Elle seemed more and more comfortable traipsing around the city at night, even as a civilian. She was a captain now, and had been training on combat weekly for months now. There was a new confidence there that she thought she had lost when she found herself at the bottom of the food chain in the Negaverses’ ranks, but the arrogance she had been known for in her previously life was starting to take healthy root in her behavior again.

Tracking youma out of curiosity had become an odd pastime as well, so when she spotted a monstrous figure hiding away in the urban shadows cast by dim city lighting, she powered up and purused.

Only to find her target appearing more human-like than she had bargained for, once she caught a look at it.

One wing, scales, a particular… aura… this wasn’t a youma. At least not a traditional one.

“E-excuse me? Can you spe-- Oh my god.”

The familiarity of the tattered uniform finally struck her, and Galena-- whose biggest social failing was her lack of expression-- seemed to freeze with raw shock written on her facial features in every which way.

“What happened?”

This was Cinnabar all over again.

Lithiasaur
Merlinite was not unused to those kinds of reactions, these days. Except usually, he got them from White Moon senshi or knights he had been friends with before this whole thing happened. He had, after all, been planning on purifying and not corrupting further. Now, though, he was not only a General, but a youma. It was hard to take in, and sometimes, he haunted himself with thoughts of how trapped he was now.

Most of the time, he tried not to think too much about any of it.

“Painite. She didn’t like the idea of me purifying or having senshi help her, so she turned me into this. Cool, huh?” He said, looking as upset as he sounded. He had not been expecting to run into someone he knew from the Negaverse, and his instincts told him to run away.

What if she told Painite where he was? What if she tried to take him back to the Negaverse with her? He was hiding, on the run: he would not go back to them, to Painite, if he had a choice in the matter. Even if that choice was only to kill himself to escape. That was just the very last thing he wanted to do, even now.

“I know… I’m a monster now. Not the best look in the world, eh?”


Galena visibly twisted and became unsettled as he relayed the short explanation. This wasn't like Cinnabar after all. Cinnabar had been a gory mistake.

"Someone did this to you on purpose?"

She had no idea such a thing was possible, or that anyone would willingly do that to someone else even if it was. Her words had been exhaled in a hoarse whisper, feeling her throat tighten and the air leaving her lungs. She couldn't remember the last time she had experienced horror. It must've been a long time ago. She was here, in this organization, that had the capability and willingness to turn their teammates and comrades into monsters if they became displeased, and while she had always known that to a degree, being faced with the hard truth of reality made her dizzy.

At once she felt the sensation of judging eyes on her, aware of every treasonous thing she had said or done. All of the quiet inquiries of purification. All of the affection exchanged with Antiope in secret meetings. The gore of Cinnabar's transformation, the tragedy of Merlinite's form in front of her.

She wobbled on her feet, and even powered down like silencing the auras in the air would help at all.

"I'm sorry," She choked out, to Merlinite who she had never had a kind word for before. It would have been better to say she grieved for his lost humanity, but the selfish reality was she saw someone she had spent so long competing with for rank, and fearfully saw what could very well be her possible future if she made even a single misstep. Even selfish and self absorbed, looking at him made her want to cry, as much as she tried to hide it and remain stoic in the face of her heart pounding and her head swimming. "I'm sorry this happened."

Lithiasaur
Merlinite watched her and suddenly felt very guilty. Here he was, treating her like a stranger, or someone to blame and hate for what happened to him, but it had nothing to do with her. And she seemed as upset by it as many of his senshi friends were. He frowned softly, tail coiling around his legs in a show of his emotions. He could not really help when his tail did things like that, though he did have some command of it when he needed to. It was sort of like its own thing, with its own expressions, sometimes.

“Hey, it’s okay… look, don’t worry about it. I’m alright. I mean. I’m… you know. I’m this, but I’m still. Here. And I can figure this out. Maybe there’s a way to undo it, you know?”

He didn’t believe himself, but he still hadn’t worked up the courage to go talk to Camelot. Maybe the Royal Knight would be able to do something to help him. If, of course, Merlinite had not burned that bridge completely. He kind of felt like it was a lost cause, for many reasons.

“Painite just… she grabbed my starseed and just corrupted it. At first I just turned into a General, I think, for a moment, but she didn’t stop. I don’t think she was going to, but she lost control anyway. It was so painful, and I don’t remember anything except… being this. Half dragon youma… thing.”

He sighed and scooted a bit closer to her. He at least had gotten used to his new strength and his weird claws, so he could dare to try and touch others without fearing slicing them into pieces. He carefully put his clawed hand on her arm, pouting a bit as he watched her.

“Are you okay?”


Galena-- or rather Elle in her present form-- Seemed dazed as she glanced at his clawed hand. She reached out, feebly waving her arm in the direction of a discarded crate before she found it and kicked it over so she could sit and lean on her knees and hold her forehead.

"No, I'm not okay at all," She said finally, sounding like she was just on this side of hyperventilating.

"I guess..." She started, holding out her hands in front of her like she was about to visualize something, and stopping immediately when a hint of emotion cracked in her voice. After a moment to gather her bearings, she continued. "I've seen the sorts of awful things they do, what they ask us to, they way we're cornered and groomed into being pets as lieutenants and then the way it just gets worse and worse. The games, the watching. I've seen it but I-I suppose I never... There's a part of you that feels immune each time you step a toe out of line and don't get caught, and then somehow things get out of control."

Elle was not someone who typically even did so much as smile, and she wasn't going to cry, but the way her cheeks flushed and she held her forehead it was clear she was trying to hold something in, and nearly looked like she would implode.

Instead, just the very beginning of a half crazed laugh managed its way out before it was silenced, just one choked sound.

"It can't be fixed. Captain Cinnabar has been stuck since her accident. It... It's..."

She inhaled hoarsely.

"I thought I already knew all of the horrible things people could do to one another. I didn't know this could be done on purpose. I..."

She swallowed and hesitated before finishing, suddenly very quiet and speaking in whispers with her head still lowered, "I've been asking about purifying too, because apparently, Merlinite, I'm always just playing catch up to you."

The implications of that were punctuated with a very unhappy, nervous, and just a bit unbalanced laugh.

Lithiasaur
Merlinite scooted a bit closer to her. He was crouched down, a more comfortable position for him due to the changes in his body, and he felt the impulse to comfort her as best he could. That involved leaning against her, letting her know he was there, and watching her with surprisingly gentle eyes.

“It might be fixable, you don’t know. I don’t know. Might as well try, I don’t have anything better to do.”

He did understand her pain at hearing that another Negaverse officer had done this to him, largely on purpose. Painite had not been able to control herself, torn by her need to own him and her honest feelings for him. She thought she was losing him to the thing she hated the most in all the world, and that was just too much.

Not that he forgave her for it. He was just as scared of her now as he ever had been, and dreaded the day they would pass each other again.

He was doing his damned best to stay away from all General auras he felt.

“But you should try and purify, Galena. It’s a really good idea. I wanted to, I really did… but I was too cowardly. What happened to me is my fault, because I let Chaos tell me what to do too long. I am not, and was not, a knight, and now I never will be. But I think you could do it. I never wanted to admit it, but I always thought you had more talent than me.”


She powered back up to Galena again, but she hardly moved. She shifted so her knees supported her elbows, and both hands were knitted together, covering her mouth. “There’s no escape,” She ended up finally saying, sounding her usual dead, monotone self.

“I was part of the operation, earlier in the year, where they dragged two traitors back into torture rooms. Even as knights, they couldn’t get away. We’ll never get away. The game is fixed. You can’t win. We can just try to operate as best we can inside of it.”

She stood up and stared at his red scales. The mental comparisons to Cinnabar were too hard to avoid, especially being her only other experience with half youma. But Cinnabar saw her remaining humanity as a gift she should repay the General-Queen for. Merlinite’s was all he could get away with.

“Can I just… t-touch?” She asked, slowly reaching out towards a section of scaled flesh. “Do you hear voices? Like Cin? Or is it just… does it hurt?”

Lithiasaur
“Yeah you can,” he said, staying still to let her touch his scales or horns, or whatever she wanted to. It actually was a strange sensation for him, as he could feel her touch despite scales, like they were just really thick skin, or something. He was not really sure what they were, except they were his. He would get used to it all more and more in time, but that was scary in itself.

“I don’t hear voices, not yet. I hope I don’t. I’m not really sure what to expect. Never… I didn’t know there were others like this. But uh. I do have weird instincts now. Like… animal-ish. And some of my… friends… senshi, they call me a Dragon.”

He supposed it was better than just being called youma or monster, and dragons did have a kind of noble air about them. Not that he had done anything noble enough to earn the name. He wanted to be different than fate was forcing him to be. He was not going to just be a pawn of Chaos, as long as he had the ability to keep fighting.

It just worried him now that Chaos had actually damaged his starseed, and he would be completely lost to it in time…

“I want to meet others like me, but I don’t want to go back to Chaos. I won’t go to the rift. I just… I guess I’m just pretending to be something I’m not at this point, but it’s better than just giving in, right? I know what happens when you just let Chaos win because you don’t want to fight back. s**t like me happens. It’s hard, and it’s scary, but maybe it’s worth it to at least try. I mean, it can’t end up any worse, right?”


"You are a dragon," Galena said with with vaguest, weakest of smiles, trailing we her fingers up his neck to his horns. It was such a morbid fascination, but it was hard not to look at monsters.

She was still reeling from the realization that this could be done purposefully.

"Worse than this? Maybe," She murmured. "Things can always get worse."

Her hands dropped to her sides. "We're all just pretending, I think. I've--... I've been meeting with this girl. She takes me to her homeworld, she confesses all of these feelings and she just expects me to... Leave. But it's not like anyone leaves forever. Do they?"

It sounded selfish, but more than ever, she didn't want to end up like him, or like the Mars knight or the Mercury knight or any of the others who became traitors and then suffered for it.

"You used to make me so jealous, it hurt," She said sadly, for all appearances jumping back and forth between taking his fate seriously and unsure if his encouragement to purify was a viable option. Her forehead seemed to go limp against his shoulder. "A friend says it's better to drink, stay numb, don't think so much. But maybe you're right too. I don't know. Maybe there are ways out. You were always one step ahead of me. I'm talking too much."

Lithiasaur
“Me? Make you jealous? That was always the goal. Glad to see it worked,” he laughed, half ruefully, and shook his head as he considered it. He really had wanted her to be jealous of him, always chasing after him as he powered up and climbed up the ladder. Who would have guessed that they were destined to end up doubting themselves in the same way?

He always felt he had a strange tie to her, even if it had just been as a friendly enough rivalry. Was it even friendly? In any case, it seemed more important now.

“I don’t know if it’s better to drink, but it would certainly be nice at this point,” he sighed, looking mournfully up at the sky. “I don’t get to eat or drink like I used to. I’m lucky if I can find anything to eat in a day. Not that I want to whine about my life any more. Hey, uh, listen.”

He carefully put his arm around her, folding his wing down against his back and leaning against her gently.

“I think things can be okay if you play your cards right. Just be careful out there… with everything… you know? I don’t want you to end up like me, or dead, or something. Even staying with the Negaverse won’t stop them from doing stuff like this, after all.I didn’t get the chance to even try.”


“Do you need food? Do you… even eat normal food?” Was that an insensitive question? It was hard to tell. Regular youma didn’t, but Cinnabar… might? She seemed interested in alcohol at the very least. Parts of them were still human.

She seemed stiff and frozen, though. His arm around her, was this a hug? Galena was not typically a huggy person, and had never been on the receiving end of one. Lascivious from superior officers didn’t really count.

She parted from him and looked around, face stiff and awkward to go with the rest of her posture before she finally reached out a hand to give him a light pat on the shoulder. “Playing my cards… right. Right.”

She swallowed, trying to alleviate her dry throat.

“I’ll try to do more than just keep myself numb to it, at least,” She promised, even though she knew she was going to go home tonight and destroy several bottles of whatever was in her wine rack to cope with this new information garnered here tonight.

Lithiasaur
Merlinite shook his head, waving his clawed hand dismissively.

“Ah, don’t worry about that. I mean. I eat. I’m sure things will get better the longer I deal with it, I’m just figuring things out right now. Haven’t got the right rhythm down, you know? But yeah. I try to just eat… you know. Food. I don’t want to have to eat anything else, you know? I don’t want to… be more youma than human… I dunno how long that’ll be okay for, or whatever but…”

The last thing he wanted was to become like a youma and prey on humans for food. Energy, starseeds, even flesh… it was not something he wanted to think about.

He didn’t force the hug longer than it had lasted. He was not much of a huggy person, either, though it seemed the dragon in him was more for close contact than the human part of him had been. Which was weird. But he was just in constant need of connection to others, lest he lose himself and them forever, and he supposed hugs were a quick path to that feeling. He crouched back on his legs as he watched her, tilting his head thoughtfully.

“Maybe you should go get some sleep. Don’t… over think things, okay? It’ll be alright, somehow. I dunno. We have to keep thinking that, right? Somehow… I mean. It’s hard, but I know you’re stronger than me. You’ll be okay. Just stay safe.”


“Right,” Galena stammered, clearing her throat. She looked him over once more. The heroic and kinder thing to do would be to offer him some supplies, at the very least a meal, before leaving him to a life on the run. But that would be risky, she reminded herself.

Spending this amount of time speaking to him in itself was risky.

If you stick your neck out any further for turncoats and enemies, you are bound to get your head chopped off, Galena, Her internal monologue scolded, and so nothing was offered or given but one final break in her stoicism for a look of pity.

“Right,” She said a little more firmly. “Good night, Merlinite. I’m afraid the only thing I can promise right now is I won’t tell anyone I’ve seen you.”

She gave him a formal little bow, and then teleported out of sight.