Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Stop ******** feeding, Jinx."

An aggravated growl punctuated the exclamation and the only people that heard it weren't even in the same room. Labor Day meant an extra day off of work and, to an aspiring social gamer, it also meant an extra day to stream. Twelve hours into a twenty-four hour league-a-thon and Levi's temper was at an all time high - just the way his followers liked it. The chat on his second monitor exploded into hysterics as juvenile gamers all over the country released a flood of constant troll images and memes, stoking the flames of their favorite rager. All of Levi's preferred social interactions were done through the internet, where strangers could give him money and he didn't actually have to look at anyone's face.

Minutes later and his screen flashed a large red 'DEFEAT', casting red glares across his pale face. Although he didn't release a curse, his head leaned back into the headrest of his gaming chair and both hands clapped down over his eyes in irritation. After a few moments of the prolonged face double-palm, he physically forced himself to relax and sort-of calmly clicked the play button to start searching for his next queue. At his rank, it always took well over twenty minutes to find anything.

"Well, that was a load of s**t," he said aloud to the stream, reading through replies and shout outs as they filled the chat. "I'll brb."

His headphones were quickly removed and deposited on the desk as he excused himself to the patio behind his study. He was just visible on the other side of the glass through his webcam, though what he was doing wasn't actually clear. It was his way of keeping viewers interested while taking a few minutes to relax by himself. If Levi had been a Sim, he definitely would have boasted the loner trait.

"Stupid ******** ADC," he mumbled to himself as he dropped unceremoniously into a cushioned patio chair. He raised his vaporizer to his lips and drew a long puff of the cotton candy flavor, closing his eyes as it filled his lungs. He'd managed to quit smoking only because someone had thought up a brilliant idea of giving him candy-flavored nicotine, but his stress levels still required the calming toxin as well as the ritual to satiate his fidgeting. Every few minutes his gaze flickered back to the computer screen to make sure his queue hadn't popped early, but it rarely did.

For the most part he stared up at the stars, oblivious to the world outside his third-story apartment. Somewhere out in Destiny City a war was raging, a war the rest of the country didn't give two shits about. With everything he cared about so disconnected from his warped reality, he found it hard to give two shits either. Who was Domeykite in the face of IrreLEVInt? At least his gaming persona earned him some side cash - the negaverse certainly wasn't doing that for him.

Stuck halfway between his impending promotion and his time spent as a Captain, Aurostibite had remained quiet for a while, mostly taking opportunities to do more research for Umber's starseed proposal or gather energy when he could. The call, however, to go and assist Xenotime in collecting an absent Lieutenant, came as somewhat of a surprise to him; Aurostibite was quite certain there were more capable people to assist her. However, he was not about to decline, not when he could possibly do more to elevate himself within the Negaverse. Besides, wayward agents tended to be one of his pet peeves.

Aurostibite's gaze lifted at Xenotime's gesture, following where she was pointing. Young man, out on his balcony, something smoking from his lips that looked like a cigarette of sorts. He tugged on the brim of his hat and then cast a sideways glance at the general.

"Shall we, then?" Aurostibite asked, indicating that she should take the lead. "Are we teleporting up, or are we going a different route?"

Xe watched the phone bounce off the balcony floor and skid to a stop, her smile widening considerably as she tipped her head towards Aurostibite to respond. "Teleportation is fine." Their target already seemed rather fiesty. This was going to be fun.

Silence as she placed herself on the young man's balcony and bent to pick up the discarded phone. The screen had survived the fall without a crack, but it's short slid across the ground had left a plethora of small scratches across the face of it. Tsking to draw attention to herself, she tossed the phone from one hand to another before tossing it up for her partner to catch. "Is that anyway to treat expensive electronics? I think not." Her teeth flashed in the darkness of her hood as she grinned at him.

"Can you believe kids these days, Auro?" She cocked her head to glance at the captain beside her, as if she wasn't just as young, if not younger, than their current target.

Levi's back was turned when he heard the first tsk, followed immediately by a pair of voices. The hand that had been resting on screen door froze and his entire body went rigid, though he tried to play it off, hide the sudden fear that paralyzed him.

A slow turn brought him face to face with the people that had suddenly appeared on his balcony and he realized, immediately, that they were Negaverse - not Order like he had expected. It meant the enemy hadn't found him, hadn't come for questions. He knew them well enough to know that there were, in fact, dangerous knights and senshi. He remembered things from when he had first been roped into the Negaverse and the tragedies they suffered at the hand of the blood moon court. They were, among other reasons, part of why he shirked his responsibility to the dark kingdom and chose the comfort of his civilian life.

But these were not Senshi, or Knights. They were Negaversers here, in the dead of night, with a tone that had threat written all over it. That could spell disaster, in a different way, in a way he wasn't familiar with. It was immediately annoying to him that he didn't have the upper hand in the situation and that irritation presented on his face with a sneer. He never did take kindly to being the butt of a joke.

"Anything is replaceable," he answered the hooded girl with narrowing, acid eyes. His hand was still on the door handle, though it had curled around the slender bar as if he might have to wrench it open at any moment. "I'm not taking anything for granted, I know the worth of everything. That's what I do."

Levi did hate to dance around the subject, though, and could feel his anger boiling at their thinly veiled implications.

"Just what the ******** do you want? I have s**t to do."

He cast a sideways glance at Xenotime before Aurostibite's gaze returned to the young man, his expression flat as he said, "Ironic you should be saying that, since you yourself as well are replaceable. For someone who seems to know the worth of things, you seem to have forgotten that very crucial detail."

There was a cracking snap as the phone shattered, and Aurostibite did not flinch, merely regarded the unwise Lieutenant with a mixture of pity and disgust that he was not seeming to take this matter seriously. A light breeze ruffled through the air, sending a scent of autumn through towards them, of crisp leaves and pumpkins.

"Turncoats are an incredibly serious infraction, are they not, General?" Aurostibite asked, head tilting to the side imperiously. "These matters are not to be taken lightly by anyone, least of all lackadaisical agents."

"See, now that's funny," the general purred, stepping forward and reaching out to catch the pale haired youth by the back of the back so she could haul him easily back from the door. "Auro, if you would be so kind as to shut that." Silver gaze flicked briefly to the slider, the computer screen beyond, and the light she could see glowing on the top of the monitor. It wasn't pointing at them, not quiet, but she'd prefer to not have to worry about it for this.

Turning her attention back to Levi, she pressed in on either side of his neck, a bare flexing of slender fingers, but there was more strength in that small hand than one would have expected.

"It's funny," she continued after a moment, steering Levi back towards the chair he'd been sitting on before they'd arrived. "Because you haven't bothered to power up for years." Not more than a few minutes at a time, if he'd even done that. "So how would you know how things are run now?"

The tips of her fingers trailed lightly over the nape of his neck as her grip loosened and slipped away, only for her to grab his chin, giving his head to look at her. "You've got a choice here, sweetheart. Either you can start doing the job you were recruited to do. Or we can take you out now, because an agent that doesn't do his duty is utterly worthless."

Levi felt his fingers give way forcefully as he tried, in vain, to keep his grip on the sliding door. It rattled in the tray for a moment until the woman pulled him back with what amounted to little effort on her part, paired as they were as a civilian and an agent. He had no choice but to let her shove him roughly back into his seat, too aware of her fingers on his neck, threatening even in the playful way they danced along his skin.

The bright, lime eyes slid past her to watch Auro, as she had called the other man, pull the door shut and barricade any hopes he had for an exit. Then they were forced up with a tight grip of her fingers along his chin and as he stared up into her returned gaze, his jaw tightened around every curse he could think of, bottled up between his lips. There was a fire in the lieutenant, even stuck inside the flesh of his civilian guise, and his body had gone so tense that the hands gripping the arms of the patio chair had gone white around the knuckles from strain.

"The fact that it took you years to notice what I haven't been doing tells me about all I need to know," he hissed, though his voice was low and strained, as if he were fighting against every syllable to keep himself from screaming. It was a struggle, but the fact that he was restraining himself at all was a hint towards his acceptance of how dire this situation was about to become. He was submitting, however reluctantly.

"If Zinkenite had come to ask for something, I would have complied. He always knows where to find me." But Zinkenite hadn't been by in quite some time and, furthermore, had never given Domeykite a very proper introduction into the Negaverse past basic intel requirements. There was simply no point - until now, under threat, to bother.

Even with her grip holding his chin still, he spared a glance for the agent behind her, now gripping weapons threateningly. He would have sneered if his lips weren't pressed into a thin line of restraint. When he looked back at Xeno, it was with all the venom his acid green eyes could hold.

"I wouldn't know where to start doing the Intel work I was recruited for, because every inch of this organization is a ******** mess. Threats don't have enough information to be considered a damn order." He did struggle then, trying to wrench his chin out of her grip.

If the young man could simply take that fiery stubbornness and apply it, not to gaming, or whatever else he spent his time doing, but to the Negaverse, then it would not have been as much of an issue as it was. Aurostibite's eyes flickered briefly to the system and the television, then back to the matter at hand, gaze narrowed somewhat, his expression a mixture of irritation and something else unreadable.

The mention of Zinkenite had him shifting, a flash darting across his eyes. He he had not seen his king in a long, long time, but it did not mean that Aurostibite's loyalty to the man wasn't as firm and absolute as it ever was. The fact that it was implied here and now that Zinkenite had been the one to introduce this...brash, obnoxious young man into the Negaverse meant he had to have some worthwhile qualities.

Maybe.

Aurostibite lifted his chin, regarding Xenotime and the boy silently for a long moment. He did not share the other general's ferocity when it came to working, but just because her style was different than his didn't mean that he disregarded it, at least in this respect. She was holding her own well enough as it was, and her violent streak was the counterpoint to his quiet intensity.

"You could use that fervency you clearly have and put it to something worthwhile," said Aurostibite flatly, voicing what he had thought earlier. "Instead, you squander whatever abilities you might have in favor of what? A few drink and a few games? Why not do something greater and more meaningful with your talents instead of tossing them aside?"