Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had been a little over a week since they had returned to Destiny City. Delphine's first couple of days had been spent getting the apartment back in order and purchasing some new stuff for them. She still hadn't gotten into contact with her family, but to bother her about it would only make her put off the reunion even more. Delphine liked to do things on her own time, so instead of attending to personal matters, she had already spent the past few nights patrolling and familiarizing herself with her surroundings again. Her family, apparently, could wait. Destiny City, on the other hand, could not. Patrolling alone was fine and dandy, and that was how Delphine usually did her thing.

However, she did have a partner in crime-fighting. Her partner who was being particularly lazy. She'd let him slip the first few nights, figuring he just needed a little while longer to get acclimated to being home. When she figured out that he was cool enough to go out to bars and hang out with his old buddies, she decided that he was more than ready to attend to other matters. Kamboja was about to get a rude and forceful awakening. He wasn't as gung-ho about patrolling and fighting baddies as Delphine was, but she was determined to at least see him put some effort into being a Knight.

Kamboja was a creature of habit at home, which made it particularly easy to corner him. The couch was just as much his bed as his own room, and if she caught him early enough in the evening he wouldn't be getting ready to leave and meet some friends. Delphine stepped around the coffee table, blocking Kamboja's view of the television. It was the guaranteed way to get his attention, even if he was irritated and grumpy because of it.

"Get powered up. Now. We're patrolling." Her voice was demanding, and a little arrogant, but that was Delphine's usual manner. If she demanded it, then he'd have no reason to protest. She expected him to get off of his a** and do as she pleased. "It's been like, too long since you've even been Gehenna. Don't you want to punch some s**t?" That was his usual thing, right? Punch the crap out of his enemies with his shitty rusty gauntlets.

That was where Kamboja was wrong - Delphine very well could make him. She was persistent, and if she irritated Kamboja enough he'd give in to her, if only because it was easier than trying to resist her. When Delphine had her mind set on something, there was little anyone could do to dissuade her from getting what she wanted. "I don't care if you don't want to," Delphine replied, lip curling into a small sneer. Kamboja was already trying to recoil back into some sort of natural defense. Maybe if he piled enough blankets on Delphine would really be convinced he was too tired to do anything? That was the only reason she could think of why Kamboja was pulling a blanket up to his chin.

"You're going to. We're going to." The way she spoke made it very clear that she would tolerate no debate over this. Delphine didn't want to spout every possible reason why he should get off of his a** and do some patrolling. He knew why he should, he just didn't want to.

The young woman sighed, and as Kam tried to lean far enough to see around her, she leaned with him, effectively blocking his view from the 'ginger lady'. If Kamboja wanted to watch television, he'd have to pick Delphine up and move her out of the way. Delphine didn't think he'd have the balls to do just that - he knew what she was like when she was powered up. "Look, I've given you plenty of time to settle in. I'm not asking for you to save the world tonight. I am telling you to patrol with me for a couple of hours. You owe me, you were going to take on the next youma, and guess what, I had to do that by myself." Not that she couldn't do it, and she had dusted it just fine. But, it was the principal of the matter that he just wasn't there to help her when she potentially needed it.

"You don't," Delphine replied, a smirk on her face that clearly said 'victory'. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was giving in to her demands, because he had to know that Delphine was not the type of person to give up until she got what she wanted. He wasn't going to be able to watch any of his Olympics until after they were done patrolling, and he'd probably miss all the good events anyways. If he was lucky, they wouldn't be out so late that he'd sleep in and miss the recap of tonight's events. But, Delphine didn't really think the Olympics were something he actually wanted to watch, and instead was something he kept himself busy with so he didn't have to do s**t he was actually responsible for.

Delphine slyly stepped to the side as Kam grumbled and got to his feet. She wouldn't power up until they were a couple of blocks away from their home. Delphine doubted there was anyone actually watching their apartment, but it was better to be paranoid and safe than to have Negaverse agents kicking down your door and killing you while you were still in civilian clothes. Of course, powering up in the open had its own risk, but it was easy to duck into an alleyway or an abandoned building. Even if a civilian saw her go in and watched a senshi come out, they were always too stupid to make the connection.

"See? It wasn't that hard to motivate your a** off the couch." Delphine knew she probably shouldn't continue to taunt him after getting him to do what she wanted... but sometimes she just couldn't help. Taunting Kam was her favorite pastime, though it had gotten to the point where it usually didn't affect him. Delphine would find a new victim eventually.

The young woman led them down a few blocks, before she did exactly as she planned and slipped into an alleyway to power up. She didn't give Kam proper forewarning, because she was sure he loved magical girl transformations. Clothes had to disappear at one point to get new ones, after all. "Damn," she grumbled as she came back to Kamboja's side. "Nothing really too out of place in the immediate area, from what I can sense."

Transformation was a rightful pain in the a**. If she could have her way, she'd just remained powered all the time. Sailor Nemesis could last a few days in her powered state, but eventually she would get exhausted from holding in all that magical energy. It would be worth it, just to cut out all the time it took for her sparkly transformation to complete. She imagined that by the end of her lifetime, a fourth of it would have been spent in transformations. In comparison, Kamboja wasn't nearly so delayed with own transformation. It was the one thing Nemesis was completely jealous of. She didn't think she showed it, but she also wouldn't doubt if Kam knew anyways.

"No," she replied glumly. They hadn't won the war. While Gehenna had been stuck back at home like a lazy bum, Nemesis had actually gone out to try and get the status of things. From what she could tell, absolutely nothing had changed. No big war had been won, and they were stuck in constant turmoil between factions. "You'd think in two years that we would have accomplished something, but nothing. It's the same war we left two years ago. The factions are a little stronger, but that doesn't mean much when we're all getting stronger, just that the fight in the end will be bigger and will afflict more people."

Nemesis sighed and took a few steps forward to the closest building, and leaped almost effortlessly to the roof. She had always been more fond of maintaining the high ground during patrols, and with civilians being more aware of senshi now, it was better not to roam the streets. She waited for Gehenna to join her before continuing. "From what I've been told, the Negaverse has been publicized as some great organization bringing down the renegade senshi threat. Civilians are on to us, well, not you I guess, since you aren't actually a senshi." She didn't want to think too hard on it, so she nodded towards her left.

"Something small's over there. Something I think even you can handle."

"Some really terrible s**t," Nemesis answered with a wry grin. Really, Gehenna's train of thought wasn't that far off. Compare a Negaverse General to an Eternal Senshi, and the girl with the white angel wings on her butt would look a lot ******** more friendly. As long as that eternal wasn't Nemesis herself, then it was a toss up between the two.

She let Gehenna lead the way, mostly because she had already designated this youma as his s**t to handle. Nemesis had already dusted a few since her debut back in Destiny City - Gehenna needed to get back into the swing of things, and he wasn't going to do that with Nemesis acting as a handicap to come kick a** when he seemed to be in trouble. Of course, if he was in actual danger she'd be down there in a flash to help him out. But, there was no harm in letting him handle the first few moments of battle himself.

Nemesis dropped down onto the patio, which conveniently kept the youma out of her eyesight. She didn't even here the creepy thing clawing around on the floorboards underneath her feet. "You'll be fine!" Nemesis called down to him, perfectly confident that this youma was something in Gehenna's realm of 's**t he can handle'. She wouldn't pit him against an enemy too tough for him unless she was really pissed off at him.

Nearly moments after she had told him he'd be okay, she saw Gehenna duck behind a crumbling garden wall with a sizeable fireball flinging towards him. "...or maybe not," she mumbled to herself. That youma was a whole lot larger than it had felt, but maybe Nemesis senses had been a little skewed after being away from battle for so long. Not that she'd admit to it, however. She placed her hands against the railing of the patio and launched herself effortlessly over and down to the garden below. "Decay of Breath!" she hissed her attack, which was guaranteed to slow the creature down long enough for Gehenna to be able to do something about it.

She wanted to say 'you're welcome', but Gehenna hadn't done anything about the youma just yet.

Nemesis had determined that this was too much for Gehenna to handle alone. She would claim that it was weakness on his part, but a youma this dangerous would be difficult to defeat even if Gehenna hadn't taken a two year long break. Sure, it was something Nemesis could handle on her own (Nemesis was confident she could handle anything by herself) but that didn't mean everyone else was up to the fight. So, she'd just help Gehenna take care of this one and set him on something a little more preschool level.

Hell, she even smirked at that thought. As Gehenna moved in to wail on the youma, Nemesis closed in from the other side for support. Her second ability wasn't fully charged yet, but with the youma nearly incapacitated by her previous attack, she could still do some damage to it with her heightened physical abilities. Gehenna was naturally strong, Nemesis was unnaturally so while she was powered up. Fists were all she had, and all she could use. She almost envied Gehenna for his gauntlets.

Gehenna seemed to be lost to his own battle rage, but Nemesis still had her senses. Go for the head, knock the senses out of it so when it could move, it was still disoriented. Nemesis didn't quite make it to her goal before she felt a force slam into her side. The wind was knocked out of her as pain exploded on the left side of her body. The Eternal Senshi of Decay crumpled to the ground with a loud expletive, crouching over the dirt with one hand glued to her injured side. It didn't take much for her to connect the dots, despite the rage and fear coursing through her body.

"You <******** sonnuvabitch, ******** idiot, GEHENNA!" Yeah, she was kind of pissed.

The youma was not her concern at the moment. All she wanted was to use her attack and wrangle her friend's neck for the unstoppable pain in her side. What breath she did have, she was using to curse out the only person who could probably help her with a dangerous youma still looming way too close for comfort. It wasn't until the thing started gurgling and regaining its senses that Nemesis' gaze snapped back to the creature. "s**t," she breathed, eyes widening. Slowly she rose to her feet, preparing to back the ******** out of the thing's range.

A scaled tail swung out at her, and Nemesis duck underneath it, rolling back onto the ground she had just managed to stagger herself up from. The youma had its pick of the two, the squire that was exhausted from his own attack, or the injured eternal. Quite honestly, Nemesis didn't think Gehenna could do anything worth s**t now, and struggled to pick herself back up onto her feet. If she deserved credit for anything, it was for always being able to continue fighting and pushing through whatever was ailing her. "Nemesis' Touch of Death'!" her hands glowed a soft blue, and against better judgment, which would be to back away from the ******** and think of a different approach, she charged right at it.

Jaws snapped at her, and Nemesis twisted to the side to dodge the creature. Black tar drippled onto her side and skirt, eating away at her clothes and burning her flesh. But, there was no time to shake it off, Nemesis going for the gaping wound on the youma's neck, hands plying to the skin, not caring for the heat or the burn, just slowly tearing the creature apart as it writhed and fought against her.