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It was hard to focus on anything but the pounding, throb that still lingered in the back of his head. He knew it had been weeks since he'd taken the blow from that rock but even now it felt like his vision was swimming sometimes and his head still didn't feel quite right. Unfortunately, time stood still for no one. The dark-haired man blew out a long, exasperated breath and rubbed both thumb and forefinger against his eyelids before pinching the bridge of his nose. He was beginning to let work slip and he was doing his best to make up for it. It wasn't easy when he refused to take it easy but really, truly needed a day just to rest.

A chime from his desktop told him that he had an appointment in fifteen minutes and he opened his eyes, half-swiveling around to look at it.

"Porsha. Right." He should have been more prepared for this, probably.

A double-click opened the small folder he had on his desktop (he preferred to work paperless, physical files were just for show) before he began a last-minute cram session of all the information he had gathered on her. From what he knew of her, she seemed hard to brand, though likable enough from the brief view of her he had on Jade's youtube channel. He wasn't going to be sure what to do with her, if that was even what she wanted, until she showed up and he really got to dig into her a little.

It felt like no time at all had passed before there was a buzz on his intercom and the sweet, pleasant voice of the receptionist announced that his appointment had arrived. With a deep breath, he closed the folder on his computer and stood to leave the office. The lobby was just down the hall, a short walk past a set of giant, open windows down the length of the building's side.

"Porsha?"

Oblivious to the woman really standing in front of him, Levi Drummond caught her hand and shook it with a light pressure - she seemed strong enough that he needn't treat her like a delicate flower, but he also wasn't the type to break fingers to assert himself. As his hand fell away, he stuff it into the front pocket of his trousers.

"Of course, who would turn down the opportunity to discuss business with you?" There was a confident smile at one corner of his lips before he turned and spread his free hand out in front of him, indicating that she should walk with him back down the long hallway to his office. His was straight ahead, a corner office - it didn't mean that much in the outdated office structure, but it meant enough. He was on his way to bringing the company into the next era. Once inside, he shut the door behind them and tugged shut the blinds between them and the hallway outside - a force of habit after a certain incident in his double life. He'd grown increasingly paranoid about being spied on.

There were two plush chairs in front of his desk and he waved his hand at them as he rounded it, taking his seat in his office chair.

"So what can I do for you, Porsha? It's not very often that people come to me." Not yet, anyway. His demeanor was all business as he relaxed his broad shoulders into the chair back, but his eyes remained sharp and curious as they followed her - at least as sharp as he could manage with the dull ache ever lingering in his skull.

Jade.

The name pulsed through his thoughts as he watched Porsha settled into the reclining chair before him like she owned it, like she owned the entire room and he was just a puppet in her backdrop. He could sense the natural strength in her from a distance and he thought he would have known, even if he'd never looked up replays of her matches, that she was strong enough to take him out without even being told. It wasn't often he met a woman so strong and confident that he questioned his own strength and ability to protect himself - at least not as Levi.

Perhaps Domeykite had.

That was of no importance to him now, not any of it. This was business and she was just another potential client - a big one who had mostly landed in his lap out of luck. He would have to send flowers or chocolates to Jade later, out of thanks. If he remembered with this splitting headache, that was.

"I have to admit that you aren't my usual type of client, Porsha." He leaned his head back against the rest of his chair and considered her from the position, at ease with himself and his office. He noticed the regal air but he didn't bow to it, not in this situation. He didn't think she'd respect him if he began groveling - at least, he knew he wouldn't respect him. "But I also have to say that I'm working on a project that is all about bringing the unexpected to this outdated little corporation. My branch has seen faster growing numbers than any of the classic, old-fashioned entertainers you'll see walking into these other offices."

A hand waved dismissively at the door behind her and he straightened in his chair until he could prop both elbows on his desk and lean over to meet her gaze.

"To promote a league is harder than a simple person. It requires rules and explanations, hype over multiple people and multiple personalities." The acid green eyes swept over her form critically, assessing the set of her shoulders and the line of her mouth as she watched him. There was no heat to it, only curiosity over her potential as he tried to decide who she was as an entertainer. Jade had been easy - her face was plastered all over her youtube channel. "But put a single face to something and begin the building blocks with her before trying to promote it all at once? That I can do."

A smirk pulled at his lips - he hadn't missed the attention she'd drawn to her thighs or the bright smile on her lips. He wasn't sure what angle she was playing, if it was to toy with his head or simply an attempt to garner more of his interest. After Jade he'd told himself not to let flirty clients get under his skin. She was more than a handful and she didn't have half the natural threat that Porsha did.

"Of course you are. Strong, independent - you stand out. I know all the women in your line of work tend to make a point of standing out but it's a very easy sell." He raised both of his arms and spread his hands as he talked, painting a picture of enticed clients in the air with his words. "All men secretly love a woman that's hot and capable of kicking their a**, women love to see a woman strong enough to do it. It's girl power and raw appeal all rolled up in one package." The hands paused in the air and then fell, finally, to rest on the arms of his chair as he swiveled a few inches on the axis and cast her sidelong look.

"We would start with you and move on to highlight other girls once we've hooked them, make you personalities." There was a pause as he propped his elbow on his chair arm and stroked the thumb and forefinger of that hand to a point on his chin, his eyes growing distant as he seemed to pause and consider something. There was a knit in his brow, a sign of a potential issue he could see forming before they'd ever decided to actually work on this together. It was the unfortunate pro and con of his over active mind - jumping ahead of himself, but figuring out his errors quickly.

"We would just have to be careful not to let it become less about the sport than it is you gals." Because it would be too easy to lose the point of their sport when faced with society's love of bullshit like the Kardashians. Drama was money, he knew too well.

The woman let him talk and he did, even going so far as to casually look away from her and down at the screen he had opened before she showed up. The top window showed her video with Jade - he had enjoyed it.

Another thought popped into his head and he raised his eyes to look at her, only he didn't see Porscha. He saw Xe.

The shock was written across his face like he'd been assaulted. Both eyes widened just enough to make it obvious and the color, what little there was in his pale cheeks, drained. The headache he had been nursing since the cave incident roared it's ugly head as his pulse quickened with panic and he thought for just a moment that maybe he was having a terrible dream from the painkillers he'd been using to keep the concussion at bay.

Then, little by little, everything clicked into place..

He remembered seeing Marcasite, now, and realized why the familiarity of her had bothered him so much. It hadn't been because he'd noticed her, but instead, that he had noticed Xenotime.

Marcasite had been at her side during the meetings.

"Of course," he said lowly, quieter than he wished he'd spoken and lacking the heat he wanted to really put into his words. The sight of Xenotime made him no less angry now, nor any less afraid of the very real threat that lurked beneath the surface. It made perfect sense that Jade's fierce best friend, or whatever it was that they were, was the wicked woman staring at him across his desk.

"What the hell do you want, Xe? I've got a concussion, if you're here to check up on why my quotas slipped again." The tone was defiant, but wary. He didn't even bother powering up.

A little of the tension left Levi's shoulders when Xenotime simply scolded him for his tone instead of becoming immediately threatening, as he assumed. It didn't make him any less wary of her but he would have still preferred to see Porsha sitting across from him.

"What a relief," he quipped back, dripping his words in sarcasm. Yet he had reclined easier into his chair, slumping a little as he was prone to doing when he wasn't trying to impress clients. Xenotime knew more about him than most people in this world and there was no reason, in his opinion, to bother with trying to impress her. Good posture wasn't going to make her friendlier.

The green eyes fell to the objects she held in her hand the moment he saw the glimmering light from the corner of his eye. Despite a pursing of his lips, he sat and listened without interruption, considering what she said and what she was offering. He had been around long enough to see what the effects of their energy consumption did to the populace and hadn't ever in his time as an officer considered it. Of course, he'd never need to consider it, either. Even if this was a nice break from his duties as an officer, his job was also suffering. Healing faster was beneficial.

The man leaned up in his chair and pushed it forward, until he could lay a hand out on the desk before her. Palm up.

"Fine. Is there a catch?"

Levi released a long breath he had been holding as Xenotime deposited the gems into his palm without any kind of stipulation attached to him, at least that she admitted. He admittedly didn't know her well enough to guess if this was a head game or the honest truth. Nothing in the Negaverse could be taken at face value - well, except a death threat. That much had been pretty obvious.

The man curled his fingers around the energy orb and rolled it against his thumb, examining the slick surface briefly before he popped into his mouth and crushed it between his teeth. The burst was like electricity exploding down his throat and through his veins, something unnatural that found its place inside of his skin. It left a pulsing, refreshing buzz that sank into his aches and eased them better than any painkiller. It wasn't the first time he had used one of those, but the starseed was something different. One hand curled around it so that the glow was diminished and out of sight while he looked back up to meet Xeno's gaze.

Mutual Acquaintance.

The word echoed in his mind and now, with the pain dulled beneath the buzz of the energy orb, parts of his memory were a bit easier to recall. There was no doubt that she meant Jade, she had been featured in her youtube videos and he had assumed, originally, that Porsha was approaching him over the mutual contact. Yet, now he also knew that Jade was Marce - and those two things couldn't be coincidence. Somewhere in his fuzzy mind, a memory stirred, but he couldn't focus enough to recall it.

He only knew that there was something he should have realized, by now.

"Are you the reason she started making those Ally videos?"

Levi took Xenotime's words at face value - if she had suggested the videos he supposed it would have been more like her to claim it than not. The fingers of his free hand drummed against the desktop as he considered, in silence, everything that was happening much too fast for him. Jade had been an unexpected whirlwind on her own and now he had Porsha sitting in front of him, revealing herself to be the one woman he didn't want to alone with in a secluded room.

The man's sluggish brain thought back to the last time he had seen her, suddenly, and his brows furrowed at his mind trying to recall attention to it. She'd been at the Negaverse meeting - he knew, he'd looked for her and purposefully gone elsewhere - and he remembered, suddenly, Marcesite on her arm.

Very slowly, he began to put two and two together. Marcesite was a lieutenant, Xenotime was a general..

"She's yours, isn't she?"

The drumming stopped and his fingers stilled. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. A friend was one thing - but an officer that could pull rank, who could effectively decide what life was like for someone? He didn't know her well enough to decide if she would purposefully interfere or not and he didn't know what the girls were well enough to understand if Xeno might hold Jade's interest against him.

"I mean, of course she ******** is."

A long, irritable sigh escaped him. It wasn't angry so much as defeated and annoyed, though the tension didn't leave Levi even as he leaned back into his office chair.