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Spring was finally upon Destiny City, and Babylon was glad for that. The snow was finally melting, leaving the smell of old garbage and new flowers in its wake - one was more charming than the other. The warmer weather meant that he'd seen more and more powered individuals hopping around the roofs around his neighborhood - and tonight seemed like it might be the busiest he'd seen yet.

Babylon was making his usual circuit of the neighborhood, looking out for any trouble makers, but the historical district didn't have very much nightlife to attract officers in search of filling their quotas. Kaatje had chosen the location for Florence Court well - it was as safe a building as you could find in Destiny City. While he felt auras moving in the distance, he only felt one nearby. Low-level. Negaverse. If they hadn't realized by now that this neighborhood was terrible hunting ground, then they would soon.

He still owed it to the local populace to make sure the lieutenant hadn't found any prey, so Babylon headed off in that direction. Someone that low level he could probably just knock around a bit and they'd run off, and that was if they were causing trouble. Otherwise... was it so much to think they could just talk for a while? He so preferred that over fighting.

The knight held his lantern at waist height and moved carefully towards the chaos signature. Whatever scene awaited him in the next alley, well, he'd deal with it when he got there.

Babylon wasn't interested in fighting, either, so he was glad that the lieutenant made his intentions known and saved them both the awkward stare-down. "I'm going to come closer, okay?" he called, and followed a moment later with a series of carefully plotted leaps that put him on the same section of rooftop as the lieutenant.

He couldn't judge a Negaverser's relative experience just by looking at them, but he was willing to bet that this guy was either new or deliberately trying to neglect his duties. Babylon had known someone else like that once, and that person was now purified, so... he had some hope for what he might accomplish. Or, at least, he'd spoken to enough officers over the years that he thought he knew how to get under their skin with thoughts of mutiny without ticking them off.

Which was honestly a ******** dark way of considering it but, eh, whatever.

"Were you hoping to take in some culture?" asked Babylon. "Walk among the abstract paintings for a while? The doors are locked, but the sculpture garden is open all night."

He gestured, indicating the yard behind the museum where all sorts of wrought iron creations stood stark in the moonlight. At least, thought Babylon, no one had ever seen fit to turn one of those priceless works of art into a youma. "The name's Babylon," he added, realizing that introductions were in order if he was going to make this any less awkward. "Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to, Lieutenant?"

Babylon nodded - Melanite, when he'd been Melanite, had been a transfer from another branch of the Negaverse, so he knew such things existed. Had Umber been awakened elsewhere as well? If the Negaverse really was moving such low-level resources around at random, perhaps its hold on Destiny City was more tenuous than it let on.

If he had to guess, he'd say the difference Umber felt was his transcendence. Babylon tried not to pause for too long, lest he give the impression that he was trying to cover up for something, but the Negaverse was looking for information on the senshi and knights who couldn't be corrupted and he didn't want to be the one to give them what they sought. Alternately, perhaps Umber didn't even know about that initiative... He didn't think he could risk it. It would be too easy to send a strike force after him. "Have you met other knights?" he asked. "Or just pages and squires? I'm more experienced than them, so I suppose I would feel different."

Which did not explain the lines on his cheeks or his glowing eyes, and Babylon knew it. "As for this," he said, gesturing to his face, "I was messing with magic I probably shouldn't have and nearly died. This is lasting damage."

Well, it wasn't a lie. It also wasn't the whole truth.

He followed the lieutenant off the roof and down into the garden, where the sculptures stood as silent sentinels. Once, he'd imagined creating work that could be displayed here - but he'd never actually been serious about the craft, just the results and the attention it got him. Babylon was more mature now, he thought. He'd seen some real s**t™.

"What others have you met?" he asked. "Any other differences might just be a matter of planetary alignment. My power comes from Mercury, where my Wonder is. Other knights serve different planets."

Hopefully, this was shaping up to be an interesting discussion.

Babylon wondered who else Umber had met - while he recalled a great many people had transcended between now and the future that was not to be, he didn't know hardly any in the present, and he was sure there were some he wasn't aware of. The lieutenant changed the subject before he could ask, describing someone who very well could have been a knight. The caribou sounded like a summons - it certainly didn't sound like a senshi power. "Cosmos, maybe," he said, taking his best guess. Hvergelmir? he wondered. He hadn't seen her since she'd gotten out of the hospital, and if she'd attained her summons it was news to him.

"Wonders are... ancient places of great power," he said, looking up at the statue the arced over his head. "Knights are bound in service of royals, assigned to protect their holdings. Most of us don't have our rulers now... so we serve Order directly." Or through the Code. Or whatever. It never paid to be more specific than you needed to be with the Negaverse, especially with agents who looked to be looking for a leg up. With Melanite, he'd always been confident nothing he said would find its way back to a commanding officer's ears. Umber had suggested no such disenchantment.

"Earth is among the planets we are sworn to," he said, and reached for the alethiometer, pulling it out from inside his coat. There was no danger in showing Umber that, at least - perhaps showing a Negaverser that they themselves were aligned to a distant world could make them more tolerant. "It's the only world left. We were all born here - some of us are reincarnated forms of the old knights. Some of us are what's left of the ancient bloodlines - I'm the latter. There was a war a thousand years ago, some kind of cataclysm. Everywhere else was wiped out. When I first went to Mercury, I was the first person to set foot in my city for a millennium."

He opened the case and showed Umber the dial. "Each of these symbols represents an order of knights," he said. "We are what you officers would be without Chaos's touch." How are you different from a senshi?

"And this could show you what world you would serve, if you want to know."

Babylon cringed inwardly - he'd apparently done a terrible job of explaining, if Umber's repeating it back to him was anything to go by. "No," he corrected. "My Wonder is mine to do with as I wish." The confusion seemed to have come over dead planets - had no one told Umber about space travel? Well, he supposed that that revelation would have to be made by someone at some point, and the distinction between dead and totally unreachable had to be made.

(Had Umber just completely missed the part where he said when I first went to Mercury? he wondered. Making people aware of their own mistakes is seldom a good plan.)

He explained, "the other worlds are dead, but they're not unreachable. Knights can visit their wonders. Senshi can visit their planets. They're not habitable, but they're the source of our powers. What I do to restore and maintain my wonder is reflected in my own abilities. My own strength. It's... um... it's a full return on investment, if that metaphor makes any sense to you?"

Honestly, he never knew what was going to get through to people. Babylon had met at least one person who best understood things when they were compared to episodes of Star Trek, and that was fine. At least it made the conversation possible - right now, he and Umber seemed to be having some kind of communication error. He felt challenged - and also like the lieutenant would find no answer Babylon could possibly give to be satisfactory.

"As for Earth," he continued, taking the easiest question first, "I was born here? Like, when I say this is the only habitable planet left out of this ancient, universe-spanning civilization, I'm not kidding. Chaos wrecked everything, and it would wreck this world, too, if it had the chance. It's a balance thing - the two sides are supposed to be evenly matched. You get too far in either direction and you basically get the accelerated heat death of the universe, and right now the scales are tilted pretty far in favor of Chaos."

Honestly, he thought, what cause did Umber think he was serving if its opposite was so unfathomable? Or was there something about the Negaverse's brainwashing that just made it impossible to wonder? He'd seen some of that with Avalon... but he did his best not to think about that.

Babylon glanced down for a moment, adjusting the dials on the alethiometer. "It's painless," he said. "It just reads your aura. So I'll do it, if you're sure you want to know what the answer is."

(The dial was already spinning.)

The dial spun wide and then stopped, needle trained squarely on a symbol. There was no uncertainty in the reading (there never was). "You're attuned to Jupiter," said Babylon, looking back up at Umber. He tried to imagine the lieutenant wearing green wool and heavy furs but found it difficult; Negaverse uniforms seldom resembled the knights they became.

And at the moment, it didn't seem likely that he'd ever see Umber become a knight. His attitude read less heavily of Negaverse brainwashing than it did a simple lack of comprehension or caring, but Babylon wasn't sure how much more clearly he could explain things. Some people didn't see the point of Wonders, even as knights.

(Then again, Camlann had surprised him. He'd never expected to see Melanite purify, either.)

(But pushing too hard and too fast was an excellent way to sour things all around, he knew.)

With a more powerful stranger, Umber's request would have made Babylon more wary. There was magic at his wonder that even he didn't fully understand, and it was tied too closely to his very soul for him to feel comfortable bringing those he didn't trust to it. But the lieutenant's intentions seemed as good as a lieutenant's intentions could be, spurred by honest curiosity and nothing more insidious.

"Yes," he said. "If you're serious about asking, we could go right now."

Babylon couldn't hold Umber's skepticism against him. Not when the questions asked were so logical. By all accounts, it should be impossible to travel to Mercury, let alone stay there. "Um," he said, offering his arm to the lieutenant in a gesture that was maybe a little emasculating depending on how much you cared about upholding the tenets of No Homo. "I think it's the sort of thing you have to see to believe, but I think you're probably dressed appropriately. We can be there and back before... hmm. Midnight, if we don't dawdle."

He couldn't anticipate what sort of reaction Umber would possibly have once presented with the surface of another planet, so it was probably for the better that he didn't have any other plans for this evening.

"Anyway," said Babylon, "Take my arm whenever you're ready and we'll get going."