Welcome to Gaia! ::

Babylon didn't often patrol in this neighborhood, but his earlier visit to his wonder had him unsettled. Sometimes bad dreams never resolved into anything, like the dark future that had never led to anything in the present timeline - but bad dreams combined with creepiness from the code? That definitely set him on edge.

It didn't feel like a good night to stick to established patterns. Not when the Code had told him he'd never see Chaos coming. It seemed like a good night to switch things up, go try out a different, see what he found.

Babylon paused at the edge of the rooftop and looked around. This was a seedier area than he usually strayed to... probably full of easy marks for lieutenants and captains. He was probably inviting a fight by coming here.

He tightened his grip on his lantern - he could handle that.

Feeling the oncoming chaotic signature, Babylon turned, his lantern raised high, the light swinging in a wide angle. "Hello?" he called.

And then a lieutenant came barreling out of the dark. Babylon tried to get out of the way, but he didn't have a ton of room to maneuver that wouldn't involve tossing himself off a roof.

Dodging proved futile, anyway - the lieutenant collided with him, and they went down in a tangle of ********," swore Babylon, head swimming as he struggled to separate himself. "Hold on. Your coat's stuck to something. s**t. Okay."

Now less a button, he reached for his lantern and asked, "Where are you trying to get in such a hurry?"

Babylon got to his feet - he could always respect someone who told the truth right off the bat without him needing to get his powers involved. He held a hand down to the lieutenant. "Here," he said. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

He understood where the fear came from, though. The urge to run. A high-ranking knight versus a lieutenant was a fundamentally unfair battle. Someone else could have... someone else would have killed the man in front of him, no questions asked.

But Babylon wasn't violent that way.

"You been with the Negaverse for long?" he asked.

"Sure is," agreed Babylon, considering the lieutenant. People didn't get dodgy when they had nothing to hide, but length of service wasn't something worth pulling up his magic over. "Can't be that long, lieutenant like yourself," he said, trying to see if he would be contradicted. They were about the same age, he thought, or else Babylon might have been slightly younger. He wasn't sure he was great at judging these things - but age of recruitment didn't mean anything for the Negaverse. He'd seen them go after adults and children alike.

"They promote through the ranks pretty quickly, in my understanding," he said, daring the lieutenant to contradict him.

"Anyway," he added, moving on. He stuck a hand out - friendly enough for someone on the opposite side of the war, but then that was Babylon's philosophy. You never knew who might be able to be made an ally, and the best victory was to make the enemy your friend. "I'm Babylon Knight of Mercury. Who are you?"

So he hadn't been contradicted. Babylon nodded in recognition of Aluminite's response, which didn't really give him any indication of how long he'd been with the outfit. It seemed... calculated, but not bitter. Not the voice of someone who was overtly dissatisfied with his position in life.

"Getting some fresh air," he replied, withdrawing his hand slowly. "It's a nice night for it."

It wasn't a particularly good line - not in this neighborhood, anyway - but saying he was out trying to walk off the heebie-jeebies he'd gotten from the code probably wouldn't win him any points. Babylon liked to look like he had all of his s**t under control - especially when he was maybe kind of trying to proselytize to Negaversers.

"What are you up to?" he asked. "Meeting your quota?"

"It's a lantern, obviously," said Babylon, lifting it slightly. "It can make you tell the truth, but... that seems like a cheap trick. I'd rather just talk - no reason to be forcing answers out of you."

The lantern was a fast way to destroy any trust someone might have in him - it wasn't worth it to use it on a lieutenant who already seemed to be on uncertain footing. Babylon considered the assertion - what he was supposed to be doing - and wondered whether he would find any energy in Aluminite's pockets. Shirking duty was one of the strongest signs that someone was ready to leave.

But broaching the subject was tricky. Push too hard, too fast, and the wall would go up.

"I've been wrapped up in all this a long time," he said. "Gotten a sense of how the daily grind works. So yeah, I've got a basic idea of what you're supposed to be doing."

Eyebrows rising, he asked, "Do you take pride in your work?"

Babylon could only guess at what people spoke too freely about - Negaverse protocol, probably, even though it wasn't exactly difficult to figure out how the forces of darkness carried on. They left their victims all over the city for Order to find. It had been worse before, though, when they were still regularly pulling Starseeds. At least energy collection you could walk away from.

"Yeah," he said. "I like my life well enough. Knighthood's got its perks. For example, super powers - but you have those, too."

Right now his job was intelligence gathering mixed with a bit of proselytizing, but coming flat out and saying that wasn't a good way to make friends and influence people. Better to be a little less specific. "I fight youma," he shrugged. "Fight Negaversers when I catch them picking on civilians - which you're not, so we don't need to come to blows - or when they attack me or other members of my side. I mentor younger pages, see to the upkeep of my wonder..."

He reached momentarily into his coat, and then held up what looked like a silver compass on a short chain. "Play with cool gadgets like this doohickey here. You know you'd be a knight if you left the Negaverse, right?" he asked. "Ever wonder what kind?"

Babylon wouldn't wager real money on it, but he had a feeling that Aluminite wasn't entirely pleased with the responsibilities his great power came with. (Something about it being overrated had given it away.) Dissatisfaction with Chaos he could understand - serving the forces of evil was unnatural. It went against the human tendency towards free will.

"I fight because I have a sworn duty to stand against darkness," he replied without hesitation. Babylon had been asked something along those lines enough that he had his answer down pat. "I like this planet. I enjoy living on it. So yeah, I'm going to stop Youma and officers and corrupt senshi from preying on its population and trying to bring about the premature heat death of the universe, or whatever it is Metalia tells you you're trying to achieve."

Having never been corrupt, he didn't actually know what the Negaverse's end goal was. Control everything, and then what? Consume energy until there was nothing else to consume? One could only assume.

At the lieutenant's confusion, Babylon held up a hand like whoa, slow down. "Two questions, one answer," he said. "A Wonder is the source of a knight's power. It's a magical location somewhere out in the universe that you're tied to. You care for your Wonder, and in return it gives you phenomenal power to do with as you choose."

He dangled the silver compass enticingly. "This tells you where in the universe your Wonder is located," he said. "It's out there. Waiting for you. So. You want to find out?"