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Serpentine felt like a child preparing for school again as he checked the satchel he had brought with him to the rift. It had home-sewn patches and several discolorations, clearly old but maintained. The faded, gray fabric may not have complemented his uniform, but the bag had come from his mother. That alone made it precious and worth being kept. Inside, he had all of the tools he would need. A tape recorder. Numerous batteries. Several pens. Two legal pads, one blank, and one partially filled with notes he had taken from the database and his own, admittedly limited, experiences.

General-King Howlite had been quite explicit in her orders. She had commanded the rainbow-haired man to go and learn the hierarchy of officers throughout the Negaverse. It seemed a daunting task, and it was certainly a punishment. To be expected to run hither and thither gathering information, and then memorizing said information... rather than being out on the streets, where the true war was fought. Yet, he did not complain. It was not in his nature. If the large tasks were broken into smaller tasks, then they would become easier. It would require time and effort, but he had struggled his entire life. Why would he shy away from it now?

It had not been difficult to convince Buddingtonite to provide him a lift to the Rift. His partner would do much if the florist asked. The harder part had been swallowing back his pride enough to ask, to hide the request behind the guise of an order. Prior to the red-headed man's promotion... Serpentine had thought little of rank. He had accepted that he had to start as a lieutenant for formalities and fully expected to move up through the ranks as soon as his superiority shone through. Yet... here he remained. Unpromoted. Disciplined twice. While Richard now boasted a true weapon and a better uniform. He shook his head to clear it. Jealousy was pointless and, in its way, admitted defeat. It implied that Buddingtonite possessed something he could not. That was clearly not the case.

Serpentine wanted to be promoted to the rank of Captain--needed to be promoted. If he did an excellent job in this 'punishment' and showed that he could not only follow orders but go beyond them... then perhaps he would be one step closer. His ideal of writing up little reports to help him memorize names, as well as draw up a formal chain of command... may seem ambitious, but he was certain it would result in the commendation he craved.

The lieutenant did not believe in 'luck' as much as he did hard work... yet, the lone starseed he possessed nestled inside one of his pockets all the same. Captain Mica had shown him this particular technique, and she had shown an understanding of his potential. He would not let either of them down. That is why he approached the nearest General level energy signature that he felt in the Rift. The sooner he got started... the sooner the rubber toy in his hand would become a true weapon.

One would wonder why he would spend more time down here than necessary, considering his own punishment required he spend several hours down here. And while in the past he came down here for the peace and quiet which the Rift offered why would he want to do that now? Add to the time he had to spend here? But the answer was simple for the General - Bazzite. He'd been neglecting the youma - his youma. And he had to make up for it and that required free, personal, time of his. He had come down here expecting to easily find the other but instead he felt a mass of youmas and a Lieutenant.

Lips twisted and twitched into something of a light smile as he made his own down old broken roads, which once might have gleamed with newness. The soft click of his boots signal his approach as a few of the feral youma which Bazzite has scared off took a look to the General and continued in their fleeing. Others didn't seem to care about his prescience - he didn't care either.

Approaching the Lieutenants signature he spotted Bazzite first, as he had already been seeking him out. "Bazzite." The blonds voice was cool, calm, no longer the guilt ridden voice of mere days ago. He had to pick himself up and accept what he'd done. He needed to move on, for the person who'd been so full of life's sake. He'd ruined Bazzite's life but Bazzite, the old one, was full of life and would not want him to be as he had been. He owed it to him and his memory.

"Lieutenant." He added after a moment.

Bazzite gave a chuckle, leaning back a bit and releasing the sound skyward. With a sigh, he righted himself and nodded to his General. "I'm not anybody else, last time I checked."

When he was human, Serpentine towered over his rather petite five-foot-six. Now it was Bazzite who towered over the lieutenant, but not by much. Smelling the starseed, the youma took a few steps forward in the darkness and knelt slightly in front of the lieutenant. Lifting one clawed finger he poked the pocket where the starseed lay. Being that youma resided in the Rift, they could soak energy straight from the landscape like a sponge but it wasn't satisfying. Nothing could trump the swath of beautiful, pure energy that a starseed carried with it. This was why youma clamored over themselves to kill and take them even when they were already home.

"Are you... gonna eat that?"

While he waited for an answer, Bazzite turned briefly to his General. "Hi Beni. What brings you down here? Is there a mission?" Not that he minded in the slightest to be visited - on the contrary, Bazzite practically begged for his General's companionship.

Since, apparently, time was of the essence, Serpentine did not hesitate. Even before this 'Beni' launched into his spiel about dogs and meat, the lieutenant was reaching for the small object that Bazzite had poked through his pocket. Bright as it had been in Destiny City, it seemed all the brighter here in the well of shadows. With neither hesitation nor fear, he held the object out in his open palm and offered it to the kneeling beast that held only the barest resemblance to the Captain he had only briefly known. "Yours."

He could think of nothing else to say. The vow he had made was clearly broken. Serpentine had stated he would protect Bazzite from the monsters... and now he had somehow become one. All that was left was to support him. If this starseed he had plucked would ease his stay, even in some small way... it was enough.

Turning his gaze over to the General, he spoke while keeping the hand with the starseed perfectly still. "He guided me." Succint as ever, but what could possibly be unclear?

"Bazzite guided you?" He asked looking from Bazzite to the Lieutenant and back again. "I see, I was unaware of this." His gaze swept down to Bazzite and he watched the other ingest the starseed, something he himself had done on the rare occasion. As Bazzite came to his side he spread his legs, to better balance himself and support the slight weight Bazzite put onto him.

"You had taken on a Lieutenant, Bazzite?" He questioned while his right hand came up to pet the others pale blue hair. "I apologize for not visiting enough. I will endeavor to spend more time with you and let you up more often. It is...a new thing for me, although that is hardly a proper reason." He spoke gently, the petting never ceasing.

"Serpentine...a pleasure to meet you. Would you care to walk with us? Or are you busy?" He questioned lightly while glancing away from Bazzite, his eyes traveling about the surrounding area.

The youma chuckled, his chest heaving with each breath. "No, I didn't take on a Lieutenant. I jumped him one day and asked if he'd seen the Rift. He said no, so I took him down here. Gave him a little tour when I was still peachy and meaty." Such was what he referred to himself before his drastic transformation into the very monstrosities he had sought to avoid. Delicious ironies they were now. "There was a youma down here he said he liked. Haven't seen it since then, though. It was a large serpent if memory serves."

Bazzite blinked in confusion at Serpentine. What an odd statement.

"Learn about the chain of command?" he echoed, tilting his head this way and that. "You're a Lieutenant, Beni's a General. What else is there to learn?"

His ears perked up and wings buzzed in excitement. "Is this an assignment, Serpentine? Do you need help?"

Serpentine allowed Bazzite to do the talking for him, grateful that the transformation had not changed his ability to communicate. It saved him the time and the effort of having to explain anything, which the taciturn man truly appreciated. He nodded to show he agreed with the youma's information, although why he bothered to relay the tale of the snake youma was a mystery.

'I would think it's obvious..

'Would they assign something so...simple?"

A spark flashed in the lieutenant's eyes. Another implication that he should already know this information. That he was found lacking. The vain Serpentine cared not for the difference in rank between them he half-snapped, "Yes, some aspects certainly. Yet, I must learn more. Howlite's orders." He left it at that and held his tongue to take in what Beniotite had to say. What little he did know of the chain of command indicated it should be enough. He kept pace with them as they moved, his pen scribbling notes onto paper as he kept track of the information given."Your help is appreciated."

"Metallia?" Serpentine questioned, openly curious about this inhuman power. "I assume?"

"Yes, Metallia. That is the power above Berlyn. What she, or rather it, is I cannot say with certainty. I do know we get our power from Metallia. But where Metallia got it from I cannot answer. I have my own assignment - to learn all that I can." There was no subject just a broad generalized thing. He was to learn about everything he could - no subject left untouched. "I am assigned what I will read each day." By someone he did not see nor speak or even whisper to.

He would say it was lonely and that it was cold as well. To not even be personally given the materials he would be reading, not a word said on the topic, it simply sat there waiting for him. It was cold, indifferent....inhuman in a sense.

Shaking his head, physically, to dispelled his thoughts, the petite General continued to lead the way deep into the Rift and into the darkness. "Perhaps there is even something above her - something we haven't a clue about. I would like to know these things but I have yet to come across any such information." Or no such information had been set out waiting for his arrival, it really was cold.

Till now the other snapping at him had been ignored, he assumed the other had taken his words wrong. It seemed people misunderstood him a lot, he tried to keep that from happening but it seemed he failed there. "I was not, if you think I was, implying that you are lacking in some way. I just believe that going over ranks is simple and something obvious. If they want you to go deeper into it, which I assume would really only go into time spent in the Negaverse and the position of corrupted senshi, they should say that and not assign researching ranks. Ranks are as easy as in the civilian military. It seems a pointless assignment to me, that's what I meant. Nothing with you but rather the assignment itself." Looking over his shoulder at the other he flashed a small, weak, smile.

"Mmm, Howlite is the one to assign my own punishment as well." Or perhaps he should say punishments since there were two parts to it.