built of sturdier stuff. So she tried to look at it in a positive light.

But mainly, and particularly on the few occasions where she had run into youma, her costume's chief contribution was in nearly getting her killed. Having to constantly use one hand to keep her dress out of her way was crippling, and forced her to rely more heavily on hitting things with her distaff and hoping she didn't die in the process. She had no idea why any warrior would be outfitted with something like this as their ancestral warrior garb -- a question which came second in her mind only to this other question: why would anyone be drafting cosmic warriors to defend the universe and choose Laney Sutton to inherit that mantle, of all people? Who in their right mind would choose Laney for anything?

"If there are any monsters planning on terrorizing the populace, it would be really fantastic if you could get a move on with that before ten o'clock," she said boredly into the night air. "I mean, just because, you know -- Psych comes on then, and it's one of the Cary Elwes episodes."

No answer came, of course -- and after a few moments of debating if she should just sit down on a park bench somewhere and whether this was statistically any different from actually walking around on monster-patrol, she managed to force herself to pick up her skirt again and keep walking.

Besides, walking around looking for monsters was the only part of her job she was any good at, so far. She figured she should probably at least stick to that, play it up a little. Hvergelmir Page, official team expert at walking around in circles. For justice.

Hvergelmir stumbled as the stranger landed in front of her, and for once it wasn't caused by her bulky dress. She dropped the fabric entirely, hands flailing out in a brief windmill motion to catch her balance again.

The woman wasn't a regular old human being, not with the way she could jump, or how she was dressed. She felt different, too -- the same powerful vibes she'd felt when she'd encountered youma, or when she'd met Buddingtonite. Worrying vibes -- they made Hvergelmir's stomach queasy.

The memory of her last experience, and the possibility that Buddingtonite had sicced his comrades on her like he'd suggested he was capable of doing, made her wary.

She took a step back, then, slowly, bent down to gather up her skirts again in case she needed to run.

They looked, for an instant, very much the handsome couple about to take up a waltz: Schorl's hand outstretched to lead her to the floor, Hvergelmir curtsying in response.

"I don't dance very well," she answered, her eyes fixed on the riding crop rather than the person holding it. Hvergelmir imagined this stranger was probably more skilled at wielding it than she was with her distaff. "Are you with the -- Negaverse army?"

True to Schörl's prediction, Hvergelmir had her eyes on the riding crop that was front and center in her vision, and wasn't anticipating the kick that came instead. She fell back a little, which was all she could do to react belatedly to the oncoming strike, but the brunt of the attack still caught her in the stomach. She crumpled forward, just managing to keep to her feet. Before she'd gotten her powers, that kind of a blow would've sent her reeling, knocked to the ground and coughing for air. At least now a single kick didn't incapacitate her anymore.

That much was good news, since people and monsters seemed to intend for her to do quite a bit of fighting.

"But why?" she asked desperately, every human instinct she possessed still telling her not to fight. In her young life, she'd never been in a physical fight before she'd gotten her powers, and she'd always assumed she'd never have to. Surely if anyone was going to want to punch her someday, it would have to be because of some kind of misunderstanding, and once they talked it out, everyone would walk away feeling better about things. The idea of someone hating her for something generally gave Laney vague bouts of anxiety and the desire to simultaneously redeem herself to them and yet, also, to hide in a corner far, far away. She just couldn't conceive of a problem that could be solved with violence, other than faulty vending machines.

"The war that started this was hundreds of years ago!" she insisted, scrambling backwards and putting her arms up in front of her to vaguely shield her face. She really was a terrible combatant. "Everyone who fought in it died. Why do we have to fight now? What are you so afraid of happening that you have to kill people?"

She'd never been someone who made particularly sophisticated arguments, and she didn't exactly have one to offer now, either. It was just that this part was the thing she didn't understand. Senshi and Knights fought Negaversers, Negaversers fought Senshi and Knights. But why? What was it that the other side was fighting against? Hvergelmir had been thrown straight into the fray that was this ongoing war, and she still knew so little.

Laney had never been the best student in the world, and she certainly had never been asked to make a formal logical argument while someone was attempting to beat her up before. She had, however, been a ranked spelling bee competitor, once upon a time, when she was much younger and those kinds of things had seemed important enough to matter. If there was one thing that managed not to flee her mind when she was in a panic, it the ability to define a word and use it in a sentence.

Brain space that might've been better spent on self-defense lessons, I guess, she thought to herself, falling back as Schörl's kick took her knees out from under her in a way she hadn't seen coming. Still, there it was, in the back of her mind: Oligarchy, noun. From the Greek: oligos, meaning "few," and archē, which was “rule.”

Yes, Hvergelmir knew the word. But as for what the other woman meant by her suggestion -- that some of the original combatants in the war might still be alive, that there was some sort of an army from the moon bent on ruling the Earth -- she had no idea.

In the face of the handsome, military-clad woman's obvious martial skill, Hvergelmir was at an obvious loss. Where Laney was as green as lettuce, her opponent was clearly a seasoned fighter. In a contest of arms, she had no idea how she was supposed to win.

"What oligarchy?" she said, swishing her distaff out in the empty air in front of her. She wasn't really trying to land a blow that way, she was just trying to... to what? To threaten? Hvergelmir didn't know. None of this came naturally. She just wanted the woman to stay back, however hopeless that was. "I don't see anyone trying to rule the Earth. I don't even -- I don't even know your name. Why do you want to fight me?"

A ruling minority just stumbling around like fools because they are all children. She could have easily, literally been talking not just about a group of people, but about Laney herself. That was how she felt, going out on her ridiculous, naive "patrols" in a costume she didn't understand to do a job for which she hadn't been trained. She felt like a child, playing at being a hero.

But she didn't want to stumble blindly. That wasn't a choice she was making -- she had no guidance because she hadn't been able to find any. It wasn't the same thing.

With magic, with nature, sometimes just the presence changes things. Was that how her opponent felt? Was that why she fought? For fear of change?

"You know," Hvergelmir said thoughtfully, relaxing a little at the sight of the woman's outstretched hand rather than her clenched fist, "I'm not very good at chess. But there's a chess term -- a German word, zugzwang -- it's when the best move would be no move at all, to change nothing. When you wish you could pass, because any move you can make will diminish your position. And I don't know, but somebody told me once that some people argue that it's not White that has the advantage in chess, it's Black. They say that White having the first move is a disadvantage because they start the game in zugzwang, having to move from safety and stability to uncertainty. I don't know if you get what I mean, but... is that how you feel? That you have no choice but to fight?"

Hvergelmir turned as the woman started circling her again, trying to keep her in her direct line of sight at all times. If nothing else, she could certainly tell that facing her opponent was to her advantage, if she had to fight.

"What kind of change?" she asked. So far, she still felt like there were huge missing pieces in the information she'd been given. As far as Aquarius knew, the senshi were fighting because the other side kept attacking them and killing people. What Aquarius hadn't been able to tell her was why the other side was doing that. Apparently none of her allies had a clear answer.

The Negaversers she'd encountered -- Buddingtonite, and now this one -- had answered her only vaguely, in the abstract. They fight their enemies to win, to live, to preserve their way of life. Something like that. But no one had answered, yet, why they were enemies. What caused the rift between them. That was an answer only a Negaverser could give her. "Hvergelmir," she answered the other question belatedly. "I'm Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos. What's your name?"

Her enemy seemed smart -- an intellectual, maybe a philosopher, in her way. Hvergelmir still held out hope that this could end in words and not blows.

This was going better now, Hvergelmir decided. Or, at least, she hoped it was. Schörl was being reasonable, helpful even, and they'd exchanged names. Surely that was an improvement.

They were just human beings, after all -- the Negaverse soldiers. The world wasn't populated with people who did bad things just because they were somehow inherently evil. Laney didn't believe in the concept of inherent evil.

"I'll talk to anyone I have to," she said, lowering her distaff to her side in a show of good faith. "I don't want to fight you for the wrong reasons. I mean, I don't want to fight anyone for the wrong reasons! I didn't ask to be a part of this war -- and I really, really don't want to be in it. Believe me, I so don't. I'm not a Xena Warrior Princess fighty battle person," she smiled self-deprecatingly, "obviously. But I'm in it, right?"

Hvergelmir looked down at her feet, hidden under the folds of her dress. "So I figure I have to take it seriously, whether I like it or not. I don't want you to be mad at me, it's just... the worst thing I could do when lives are at stake is to make an ignorant decision."

She twisted the fingers of her free hand anxiously in the star-spangled cloth she wore. Confrontation had never been her strength. She'd always been cowed by people's disapproval in the past, and she could feel it creeping up on her again, even now -- but this was too big, too important for her conscience to survive making another self-serving, people-pleasing choice just to avoid disappointing someone. "I don't even know if I could actually kill someone if I had a good reason, I've never had to think about it before. But I could never kill someone over something I don't understand -- not your side, and not theirs, either. I just don't have that in me. I'm sorry. I don't really know anything yet."

For a moment, all Hvergelmir could hear was the dull thudding of her heart, blood pounding with a liquid rush in her ears. All she could feel was pain, exquisitely acute, and the sick-to-her-stomach queasy feeling of internal pressure in her chest cavity, the feeling of something where it shouldn't be.

She let out a soft cry of alarm and raised her hands to try and pull Schörl away without... hurting herself somehow. Without Schörl maybe ripping out her heart Temple of Doom style.

Hvergelmir's fingers felt tingly and cold, like the circulation wasn't quite getting there. (Briefly, and with some mental distance that was probably due to shock, she wondered whether that was a natural physical response to what Schörl was doing, or just a psychosomatic reaction. Laney did get faint, after all, when she had her blood drawn, and that had always been in her head. Why not this, too?) She dug them in though, as best she could, trying her best to separate herself from her attacker and regain a position of safety. "Stop," she pleaded, gasping with effort. "Stop!"