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Midnight found Melanite in the usual place it found him: sitting at a bus shelter bench outside an art gallery, waiting to see if he'd been flagged with a partner today. Sometimes he had, sometimes he hadn't, and that was alright, that certainly... continued to happen. One thing that Destiny City's Negaverse lacked was follow-through.

Maybe that was too cold. He sighed, thinking about it, and got up, resigned to another night of making a restless round of a city he had no desire to be in. At least it was the arts district, where he had an actual reason to be--he could look at the gallery displays, consider the merits of their artists on display. It sometimes inspired him when he got home. Thankfully, as an artist-in-residence, he had few demands on his time as long as he spent some of it in his studio. Even then, his first month was to be mostly given over to research and experiencing what America was like. He never let on that he'd been here before, with a cousin and an uncle to visit, but he didn't think they'd care even if he did.

Who knew? This was the forefront of the battle against the senshi. The only stronghold the senshi even had. It wasn't like they could suddenly rise up anywhere else, and cause anyone any sort of worry. Not in Russia, not in Europe, not anywhere. This stupid little city was it.

Off in the distance, he sensed a Page. Melanite stopped, warily, and looked to his left and his right. Would there be a punishment for breaking his assigned route?... Did he care?

He really didn't, either way, so he just kept walking. Eventuallyy he'd run into the page, or he wouldn't.

The aura stopped moving, and Melanite sighed heavily. It was right in his way, like that was any sort of good thing. He supposed another might have relished the opportunity to start a fight, but he'd had enough fun with Pages lately. They seemed more prone to violence than their higher-ranked counterparts, anyway.

This page looked nothing like any of the others he'd encountered--not the Mercury sigils of the page in St. Petersburg, nor the quartered circle of the reborn General Avalon. "Mars page," he said, because it was always best to be polite. The boy looked like he was ready for a fight, scales gripped tight in his hands like he expected this to come to blows. Melanite helpfully held up his useless little bowl, and tossed it over his shoulder, where it broke with a clatter.

He touched two fingers to his forehead in an ironic little salute and kept on walking. "Do svidanya."

"Da, Mars page, it was my weapon." Melanite stopped walking, and turned. On second inspection, the page looked as silly as any others--the only people with reasonable uniforms that he had seen were his own peers in the Negaverse, and even that was limited. "I suppose that moronic set of bowls is yours? Perhaps we are a matched set."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "What is it you want, then? You are wasting my time."

Melanite was not stupid. He knew that. He snorted, and flicked his bangs out of his face. "They seem to be a pair of bowls to me," he said, condescendingly.

...A fencing match? How about no? "Are you developmentally disabled," he asked, watching the Mars page go off towards a nearby tree. "I have no interest in pretending to do my job. I'm taller than you and likely stronger than you. You stand at a clear disadvantage and you want to build a fence?" That was the word for it, right? Fencing? "Americans are so pointless," he said, turning away and starting on his way home again. "Please do ring me up when you have grown up a little."