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Some days, patrolling the city for monsters was an absolute mess. They seemed to roam freely, and Hvergelmir had come across more than one on a few occasions, and been forced to use her magical strength and her poor distaff to beat them into dust before they faded away. It was as though the police somehow couldn't see them, prowling for people to eat -- or, she suspected, in her more cynical moments, they simply pretended not to.

And how could Hvergelmir blame them? She might have been given a magical consitution suitable for tangling with monsters, but all Destiny City's cops had were badges, nightsticks, and kevlar vests. They kept the peace and tried to make it through life long enough to collect their pensions. Monster fighting wasn't something they'd signed up for.

Neither did I, she thought, a small, rebellious feeling wriggling its way to the fore of her mind. But that sort of thought was something the counselor at the free clinic told her was "destructive" -- dwelling on circumstances beyond her control and using them as a justification to abdicate any responsibility for her mental state would not make her any happier. I should go back and tell him that the circumstances beyond my control have claws and teeth now, and they try to kill me, she thought. Hvergelmir wondered if any other senshi or knights had tried to seek counseling, or what they'd said about all the nights when they wandered the streets and the monsters came.

Other nights, though, the city was quiet -- as though the dark beasts that prowled the streets had all been a figment of her imagination, or had gone into hibernation to hide from the cold. She envied them their self-determined schedule. She wished it were posted somewhere, though, so she didn't waste her time.

Tonight was shaping up to be like that. The worst she'd had to deal with were more of the usual -- people asking her what party she'd just come from dressed up so formally, and her having to make up a suitable answer.

That was... until she felt the naggling pull of something with a very large, very weird aura.

She followed it to a nearby park. It didn't feel the way youma and Negaversers felt, not exactly, but it wasn't like senshi or knights, either -- not exactly. It felt like -- a third thing.

What it looked like was a cat girl. Well, then.

Hvergelmir approached with caution, her experiences with Negaversers having taught her to take care when meeting new people (or cat people, as the current case might be). She called out while she was still far enough away to make a clean break for it if she decided she needed to run -- but she hoped this wasn't going to be yet another person with another unclear reason for wanting her dead. Surely some people in this world were willing to just talk... right?

"Hello? Are you... " She paused. She had no idea what to end that sentence with. 'A Negaverser?' 'A senshi?' What if the cat girl was insulted? But 'what are you?' couldn't be much better than that, either. "... Are you... magical?" she phrased it vaguely.

A guardian cat. Tara had mentioned those... right? Magical cats who were like nannies to the senshi, sometimes -- it was just...

Laney had expected actual cats. Actual talking cats were somehow more logically reasonable in her mind than cat-people, evidently. Sometimes Laney really had no idea how her mind worked.

Guardian cats were presumably affiliated with senshi, then. They presumably weren't going to try and kill her at first sight like the Negaversers were trained to do. That was a relief.

The guardian cat seemed anxious, or agitated, maybe -- but hopefully not intent on any harm. Hvergelmir drew closer. She'd had too many bad connections, lately; she was feeling desperate to put something in the win column.

"Hvergelmir Page of the Cosmos," she introduced herself, holding out a hand. "I'm so sorry, I've never met a guardian cat before. I had no idea -- it was kind of a dumb question, right?" Hvergelmir shrugged, with a tiny laugh at her own expense. "What's your name?"

Hvergelmir blinked, seeing the cat girl transform down into -- a regular human being, sans cat ears and tail. She supposed that was less odd than the notion of her transforming into a cat, if only just.

"Isn't that dangerous?" she asked. "Showing me who you are in the everyday world? What if I wanted to hurt you, or... or someone you knew?"

She sat down on a park bench, studying Zee, the sometimes guardian cat. "What makes you different? If -- if you don't mind my asking. What's the Black Moon? I'm sorry," she apologized again -- profuse apologies being Laney's, and thus also Hvergelmir's, default setting, "I don't even really understand what a guardian cat does. If that's too many questions, I can... I'm sorry. It's a little hard to get answers around here sometimes, I don't mean to come on so strong. It's really nice to meet you, Zee."

Hvergelmir frowned, folding her arms petulantly. Her irritation wasn't so much for Zee, but for the situation itself, a situation which had been making her miserable for weeks now. "This isn't my war either," she insisted, "And I can't imagine why people would hunt me down, either. But they do. You're lucky not to be involved."

Her face fell. "I don't understand anything. I guess we don't get guardian cats. Or a memo," she snorted. "Or even a fruit basket would be nice. A help desk? A call center? I started asking CleverBot things a few weeks ago, just in hopes somebody else had decided to teach it about us, but I guess no one else was as desperate as I was."

Hvergelmir paused in her moping, interrupted by a sudden thought. "Wait... did you say another universe? Like, as in, another reality, like you fell through a wormhole or something? Or like someone summoned you here against your will or something, like conjuring a shoggoth?"

To be fair, Zee had very little in common with a shoggoth.

It just about stretched the limits of Laney's capacity for taking social cues to be able to recognize that the issue of Zee's mysterious extraterrestrial origins was not a welcome subject. As it was, rather than politely closing the book on it forever, as a respectful person might do, Hvergelmir just tabled the question of how Zee had come to be here to be pried into another time. Hvergelmir didn't lack for the ability to be off-puttingly socially graceless even in important situations -- but in this case it took a backseat to the rather more selfish curiosity she had about things that had more to do with herself.

Showing her near-total ignorance of everything she'd gotten herself into (or, to be fair to herself, everything she'd been roped into), she launched right into a question so basic that even she could tell that Zee perceived it to be Magic 101 fare.

"What do you mean by Chaos?" she put it to her, obliviousness showing on her face.

Hvergelmir didn't know many other senshi or knights, and the ones she'd met had focused primarily on practical information -- how to deal with the circumstances that existed, rather than why those circumstances existed or, really, what the heck they were. No one had painted a clear picture of how things had come to be this way. Some of them, she was sure, didn't even know. Did Zee?

"Yeah, I've met... a couple of Negaverse soldiers. They feel -- I guess, different. And monsters too, but they're, like, a different different. I don't know about any corrupted senshi." She frowned, wondering if Zee was expecting her to gist something from that. "Do you mean they've been... uh, kind of... poisoned?"

Hvergelmir nodded, trying to process this -- an infection like dementia, eating away at the mind, taking a little more each day. The Negaversers she'd met -- they'd be even worse now? Even more merciless? It got worse?

"Is there a vaccine?" she asked. "Is there a cure? If it can be done, can it be undone?"