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Unfortunately for Babylon, Kaatje knew pretty much instantly. Mostly because she was less than a block away, henshining down from her glamor, and, well. There was only one person living in the southeast corner of the house. That would be Babylon. And unless some third-stage Order person had broken in there, some a*****e had just henshined up and broke all of Kaatje’s nice rules.

She considered, for a long moment, letting it be. Finn hadn’t looked that great lately. But rules were rules! And they were going to be enforced even if the one breaking them was really sick. So she headed up the stairs two at a time, and pulled out her keys. The door was unlocked, and--yeah. “Sup, Knightlight,” said Kaatje, leaning against the doorframe. “Do we need to have a talk about house rules? I’m pretty sure that they pretty explicitly state no transforming in the ******** house. You know?”

Kaatje’s eyebrows shot upward when his glamor dropped and he became Finn Derouen, (Extremely Built) Nerd Extraordinaire again. Well, he was certainly… nude. And more attractive than she’d been giving him credit for. She supposed that seeing someone mostly in their extremely LARP-y uniform could bias her against them more effectively than she’d realized. Like, at least hers was kind of cute and flattering. “Freeballing it,” she asked mildly, “I’m not judging, but damn.” She did have the common courtesy to step into the apartment and shut the door behind her. “I’ve seen better, you know, but I’ve also seen worse?”

Finally taking pity on him, she crossed the room to the couch and tossed Finn his towel. She dropped onto the couch--what, leave? why, because he was naked?--and said, “You know, I think it’s an American thing. Circumcision. None of my boyfriends in Germany really...” She made a snip! gesture with her fingers.

Anyway, new topic. American boys were also shy, for some Godawful reason. “So, what’s up? Why the random henshining for no apparent reason? Did you think Avalon was hiding behind the couch? Because there’s not any room back there, unless she is smaller than a newspaper, which, having seen her, I can tell you is not true.”

“Yes, Finn,” said Kaatje patiently, rolling her eyes, “you are damn-worthy.” Within the constraints previously posited, anyway, i.e. she had seen better but also worse.

Anyway, stupidity luckily didn’t diminish anyone’s physical attractiveness, so Kaatje was totally okay with still eyeballing Finn while contemplating the utter… She didn’t actually have words for how dumb shoving someone else’s starseed where it didn’t belong was. Stuff like that had created Ares. And Ares was bad mojo. Were they gonna get taken over by past lives stealing their present lives? “I’m gonna say you should call out of work,” she said, leaning forward to examine Finn’s hand. “Ugh, that’s gross. I’m sorry. That’s gross. So like, is it just glowing and henshining?”

She was a little hurt to have not been informed when this whole thing started. C’mon, Finn, weren’t they friends? Bluh. “She’s not trying to kill you. My educated guess is that she wants to ******** you. She’s not that unattractive. Have you considered that?”

“Uh, yes. Probably you will die trying.” Kaatje had never in her life heard of someone going to the Space Cauldron. Like, some off-the-cuff rumors about the Zodiac court. Couldn’t he have left the starseed where-ever he found it until he had a plan? Kaatje frowned and let his hand go. “I didn’t say she was gorgeous,” said Kaatje. “I said she was not that unattractive. She is evil as s**t.”

Important distinction: Evil made you unhot. “On what are you basing your assumption of she’s not trying to bang you,” said Kaatje doubtfully. “She wants you corrupt enough to pay people to catch you for her. She won’t kill you even though you’re screwing with her head just by existing. C’mon, Knightlight, use your brain.”

But she wasn’t entirely pitiless. “Call out,” she said, a little more gently. “Nick’ll write you a doctor’s scrip for the time. If you randomly transform in front of a civilian Negaverser, you’re ********. And not in the fun, enjoyable way that ******** Avalon would be, until the part where she rips out your starseed and corrupts you.”

Kaatje frowned at him. “That means nothing and you know it.” She sighed and kicked her feet up on the couch, completely ignoring any rules Finn may or may not have about shoes on his furniture; she didn’t really care. “Say what you like, but no sane man washes his sheets more than once a month, and I see you down there with them like once a week. Are you really gonna tell me that’s all your boyfriend? ‘Cause I don’t think he actually exists.”

She would write her alternate universe fanfiction, all she wanted. Kaatje had earned it, due to being a stone-cold badass. “So, like, what’s it like, having a ghost in your head? ‘Cause from what I know, that always ends in tears. Like, Chaos-oriented tears. Please don’t go insane and create a faction of people being puppeted by their past selves. I have too much trauma relevant to people getting taken over by other people. I forbid it. Do you hear me, ancestor Knightlight? I would sooner see both of you dead than possessed.”

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” said Kaatje comfortably, crossing her arms over her chest and smirking up at Finn. Idiomatic English had taken a while for her to learn, but one didn’t attend English secondary school without picking up some of it. And then her current service in the military, that was helping.

She had struck a nerve. Kaatje considered sticking her tongue out at him, but that was just immature. “You think I’m pretty,” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Then she laughed. “I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad. At least you can’t fight. Ares is an actual threat, you know? I could hate you like I hate her, but then also just murder you outright. How does that sound?”

Kaatje giggled, and then sighed. “But no, seriously, what’s it like to have something useful? The senshi of Gunn never left the tower, so like, I’ve got jack s**t and ******** all for guidance.”

Caramia. It was nice to have a name to put to her past self, even if Kaatje really didn’t care about her past self--the girl hadn’t been nearly as rebellious as Kaatje would’ve liked her to be. Why had she just laid down and accepted the way the people of Gunn trapped her in a ******** tower for her entire life? “I wish I could say I remembered you,” said Kaatje, a mite insincerely, “but like I said, I don’t have s**t to go by. My past life was not very considerate about leaving me any guidance, so I’ve been figuring this all out on my own.”

She moved her legs so whoever was now powering Finn’s body could take a seat. Not that he necessarily needed to. Finn wasn’t freaking out at her right now, and he was definitely an eyeful--in a good way. “You mean Gideon, though, don’t you? The man in the tower.” She’d learned the name in the sole memory she’d uncovered. But, uh, she knew very little about it otherwise. “I think he was nice,” she said.

“Don’t suppose you know why they kept past me locked up in a tower,” she said, kicking her feet out idly and eyeballing her shoes--they were super cute wedges, spiked studs up the heel. In her sole memory of being Caramia, she had not been wearing shoes. “It seems like having someone who can start fires would be useful in a war.”