[ Backdated to Jan 16thish ]

She supposed a re-introduction was in order. After a rather long time away from Destiny City, the raven haired super senshi of Malice thought it best to reacquaint herself with it. Her terms at Oxford had taught her quite a lot of paranormal investigation, as well helped refine her tastes into private investigation. Given that paranormal investigation only had so much business - a house could be ‘haunted’ only so many times, her schooling (and the behest of one of her teachers) showed her that there was nothing wrong with broadening her horizons, into a field that paid more often than once every five months.

She had, in total, done two semesters in Oxford before her study abroad fund was depleted. Many professors and classmates asked her to stay, but the Londoner simply told them that, quote, “Destiny City is a feasting grounds for supernatural activity. What better place to go wrestle with a ghost!”

Nevermind that the only monsters she encountered were youma, the very embodiment of evil. Some of them were actually quite interesting, once you got past the sharp teeth and the unrelenting desire to eat your face off. They didn’t need to know that, of course.

Destiny City was as Astarte remembered it. Cold, shrouded by nightfall, with pinpricks of auras all around her. It was reassuring, and curious, to find the city hadn’t changed in her absence. She was not so self-centered to think it would, simply without her patrolling, but she expected… something to have happened. Or, perhaps, something had. Upon closer inspection, something had happened. The park emitted something off, something not normal, but not entirely chaotic either.

How very, very interesting.

She recommitted the rooftops and alleys to her memory as she wandered off in the direction of the unusual energy. Astarte passed behind an agent of the Negaverse draining a pathetic excuse for a human being in an alley, pausing only to affirm it was in fact a ‘pathetic excuse for a human being’ and not something more reputable. Something, given most of the vagrants in the city counted little in her judgemental mind. Astarte moved through the darkest parts of the city’s alleys, where youma roamed free among the downtrodden and out of luck and consumed whatever, whenever they wanted. More than once she saw something like a wraith going after a particularly terrified fellow, and continued on.

They’d set themselves up for this, they should reap the consequences.

The Super Senshi threaded her way into the park, stopping just inside the tree line to watch. The cloaked man - Caedus - was untrustworthy, speaking of a possible solution to their Negaverse problem. Quite a few others - the wedding dress Princess, her entourage, the ragtag group of senshi and knights huddled around a rather under dressed senshi - mimicked her sentiments. Perhaps not as quietly, but then not everyone could reserve their judgement. (Neither could Astarte most of the time, but that was neither here nor there.) She took no crystal, and stayed only long enough to get the basic idea.

Caedus needed energy to open a portal into the Castle in the Rift. The knights wanted to go liberate some place called the Academy. Once in, they were supposed to destroy Metallia, no matter what casualties they faced.

No matter how callous, cold, or judgmental Astarte might be, the cost of lives turned her away from the plan entirely. They could not sacrifice precious lives just to end a conflict millennia old. Order had no cohesion, no unifying force, and a random cloaked man wanted to send a hundred of them into the Rift, again a force with cohesion. It was bloody suicide.

Still, Astarte would keep an eye on the proceedings. No doubt she’d find out when the attack would begin, at any rate. In the meantime, she had a city to reacquaint herself with.

[WC: 653]