Zircon wasn't much disposed to field work. Her place was in her lab, a cold pristine cage full of numbers and glass and the smell of sanitation. Her work room was little more than a series of charts and tables covered with technical equipment, but the space was hers and hers alone to control. The Rift and Destiny City had so many variables, like squabbling voices clamoring to be heard over the uproar, but in here the only voice that mattered was her own. Down to the microbes and the chemical bonds that made them, Zircon had absolute control, an opportunity she would have nowhere else. In the center of the white room was a tilted observation table, leather straps holding strong against whatever White-Moon sympathizer Sakuradite cared to leave as scraps for her Captain. Usually, her evaluation chair was empty, but today was different.
Zircon's assistant had been the one assigned to drag the sedated Knight of Mars into the evaluation room, a tall lanky youth who had been eager to enlist in the Negaverse and fight for the cause. Had Nightilite known that most of his duties would center around dragging around White Moon test subjects, instead of just making them corpses, he might've had second thoughts. "For a short ********, you're pretty heavy," the lieutenant huffed, hefting the bound and gagged Royal Knight onto the tilted slab and buckling him in, wrist after wrist. Nightilite straightened his posture, admiring his handiwork, then put up his fists, like he were in a mock fight with the fallen member of Order.
"I wouldn't recommend it. Sedated or not, I think a Royal Knight could handle a Lieutenant."
Zircon closed the door behind her quietly, her hair damp from a recent shower. The capture had been a draining experience for the Captain, after all, and she'd needed to clean off the blood from her face. What she couldn't clean were the dual black eyes she wore as a memento from Andronicus, but hours after the battle they were already beginning to yellow and fade, no doubt from consuming some much-needed energy. She sipped from the coffee mug she'd carried with her, and then with an unenthused wave of a hand she shooed her lieutenant out of her workspace.
"I need two doses of epinephrine, a bag of saline, and some calipers," she droned, and with a dutiful salute the lieutenant was gone, off to some distant supply closet. Zircon doubted that Nightilite knew what calipers were, or that they wouldn't be found in the building, but she hoped that in sending her assistant on an insolvable quest that she would have some time with the subject to herself. At one point, she'd been the eager lieutenant running in circles at the whims of her betters. She wasn't sure if her current position was better or worse.
Zircon sighed into her coffee cup, feeling incredibly tired, then looked up at Kairatos, broken and bloody from what she presumed to be some rough handling during his transport. There had been any number of Knights for them to procure, why did it have to be him? It made no sense in the long run, she supposed, but something in her gut twisted upon looking at his dented armor. His helmet had been removed already, lost in transportation, so there was nothing to hide his familiar features, bruised as they were.
"You know, for a while there, you had me scared," Zircon finally broke the silence, trying to keep her voice sounding casual. "You really jeopardized the success of our mission, that's something to be proud of." Reaching behind Kairatos, she tugged at the cloth gagging his mouth and untied the knot, giving him a chance to breathe.
In a softer voice, she added, "It's been a while."
Ryuthulhu
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