The room was dark when she opened her eyes, but she could see dim shapes around her, telling her she was not simply blind. There was the outline of a window to her side, and beneath it, in the soft light of the night outside the closed blinds, she could make out a nightstand or a chest of drawers of some kind. It was not the layout of her bedroom, or any room in her house, but that thought did not immediately bother her. She was slowly putting things together in her mind, and it was a very difficult task.

Everything felt heavy, and slow, as if she were suspended in space and the world was moving around her at a much slower speed than she was used to. Even though everything was still, and she was not moving from her bed, she felt like she was spiralling. It was then that she really noticed she was, in fact, in a bed, but the sheets were unfamiliar in texture and weight. A blanket was pulled up over her, almost up to her neck, and she was neatly tucked in. The air around her was cool, but she felt like she was burning from the inside out, and she struggled helplessly against the blankets with her hands.

Moving was a mistake. Her body suddenly woke up and pain raced through her like an electric bolt, passing through every nerve ending and lighting it up in a way that made her feel like her muscles were all trying to constrict into a tiny ball in the center of her stomach. Letting out a feeble sound, she tried to force her body to relax, the pain making her dizzy and the room beginning to spin even faster as an unnatural grey began to claw at the edges of her vision, despite looking out into darkness.

She heard muffled noises nearby, as if someone was running on a sofa or pillow, and felt a cold hand on her face. She gasped and looked up at the blurred form hovering over her, but she could not recognize who it was. Her eyes were wide with fear, and her mind snapped back to its last moments of full consciousness. She had been in a conversation with that Royal Knight, after his son almost killed her. She remembered telling him she would not stop, and she had meant it. She would kill him, kill his son, and everyone the two of them loved. She would make them all suffer, that was what she promised, because she knew he was too weak to stop her.

He was as White Moon as they could possibly come. He dripped chivalry and good intentions, and she knew the idea of dirtying his hands was unfathomable to him.

But she saw it now, as she looked up at the blurred form standing over her. The eyes that had suddenly shifted as they looked at her, and saw her in a new light. She saw the change, the understanding. She had been able to see it all too clearly, saw it now, as he became aware of the only choice she left open to him in her goading and confidence that he would never turn to it. She saw the moment he decided to kill her, that her life was expendable, and that he was capable of ending it. She saw him look at her with every intention of killing her, and there had been no apology in that gaze. Maybe he would feel bad about it after the fact, but in that moment, as fleeting as it had been, she knew she had pushed him too far.

And in that moment she realized she did not want to die.

She had so much she needed to do with her life. Not just as an agent of the Negaverse, but as a human. She had not been reminded of her human side, of her own mortality, in years, it felt like. Maybe it was. Her civilian life was relegated to playing video games and then going to bed, and every other moment she spent her time bent on her life in the Negaverse. She did not want to be a human, did not want to be Gently Ponsonby. She had abandoned that life so long ago, she hardly knew what it meant any more. Everything she needed came from the Negaverse, from Chaos and the Rift. The need for human connection had left her completely, and she was nothing but the character she had created for herself so long ago.

Except in one terrible moment, facing her own mortality in a way that she had never been made to face it before, she realized that who she was did not matter, as long as she was still someone. The idea of not being there any more, of not existing in this life in any form, was an unacceptable answer. She spoke so much bravado while in the heat of battle, acted recklessly and like she was constantly expecting to throw her life away. Like it meant nothing to her. But at the end of the day, it was just bluster, born of her confidence and her ability so far to make it through every battle, well or not, the winner or the loser, alive.

Sitting there on the ground, helpless, no longer caught up in a fight but simply talking to an enemy and having no way to defend herself, she had suddenly felt very small. Very weak. It was something she had forced herself to forget how to feel, and being forced to face that very human, very natural side of herself again had made her break. And to be made to feel so pathetic by someone she hated so much only made it more difficult to bear.

She had been scared of the Royal Knight.

Scared.

General Painite, force of fear and someone who delighted in being a terror to Senshi and Knights, was brought to a groveling, shivering mass of her own fear at the feet of someone she absolutely hated. Someone she had no respect for, and knew was weak. Knew would never kill for the sake of it. They had not been in battle: she had been hurt and he knew that. He saved her. She thought she was golden, she was safe, but something changed. He did not just try to hurt her, to incapacitate her: he tried to kill her.

He might still succeed.

She did not notice her own thrashing until the pain of it brought her out of her daze. She was screaming inarticulately, and someone was holding on to her desperately, tightly. She gripped the strong arm that was wrapped around her, but there was no threat in the hold. It was like being hugged, but pinned down to the bed by it. She looked up at him but the Royal Knight she had seen melted away, and an unfamiliar face looked back at her. His eyes were gentle and full of concern and confusion, but no malice. No threat of death.

Shuddering, she felt a sob rise in her throat like bile. It escape despite her best efforts and she collapsed against him, tears freely falling down her face as she cried against his chest, her hands gripping his shirt loosely. She did not have the strength to hold him any tighter.

He was speaking to her, but she could not clearly make out his words. They sounded like they were being filtered through an old radio, crackling and muffled to the point of being completely unintelligible. She did recognize the gentle tone, though, and it soothed her somewhat despite her not being able to understand it directly. She closed her eyes, taking short, shallow breaths in a helpless effort to try and calm herself, unable to take a full one. He eased her down carefully back down into the bed, smoothing his cool hand against her forehead and letting his touch linger there. She could almost feel her forehead burning against his palm, as if putting her own hand to it, and she shook her head slowly and tried to say something. No words managed to come out, and he shushed her any way. He moved from the side of the bed and at once she felt vulnerable, as if he left her and was not going to come back.

Where was he going? Why?

She felt her eyes closing despite her efforts to look around for him. Exhaustion fell over her and she had no strength left to fight or struggle against the blankets or the visions that came in waves. She was at peace for the moment, but as soon as she started to drift off to sleep the vivid memories and twisted images returned.

The Royal Knight was always there, holding his shield, splattered with blood. Her blood. She saw herself on the ground, broken and bent in such an unnatural way that it made her stomach turn to see it, and the image burned itself into the darkness behind her eyelids, lingering there to return to her each time she closed her eyes. She wanted to stay awake because of it, but had no power to do so. She shuddered and whimpered helplessly as the Royal Knight moved forward, bringing his shield up and smashing it down at her, this time aiming for her head.

Her eyes snapped open with a start as a cold wetness met her forehead. She gasped raggedly, but was met with that same gentle hush as before. He was back, the one that had rescued her, the one that was taking care of her now. He had a cloth to her forehead and was helping to cool her down from the fever that was gripping her, and she heard him speaking to her again. She heard her name, her mineral name, and felt a calming wave wash over her at the idea that one of her own had managed to take her in.

In truth, she had known that already, but her mind could not hold on to the fleeting moments of consciousness so far. This was the longest she had been awake, and it was far from lucid. She sighed heavily, taking a deep enough breath at last to do so, and turned her head to the side against the pillows, closing her eyes again.

She felt the man sitting nearby, his presence enough to soothe her for now, and it allowed her to fall to sleep this time without being assaulted by the images that had been plaguing her tonight.

Dennis, for his part, watched her with quiet concern on his face. He was doing everything he could to help her, as far as he knew, and was trying to find any kind of help he could to do it. He was even turning to senshi and knights to try and find aid, because he did not know where else to turn. She told him not to go to the Negaverse, not to reveal to anyone that she, General Painite, was alive. So he had to focus on healing Gently without taking her to a hospital or anyone discovering who she was.

It was an almost impossible task, and he was constantly stressed and worried because of it. But he was determined, more dedicated to this than he had ever been to anything or anyone. As long as he had the ability to keep trying, as long as she held on, he was going to keep trying.

She needed him to, and more than that, he had needed something like this, as well. Maybe he was not in the right place, mentally, to understand it, but this was a purpose much bigger than he was, and he did not need to understand everything to do his best.

But the weight of knowing a human and negaverse life was depending on him was weighing down on him more and more. He needed something to turn in his, in her, favor, and he needed it soon.