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Melanite could sense whatever the hell it was from a mile away, and after a long moment’s consideration and about thirty seconds of personal review, had decided to try to skirt around it. He couldn’t pinpoint where it was, or from whence the aura emanated, but at this point all he wanted to do was go home and take a nap before his meeting with the alderman tomorrow. Unfortunately, whatever it was seemed to be both larger and faster than he was, and he found himself facing down one of Destiny City’s many problems much sooner than he’d originally planned.

“I’m going home,” he said, dryly. The man was shorter than him, but built sturdily; like a shorter, more compact David, if the way the cloth of his uniform fell was any indication. That wasn’t distracting, personally, because many of the men in St. Petersburg’s branch of the Negaverse were of the same variety. Muscle-bound degenerates, how exciting. The distraction came from the bright glowing lines on his face--like silicon on circuit boards. He had seen photos of such parts, once. “By foot, as you do. And yourself?”

This had to be a knight, he thought, remembering the Page he’d seen once. She’d been covered in similar symbols, before she was offered the chance to join them or die. After the General-Queen had taken her starseed, she had become… just a girl. “Curious,” he decided. “Are you a Knight of Mercury? I’ve only seen one like you once before.”

"Babylon Knight of Mercury," he repeated. Clunky. Inelegant. Not at all like the simple grace of the Negaverse's titles. Lieutenant. Captain. Of course the Negaverse pretended to be what they weren't; there was nothing of them that remembered a military force so much as the mafiya, silent and everywhere. But at least they were not fanciful about it. There was a dignity in keeping it simple, in eliding the formula. He supposed that was one difference between the Negaverse and their more chaotic mirror images.

He held up a hand to block the lantern's glow, but it didn't help. "You speak to Lieutenant Melanite. Would you douse that lantern? I can't see clearly." What he really wanted to know was if the lines on the knight's face really did glow, as they appeared to, or if they were merely reflective. Many of the reports shared to him from Destiny City had hinted at odd happenings, but nothing like this. Knights with glowing markings? Why wasn't the Negaverse taking steps to destroy them? It was true Melanite didn't know what the marks meant, but it was easy to imagine they meant nothing good for the Negaverse.

He frowned, squinting against the light. "Those marks are quite striking. How were they acquired?"

This was some American variant of twenty questions, no doubt. The exchange requested was not precisely fair, though; he had no idea what the apparently-fearsome forces of the knights knew about the Negaverse and their spread. He would happily keep that information to himself. "Not long," he said, a vague answer for the same vague nothing-answer he'd received. He did not elucidate either, a momentary frown marring his face before he took a long step forward to peer at the lines with an artists curiosity.

"The lines, how far do they go? Is it only where they are exposed or do they cover you even under fabric?" This knight was, by far, the most unnerving and interesting thing he had seen since leaving home. "They illuminate your profile in an interesting way, did you know? I have never seen anything quite like it." Of course, there were the half youma of the Destiny City branch, a perversion unique to this place, but to Melanite they resembled nothing so much as an adolescent's fever dreams. He had seen more terrifying things in his waking life when he was much smaller.

This, though. This was interesting. "Are your eyes glowing, Babylon Knight?"

"What an exciting life you must lead," Melanite said. He closed the distance between them quickly, and reached out to push Babylon's collar aside. They did appear to continue down the long musculature of his throat, and were otherwise indistinguishable from skin, Melanite noted, stepping back and out of Babylon's striking range once he had seen both sides of the man's neck. "Mine is not nearly so, I suppose." As far as being selected for a mystical army went, it was actually rather more eventful than he liked.

Now that his curiosity was satisfied, he decided he'd rather not risk giving away more than the knight already knew. "I'd like to do a portrait of you, sometime," he said. "It's not often I find a subject in your mold." Better to not mention anything more personal than painting. He could conceal his style for studies well enough, and he was here to make contacts, wasn't he? "Is your lifestyle too quickly paced for that?"

"I am an artist," said Melanite, stung despite himself. "A professional gallery portraitist. Not that I expect that to mean much to uncultured Americans." Everyone knew that America was the opposite of the land of opportunity when you happened to have a less scientific mind. Melanite had never been that strong in any scientific field... Not that he'd ever had a chance to be.

He leaned back on one foot, arms crossed over his chest. "When can you fit me into your busy schedule, Babylon Knight?"

“What have bats to do with it,” asked Melanite--but, well, that wasn’t really a question that demanded an answer, was it? The meaning could be extrapolated--right in this place, right at this time. “I would prefer somewhere less… less,” he said, looking about the small side street. “There is a public garden near the Rackham Estate. They leave the path lights on after the park closes for the day. Is that acceptable?”

Melanite wanted to snark something at him along the lines of I do not enjoy carrying a case of paints and materiel around the city, but instead he smiled and tipped his head a bit to the side, a disarming expression he’d learned about a hundred gallery shows ago. “Thank you for accommodating me,” he said, phrased like a <******** you--which was really not how one should treat a painting subject, but really, Babylon Knight was just lucky that Melanite wasn’t planning to immediately turn him in. “May I be on my way?”