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Chaos had become secondary. Months away from home, away from the city and the epicenter of a war. Away from the brush of power across her skin like some low-level electric charge. For five incredible months she had left the powered guise behind and been given a chance to live the life she had worked so hard to obtain before the lure of power had brought her into the darkness. A small part of her wished she could have remained, that the tour had been longer.

Maybe that hope spring from a desire to stamp out the anger that had formed like a tumor in her being.

It had been so easy to walk away. Hurt and bitter, she hadn't even had to consider the choice. Leave, immerse herself in something she loved, forget. Dig him out from beneath pale skin.

Or, summer tanned skin.

She thought it had worked. Constantly moving, always busy, the teen hadn't the time to spare for anything else. Walking into her apartment, she'd felt at peace, content again, and she'd fallen into bed that night--the middle of the bed, sheets tangled around her thighs and stretched for all the world like a lazy cat--and slept.

It was in the morning she felt it, that void, that ache. It crept slowly back, sinking deep, and she'd run until she thought her lungs might explode. It didn't help.

Powering up again so soon hadn't been the plan, but maybe if she dove back into her duties she could at least find a temporary reprieve. Or, at the very least, some poor, unfortunate soul in white she could alleviate from their pathetic life.

That was the goal.

But it was not an Order aura that hit her like a punch to the gut as she appeared at the nucleus of the city.

Dark allies hid so many things. The draw of the powerful aura had the captain thinking she'd found a general draining away the lives of the of the homeless vagrants that occupied the less traveled paths through the city. Just a little community service towards the city.

Well, it was a general.

Though that was all she was sure of as silver eyes took in the figure that rose to it's feet before her. Darkness obscured. Man-sized, though thin, with the arch of wings. Her mind said youma, the wealth of power beating off her skin said agent.

The voice..

It felt as if some great fist was squeezing around her, making it hard to breath. Ribs pressing into lungs that couldn't seem to pull enough air. "Bischofite?" It came out breathy, and as she took a step forward heat washed up and out and had her reaching for the brick wall to her side. Not exactly faint, but damn close as she gazed at him across whatever filth littered the ground between them. "What the hell..?"

Black hair fell in sheets around a narrow face that, even obscured by the mask, was undeniably recognizable. Those eyes, molten gold, watching her as she stepped closer. The same sweep of shoulders, lean chest, narrow waist. All of it framed by the torn and tattered remains of his uniform, and marked by violence. Lips parted, questions on the tip of her tongue, but all she could manage was a single, baffled syllable. "How?" The words just wouldn't come.

She'd left to get away from him, to get him out of her system and shake off whatever damn hold he'd managed to gain over her, but he wasn't supposed to get hurt.

If she'd known...

Head shaking, she finally tore her gaze away from him, seeing the rest of the alley for the first time. No bodies, no blood, nothing of interest to attract the general she'd known when she'd left, but there he stood, one long fingered hand wrapped tightly around the bar across the dumpster lids as if at any moment he might fall.

What the ******** was going on?

For him at least, the girl had always been attentive. Closer now, gunmetal eyes took in what she could see as she listened to him weave his story of grand plans and intricate designs. Trust the general to hold to high idles. Xenotime had to hand it to him, he had always been one to reach beyond the scope of their comrades.

Destined for greatness. She'd believed.

Oh, and there. A reminder of their parting of the ways. It brought a sour taste to the captian's mouth, and dark lips twitched, one side rising in subtle curl as she looked away from him and to lay ice on the brick to one side. It still hurt, more than she was willing to admit, even to her self. A deep, aching throb that filled her with bitter rage. Festering, simmering, so close to the surface.

He'd left, he didn't deserve the lingering hold her still maintained on her. It left a conflicting array of desires for the girl to sift through. None of them optimal.

She turned back to him as he snorted, features still a chilly mask of indifference that was so full of cracks it was no mask at all. Shattering completely as he reached the end of his story, and the motion of his hand drew her gaze to the spread of a scar decorating the center of his chest. It froze the air in her lungs to stop her breath in an involuntary sound that seemed so much louder in the close press of brick within the ally.

It returned in a shaky inhale as she took a step towards him, and god it hurt to see him reduced to such destitution and pain.

Heels clicked on the filthy pavement as they carried her closer, hands up as if she would catch his face between them, but she stopped short, unsure of her welcome, unwilling to see him jerk away from her touch. There were no reassuring words to make this alright, no pretty lies she could sing to paint it all in softer colors. Reality was harsh, they knew that. Painted lips rolled in a thin line, and she swallowed, loudly, past the welling of emotion that threatened to choke her.

"Jesus..." A whisper, profane and sacrilegious, as she let herself brush a length of dark hair out of his face. Silver meeting gold.

Everything hurt.

The correction had the fine hairs upon nape and arms standing at attention, and a slow breath followed, lips parting.

Then he was backing away from her--she'd known he would, from the moment she saw him--and that weight on her chest tightened, constricting until it was hard to breath. He always did know how to cut the deepest, wielding words as viciously as his chakrams. A proper artist, carving intricacies over flesh, or under it.

A smile touched dark lips as she watched that tall figure retreating back into the shadows, and a mirthless chuckle fell into the growing space between them that bounced off the brick walls and tangled itself in his recount of what she had missed while she’d been gone. Frustration didn't even begin to cover what she felt in that moment. Banging her head against the wall at her side seemed the wiser course of action, but she stood her ground, head shaking as a hand came up to press into her brow, smoothing hair away from deceptively soft features. It knocked her hood back, dark material pooling over her shoulders, and she left it.

Her voice when it came was tired, and the thread of humor that edged her words was a bitter one. "Who?" She asked finally, spurned into advancing again. The fingers of one hand drifted along the bar he'd been clutching for support, not touching, but playing over the soft currents of air that swirled beneath them. "Who did I turn my back on, Bischofite, that was not already turning their back on me?"

God, she hated herself, for the wash of anger that was rushing towards the surface. For the feelings that fueled it. For ever having given a s**t in the first place. She'd known better.

Quick, angry steps brought her back to him, and this time when she reached for him there would be no hesitation. Fingers caught the torn edge of that once pristine uniform, and she twisted it in her grip, holding him from backing away from her further, at last for a handful of seconds. "If we become enemies it will not be because we declared anything." The words came tight, pushed through clenched teeth. "It will be on your hands." Her's loosened, letting him go if he wanted to. If not, the backs of her knuckles would find one of the long, slick lines of the scar that marked his chest.

It was the first time she'd ever disobeyed a direct order from the general.

"You dug in deep beneath my skin, Alois." It came out like an accusation, saved by the sweetness in her voice. "I can't fig you back out, I'm stuck with you." The edge of her lip curled, then smoothed again. "So you are stuck with me."

Metallia's name thrown back in her face had the corners of dark lips turning upward, eyes rolling as violet hair tickled along her chin and cheeks as she shook her head. He was better than that, smarter. Far above this grasping of straws, twisting his own logic, betraying the beliefs he'd adopted in her absence. A weak retort, abysmal by the normal standards she held the general to. Beyond the painfully obvious, something was wrong.

He hadn't drawn away from her, and the bud of her thumb smoothed along warm skin at the edge of the torn front of his uniform. She knew the feel of his skin beneath her hands, his body.

When he bent, features pained, it brought a familiar sense of alarm that hit her like a physical ache. Sizzling across her skin, burning deep. Now she was gentle, her hand warm against his cheek, voice a soft breath beside his ear as she steadied him. "I have tried." She slid her hand up under his chin to lift his head. "You've no idea." Dark rimmed eyes were still the same gold. The line of his cheek, the bud of his lips, the hollow of his throat and the rise of his clavicle. It was still him. He was just...more.

Silver eyes drank him in, the new, the familiar, all of it, and a sigh passed the bow of her lips as she moved to slide beneath his arm, taking his weight. "I am still strong," she assured him, feature pinching, disturbed, but how very thin he was as she looped her arm around his middle.

Fingers drifted upward until she reached the prominent rise and fall of his ribs, and the tips would fall in soft beats against each rise, rhythmic. Once-upon-a-time he'd played his hand along her side, a silent song that sang through her body at every soft touch. She remembered the keys, the gentle falls, and she played them now.

He was so skinny.

Undernourished.

"Starvation does not suit you, Alois." If he was meant to fall, this was not the way.

No counter-point was presented to argue his point against the Negaverse, nor an agreement. She'd been gone too long to hold any accurate view of where the organization stood in her absence, though the news that their supposed allies had turned on someone she had always viewed as such a prominent figure among their ranks did little to rekindle any endearment she had held for them. Honestly, the captain was hard pressed to list more than a handful of names among the negaverse she cared anything about beyond the usual duties of camaraderie. Now even that was called into question.

Bischofite was important to her. More so than she cared to admit, or acknowledge. There had been nothing she would not do to please or protect him, and she bore the scars to prove her resolve.

It enraged the woman to know he'd been hurt, hunted. That he had suffered. It needled at things deep inside to have come home to find him in such a deplorable state.

And it hurt. To know that maybe if she had stayed, somehow she could have prevented it.

Could have. Should have. Might have been.

There was nothing humorous in the irony of his state. That he should now curse what once he had wanted so badly. To Xenotime it was nothing but tragedy. When his weight settled more solidly against her the arm around him tightened, and the other moved up to wrap warm fingers around his wrist as the tips of claws dug at her shoulder.

She wanted to get him out of the alley, holed up somewhere secluded, safe. Instead she stood still, a pillar of strength to support him as he questioned her return. "The city is my home." Her roots ran deep, anchored in the broken corners of the city where monsters were born, and blind eyes turned from the cruelties of an every day world. "The broken, more than the whole." A smirk slid along dark lips. "We're all damaged, Alois. It's only a matter of how much shows on the skin."

Drawing in a long breath, she let it out slowly, thoughtfully, as she looked over the dark rise of wings over his shoulders. "I don't suppose mercy has left you any sort of means of camouflaging yourself?"

"Damaged always looked good on you." She breathed it out, voice little more then a whisper on the wind as as the worn pad of her thumb slid slowly along his wrist. Anything else was a lie, by word or action, and to him, at least, such fabrications did not cross her lips. Even now. Muscles twitched as she made a face, features pinching slightly as some thought or another slithered through her mind.

That half thoughtful gaze returned to him, focused again, at his question and she had the grace to to offer a relenting dip of her head. Recognizable or not, it would have been so easy to get him somewhere sheltered if he could take on a human guise. That he couldn't was worrying. That he actively avoided the safety of the rift was more so. A thoughtless frown tugged at the corners of dark lips before he was leveraging against her shoulder to ease himself to the ground.

He was right, of course. If anyone dared to follow the aura of chaos combined like a beacon in the dark, she'd handle it. Efficient and ruthless as always, time away hadn't change that. If anything, her months on the circuit had kept her skills honed. Sanctioned opponents, not the magical warriors she was spent so many nights hunting, but vicious all the same. If nothing else, they had kept her on her toes.

For a long moment she merely stood beside him, the weight of her gaze drifting from the mouth of the alley to land on the top of his head, then with a sigh she was sinking down to sit in the curve of his wing. And because it felt strange to be close to him but not touching, she made a slow move to take his hand, sliding the tips of her fingers along his own longer ones he he let her.

In truth she had meant prior to this in regards to his appeal as damaged, but she let the statement stand, returning that thin smirk with one of her own, and the motion felt cruelly familiar. Enough that she cut it short, head dipping forward and eyes avoiding. If she were a wiser person she'd have ignored the warm pulse of his aura, passing it by like a ship passed warning lights in the dark. It would have been better, probably, not to open this door. Simpler.

Words washed over her, advise that, again, would have been wise to heed. The captain sat quietly as he spoke, listening with the same rapt attention she always paid him.

But there again was the same choice.

No answers followed this, only a quiet that suggested contemplation. Xenotime had been away for months, living in her own little world. It was hard to say where her allegiances lay just then, and would likely require a lot of introspective thought and reflection.

When exploring fingers met no resistance she drew his hand into her lap, turning it over so worn knuckles rested on her thigh. Nails traced in soft strokes along his palm, following the sweep of familiar lines, long and short. "But I would burn in that light trying, if you'd asked me to." She had been devoted, truly. Now that remained to be seen. Not even Xenotime knew for certain.

"I could give you energy." This she could do. Even as her mind worked to find some solution to his predicament, large or small. Some minuscule comfort. It would have been nothing to give her life for him, what was energy to that? Turning, she reached up with her free hand, touch soft against the side of his face. A coaxing brush to turn his gaze down to her.