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The first thing he'd done, when looking for Bishophite, was to go to the library with her. He'd given Hver a rather hasty, high tension explanation. Something about a notebook. Something about keeping in touch, trying to research purification on such a...unique situation. Something about making trouble for the Negaverse.

He'd gotten them both inside, and then gone jostling through several corners of the library, looking for a notebook hidden above the drop tiles of the ceiling, but then it had occurred to him that the notebook in and of itself was not the same as seeing someone in person, breathing, talking, so he'd hastily shoved the tiles back into place and rushed off again, only Hver's presence keeping him from driving far too fast, though even with a passenger, his body language spoke volumes about his tight strung nerves and an urge to drive much, much faster.

He parked a short stint away, offered her a hand off the bike, and went stalking around the overpass, pacing back and forth searching for the signature of Bishophite, like somehow he'd find it standing out in a particular way from other Chaos signatures.

Maybe a little gluier, or more oddly refined than other auras? Like he'd written his name in his signature with Tar, but that was rather ridiculous.

The cool night air teased through feathers, carrying the breath of a hundred mouths on its whimsical spools through the chain link fence guarding the perimeter of the overpass. There he sat beyond its threshold, carefully supported by the last parapet before the sheer drop to pavement below, watching putrid yellow lines crawl toward the horizon beneath tired orange lighting. In these rare portions where not a soul passed through the freeway, Bischofite found it unconscionably telling of the city's bleak standing. Few stirred now where the nightlife might erupt with those excited by the moon over the horizon, and yet...

"When did all zis talk of war grind ze life from our bones?" He asked aloud, eyeing the marginally beaten cigarette in his grasp. He carefully embedded a taloned nail into the tobacco packing at its tip while the pad of his thumb pressed against the filter backing. Across the middle of its paper read M E T A L L I A in shaken print, marginally smudged from that fateful night. "When did we settle for ze choice over how we die? How stark it is to lif' in such an age..."

He sighed, breath not yet betrayed on the chill of night. Looking to the stars, he set his gaze on the moon that hung high against a blackened backdrop aglitter with a thousand unknown terrains. "Was zis what you wanted all along?" Afterward he looked back to the cancer stick in his clutches.

"Or is it all of your dubious machinations? I doubt it matters now. Not anymore."

After tucking the cigarette back into its horned case, he drew an arm back and hurled the antique as far as his strength could muster, beyond the waning light provided by fluorescent pollution and onto the distant stretch of blacktop, where the resounding shatter finally echoed back to him. And with it came a rumble of life, slowly shaping into the throaty roar of a motorcycle spanning the long streets of the freeway in mere breaths. Soon enough, the pair of auras struck him with the same sickened vomitorium stench that urged a shudder of revulsion from his bones.

A knight and squire, one behind the other, drawing to a stop not far from where he sat. Hvergelmir and Kairatos. Tweedledipshit and Tweedledumbass if they're hunting me down now. Then again... Perhaps the game they play is not so dangerous anymore.

I could be wrong.

For an instant he considered making use of his wings for once in testing their strength through a sheer drop to the streets below. He knew he mustered so little energy these days, so legitimate flight still lingered far beyond his reach, but nothing advised him against an attempt at slowing his own fall. Considering it's a distance he surmounted previously, he found the attempt of little excitement; however, he lacked the interest in excitement of late.

"Why are you here?" He called from his perch, eyeing the pair with a mix of curiosity and offense. "Hvergelmir, I'f always met you at your bench. And Kairatos, I already told you of where I would harbor zat notebook. You haf' no furzer need to seek me out."

Hvergelmir had wondered where Bischofite went when he wasn't with her. In the Rift, there were real youma, and he wasn't one of their own. What had he said -- he'd spent his days there fighting for a slab of rock to sleep on? Now, as far as she knew, he hadn't returned there after his failed purification, and was on the run -- but there was no place for someone with his monstrous body here in Destiny City, either.

She'd always supposed something like this seemed to be -- hiding away, scurrying from one dark, secluded corner to the other, grabbing sleep where he could. Bereft of human contact, left with people like her and Kairatos for company. She always worried he didn't like her very much -- but Hvergelmir had never turned him away even so. She didn't have the heart.

Alois needed friends. He had a bright, exciting mind; it was like a spark to the skin. It was doing him no good to rot in places like this, isolated and bitter.

"They're twins. One of them with hair gone white, who might be hallucinating about his past. They wear senshi uniforms each in navy blue. Seek them out if you like, but . . . " She cast about for something to say that she hoped would be an actual deterrent, rather than the multitudes of things that might encourage him just to be contrary. "They're idiots."

She had no idea if even that would work. Who could know the mind of such a strange young man?

Hvergelmir looked up at Bischofite again, sitting hidden away on his perch, demanding to know why in the world they would seek him out. Because we're your friends, or trying to be. Stop pushing us away when we try to freely give something you seek us out to take.

"Oh you're so tough you don't have to worry about a royal? Oh well HANG ON THEN folks we've got a ********' game changer over here. Move over Zinkenite and Howlite, Metalia's surely bound to promote you to EMPEROR right?"

Bischophite had a charming habit of responding to kindness by savaging the hand extended to him, and after nightmares, and other frustrating discussions with people who didn't seem to understand that a new round of Ares tactics was, in fact a problem for everyone...

Kairatos was just done.

"But no go on, we totally have all night for you to lecture us on how you're the most monstrous monster that ever did monster and you deserve your fate and we should leave you to it, and thats why you hang around where people can find you, and haven't thrown yourself in front of a mac truck or stopped taking food."

"Fine. It's foreign. Get used to it, it's a nice little thing about having friends that don't just see you as a stepping stone to a promotion, but honestly? That's freaking sadder than your badly poetic death wish. You get any more melodramatic and I'm going to can your essence and sell it at that crappy Mall store."

"It may be war, and yeah people die, but there's a big difference between that, and this. Or do you never get the chance to talk to the victims of Rota? Do you really think the negaverse in it's current state could survive the blow if the Soverign's in their infinite bullshit opened their arms to these two like they did the DMC? They stopped rebellions before, but structure was stronger then. Now it's just a stack of cardboard and gold stars. I'd be happy to see the murders stop, but what Castors doing helps literally no one, and if you can't see that, maybe you're not as smart as you thought you were. Hell, look what the last time you got blind sided cost you."

That was mean. But he honestly did not give a ********, as long as maybe it got the point across.

"God you're one sad sack of s**t if you haven't figured out that even your jackass lover hasn't entirely given up on you." He muttered darkly, crossing his arms and watching him, daring the half-youma to make a move.

Hver might not approve but he'd be happy to kick Bischophite's a** across the park and back if it shook him out of this obnoxious melancholy.

******** he was way too tired for this crap lately.

Kariatos' explosion and accusations of hubris left the creature cold, weary eyes settling on his irate rampage through one unconscionably sharp barb after another until he thoroughly tore down Alois' character and struggles. A portion of him knew that what he endured found no legitimization in the hearts of others - this did not bother him greatly - but the mockery that came afterward painted a petulant picture of all that he fought on a nigh daily basis. It made light of what strides he did manage, and the myriad shackles restraining him from stepping further.

Throughout the derision, one fact remained emblazoned in the forefront of Alois' mind, blisteringly clear through the repeated verbal tirade.

Oh you're so tough you don't have to worry about a royal?
We totally have all night for you to lecture us on how you're the most monstrous monster that ever did monster...
You're one sad sack of s**t.
Maybe you're not as smart as you thought you were.

Look what the last time you got blindsided cost you.

You're no different than Malicious.

Alois retained his standoffish demeanor during Kairatos' rage, each muscle stiffened into an almost obsessive yearning for the same posture. And with the loss of so much body fat, each ligament etched from flesh in an unnerving fashion - he acted a veritable anatomy model. He never attempted to interrupt the blonde, even at the mention of his lover. Castor can be the death of us all. What do I care for the officers of the Negaverse? He can build his own necropolis from their bones, and he can start with mine. Fine, Kairatos - I'll seek him out then. I'll seek him out and if he chooses to fry me alive, hang my corpse by his feet and use the ash from my extraneous portions to write his names all across the walls, then let him.

Finally he spoke, words soft in volume yet vocalized with an edge. "Worry not, Kairatos, for you will not find me twice." He measured a pair of paces backward before dissipating entirely, leaving the pair to resume their search in the tepid September night.