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Colin Hargrove was back in Destiny City less than a month and already he was feeling out of sorts without Hillworth to attend; graduating and then being gone for so long was not only disorienting, it was kind of scary. So much had changed! But he was trying - he was carrying his transformation stick everywhere he went again, he was patrolling as Aegir again...and he had put out the feelers that said he was ready to take on some serious work.

The news still ran stories about missing persons, numbers creeping ever higher - depending on the station the cause was attributed to either "terrorist" group: Negaverse or Senshi. Neither group actually named, but it was them just the same; Colin knew. Obsidian, Navi...even that fiesty, face-mauling b***h with the big rack, Chariklo had told him as much - along with a good number of other factoids.

He sighed and stretched his gloved-hands over his head as he took a short break from his patrolling by leaning against a building wall that kept him tucked in the shadows.. So much had stayed the same, too.

As he let his senses wander a bit, he felt a faint flashing of chaos-energy - someone from the Negaverse was out-and-about; someone lower-level, from the feel of it (he'd yet to meet anyone that poured Chaos energy quite like General Obsidian). Maybe he could go and have a chat with them, get some perspective on what was going on currently in Destiny City?

Sailor Aegir set off at a quick jog, his long and muscular legs eating the distance effortlessly; older and with the sort of physique one got from working out and dancing constantly for a year made him look even more ridiculous in his absolutely unfortunate Senshi-garb. Nothing to do about that but ignore it and hope that some day he wouldn't look like someone's big brother playing pretty-pretty princess dress-up!

If he had been thinking that approaching this member of the Negaverse would be another semi-civil exchange of information (and perhaps pithy quips), all such thoughts burst to flame as an exquisitely pained scream shattered the frosty evening's quiet. Green eyes narrowed, then widened with surprise as his slipper-clad feet hit a particularly icy patch just as he was gearing up from a jog to a run; he luckily managed to keep on his feet, but he lost precious seconds in the slip.

"No--!" The whole point of his fight was to protect the Earthians - Earthlings, if you preferred - and the sound of one crying out in so much pain tore at his heart and soul as surely as the sharpest of blades. That sound plus the Chaos-energy signature meant only one thing: whomever it was, they were ripping a starseed from some poor b*****d.

But he was close, very close, and with his long stride it took only moments - an eternity, really - before his sharp eyes caught the horrifying sight: A female agent, clad in revealing clothing that showed off quite the figure (not that he was looking), had her had deep within some unlucky guy's chest. Her victim's eyes were rolling back in his head as the light of his starseed, his soul, was enveloped by her hand.

Could Colin save him? Was it too late? Either way, this girl was going to pay!

"Get your filthy hands off that starseed!" Forget swishy motions and a battle-cry, Sailor Aegir came at Halite like a cheetah after a gazelle, fists clenched and ready to swing.

Seeing Halite turn to quip at him while still having her hand buried in his chest sent waves of rage crashing through Aegir. This girl had the nerve to say that her hands weren't dirty, when she had them buried in some poor fellow's chest? How dare she!?

"I'm not your darling - now get your hand out of his chest!"

As much as he wanted to hit her, to stop her, he did have a flash of wonder, seconds long as he came barreling towards Halite, at the fact that she didn't remove her hand from the man's chest, starseed or no. Her expression almost looked a bit...strained, as though she were furiously working through something - or maybe he was just seeing things.

In the end, it didn't matter. Aegir's eyes narrowed sharply, focused on Halite's hand even as he caught sight of the civilian's lifeless body laying on the ground by the girl's feet. She had the starseed. He hadn't been able to save the man after all; anger and rage, shame and sadness boiled up and over. Sailor Aegir snarled wordlessly and put every ounce of emotion he had behind the punch aimed right at Halite's pretty face. He was going to cause her a lot of pain if he could, maybe he'd get lucky and black one of her eyes? Or break her nose.

Aegir wouldn't stop there, either: she was in for a world of hurt now.

The pair scuffled noisily, each step taken across the surface adding to the symphony of sounds around them, from the shallow, almost whispery breathing of the victim as his soulless body wound down towards death to Aegir’s soft panting to Halite’s mocking tone. As the girl stepped back from the angry Senshi, she mocked him with every line of her body - the curl of her lips and laughing tone only served to make the blond youth clench his fists further.

“You knew exactly what I meant, Nega-trash!” Sailor Aegir’s eyes were narrowed, the green of the irises barely showing with how wide-blown they were. In Halite’s hand the man’s star seed glittered, a beautiful and delicate sign of life, proof that they were all more than just sacks of meat walking around, waiting to die.

When the star-seed disappeared and the make-up brush took it’s place, the blond set his jaw and glowered; she was up to something, clearly, but he was still half-distracted by the now-dead civilian at Halite’s feet so when she came at him brandishing the broken wood of her weapon, he was barely able to deflect it in time. As it was, the jagged make-up brush catching his left forearm and tearing down it at an angle, blood welling up and staining the dark fabric of his glove.

Halite’s fingers caught his hair because he didn’t have a hand to deflect with, his right hand clutching at the wound on his left forearm to staunch the bleeding. He was in trouble, he knew it. Aegir hadn’t been able to save the civilian’s star-seed and now his own survival was in question. He hadn’t given up, but he was feeling quite disheartened as Halite twisted her fingers in his curls, smirking and bringing the star seed back into his view.

“You b***h—“ Halite’s teeth snapped down on the delicate crystalline seed with a sickening crunch and Sailor Aegir fought back rage and tears while she grinned and swallowed. He clutched at his wounded arm and thought about jerking away, about trying to batter her - his own safety or life be damned, but before he could pull the slender straws of a plan into action she’d released him and shoved him, hard, away from her and bolted.

Sailor Aegir hissed out a series of imaginative swears in Klingon at her retreating back as he continued to put pressure on his wound. When he felt no Chaos-tinged energy signatures around he knelt next to the body of the civilian man, the tears he’d held back while Halite had her hand in his hair spilled down his cheeks and onto the soft cotton of his shirt. “I’m so sorry…” He whispered and powered down, tearing a strip from his own shirt to wrap his wound up; Colin would need to head to the Destiny City ER to have the wound cleaned and sewn up, but his heart was heavy and once he was no longer in danger of bleeding out, he couldn’t quite make himself get up.

Kneeling by the unknown man’s supine corpse, Colin slowly prayed for his soul. Typically he wasn’t religious, but it felt right to ask that the man find some measure of peace in the next life. When his tears dried and he felt somewhat less wobbly and raw, Colin rose to his feet and headed towards one of the hospitals to get himself stitched up, heart heavy with the weight of his failure.