Lena had to admit that Xanthus’ idea of a dinner party had be...interesting to say the least. It wasn’t that she had been disappointed by the turn other guests but...shocked. Since college it had been odd to walk into a room when you were on the top end of the age range. And yet...outside of Xan, she had be one of the oldest. What really bothered Lena a bit was the fact they were all powered. A fifteen year old? And had been part of this over a year?

Shaking her head once more, Lena returned to the task at hand. Tonight was the first night since Mars had gotten so close to planet Earth that she could escape the city for the darkness of the lands outside of the light polluted place they called home. It was clear as glass tonight and the stars did not disappoint.

Every now and then Lena gazed down at her cell phone looking for a blinking blue light. Not long before she had left her apartment to make the trip out here, Lena had sent Xan a text with the coordinates to the location she was going to...along with a winkie face. Maybe she should have added what to do but he seemed smart enough to figure out it…

She hoped.

“Maybe I give him too much credit?” Lena mumbled, leaning back on the blanket she had brought when she wasn’t standing to look into her telescope. “Nah…” chuckling to herself as her hand rose, she began to trace the outline of several constellations she knew well.
---

He’d picked up a few tricks hiking in the hills with Sidouer, as far as packing for a hike outside of the city, but somehow he suspected this wasn’t the ‘trail mix and bottled water’ sort of affair, so although he had put a couple bottles of water in the bottom of his backpack, there was also a bottle of what he assumed was a reasonably decent wine, although all he’d managed to figure out as far as food was a couple slices of pound cake… his first attempt at it, (he hoped the leftover strawberries and some whipped cream would make up for any flaws in it, since Thingie had decided to dance with his ankles and caused a bit more vanilla than necessary to end up in the mix. ….Ok arguably a lot more. Damn cat… And hiked up from where he’d parked with the backpack carefully dangling over his shoulder, scanning the darkness for Lena, who, ahead, he saw briefly illuminated by the flash of blue light from her cell phone.

“Hey!” He called out, when he was reasonably assured that he had the right person. “I’m here, what are you watching for? Pretty sure space invaders have already landed.” He joked, glancing over the telescope.
---

The voice made her jump straight back into a sitting position. Hair flew every which way as Lena gazed around trying to find the source of the male tone in the darkness. It took her a second to dawn on her to look over her shoulder. That was enough as she smile back at him, though she doubted in all honesty that he could see it.

“Are you sure? I figured this was the first wave and we were still waiting on their Queen. After all, the full army never comes first round…” That was after all what she assumed the second Independence Day movie was going to be about. Ruining a classic...curse them.

“But no. I’m not looking for aliens. One just found me anyway. Now the question is do I let him join me or try to run him off.” The laughter was light as she lifted a hand she was hoping he could see to flag him over. “Come join me Son of Rome. You fight for Mars and we have stood on it. But have you ever seen it from here? A Realization of just how ‘big’ we all are.”

Lena was still smiling, this time though, she rose and moved towards her telescope. Bending over, she lined it up with something, grinning all the same. “It’s the closest it has been to us in a long time...I wonder if we will have a flood of men now.”
---

“-Half- Alien.” He prompted, teasingly, walking over and gently putting the backpack down where it looked relatively stable. “And I suspect there’s been some misconceptions over the years. Mars like most of our solar system was run by a very impressive woman. Our Senshi was a lady, but I couldn’t tell you much more than that…. I brought some snacks… I hope that’s ok.” He added, looking up to squint at the darkness, trying to pick out what she was looking at in the night sky. “I… haven’t I think. You can really see it with the telescope? I mean… of course we can that’s a dumb question… that’s…”

It was kind of amazing really. Thinking about what people had accomplished with… what was it really. A set of carefully crafted glass lenses and a tube? It was kind of it’s own magic. “...I should probably ask. What got you into all this in the first place? And… what do I need to do?” He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t screw up the telescope just by touching it, it was so much different than the machines he was used to handling.

---
“Put your hands behind your back.” Lena spoke with a stern voice. “Lean over and put one eye to the lense here. I have it lined up for you to take a look at your planet but if you touch the scope, who knows...you might be looking at Uranus…” She looked away a moment and shook her head. “That was more amusing in my head. Do not use that one on improv night Lena.”

Stepping back for him to lean in, those green eyes still looked up at the sky.

“Honestly I don’t know really what got me into it. I was always one of those kids climbing onto the roof late at night to gaze up at the stars. Only fell once mind you!” Chuckling, she waiting until he moved to make a grab at his a** when he bent over. “I spent many nights sitting in my window seat looking up wondering what else was out there. You can say I was hooked...even at the age of eight I got into a fight with a guy preaching on the street about how we are the only planet with life on it...thank goodness no cell cameras then.”

Chuckling to herself, the woman made her way back to the blanket and took a seat, pulling the bag he had brought over. “If you don’t see a red orb with two white spots tell me and I’ll come adjust it. In the meantime...did the line get it wrong? Are men from Venus then? Because the story of Aphrodite just got more interesting if that was a man…”
---

“Venus also had a female senshi, but having met the Senshi of Lust as well, I’d be half surprised if Aphrodite wasn’t secretly a knight of Ganymede. Do not ******** with Ganymede… not that you were probably going to but man, for a sphere that sounds that harmless she will ********. You. up. And not in a fun way.”

He raised an eyebrow and folded his arms behind his back, bending to peer through the eyepiece and search the sky until he found what he thought was the right ‘orb’ in the sky. Red orb… two white spots…

“...I… think I see it? Is that really Mars?” That same planet that seemed so vast when he was standing on his own little corner of it and it was a … dot in the sky. Which he knew but… looking at it through the telescope brought it home in ways he hadn’t thought about exactly what he did every time he called on his world and wonder. “...That’s nuts… ...no wonder you were so stoked… And I apologize in advance for the poundcake. Thingamajig isn’t allowed to be in the room for ‘Chopped’ any more he’s picked up too many sabotage tricks.”
---
“Ganym…” Lena started, picking her head up from the bag she was digging through. She was running through her mental list of notes before her eyes widened. “Oh! That Ganymede! Did not make sense for a moment. Trying to process the double life thing when everyone has names based on stars and planets I know is a challenge.”

Finally she pulled out the cake he had not apologized for...twice..and gazed at it as best she could in the night. “Look, if Thingy didn’t put a hairball into it, I don’t think it can be horrible. You worry…” She was opening it and the smell of vanilla smacked her in the face so hard that she closed it again. “I take it you are out of Vanilla extract?”

Sliding the container back into the bag, she went instead for the strawberries. Those had to be safe...right?

“And yes that is Mars. And if I am right…” Lena’s eyes were scanning and then she pointed. “Right there. Near the one that looks like it’s twinkling green is Jupiter. Still a bit too far away to see…”

But she shrugged all the same as she looked back at him. Neither knowing something was watching them!
---

“...It was the expensive kind too.” He muttered, with clear resentful thoughts toward the little black and white cat. “I was kinda hoping the strawberries might… save it, but… damn... “ Apparently it had gotten even worse in a sealed container. It was a damned aggressive cloud of vanilla. “Maybe better off breaking it up for the birds to find tomorrow. I’m pretty sure in the meantime though it might be a good bear repellent.”

That was really damn embarrassing. “...Man I never would have thought about trying to find that…”

He could see where you could be captivated by this, once you understood what to look for in those bright dots in the sky. “Sorry I don’t think I know her… you know… civilian name. There’s a bottle of wine in the bottom, and a bottle opener on the si… … Annnnd I forgot cups.”

He unfolded his arms from behind his back to throw them up in a gesture of surrender. “Batting a thousand here.”

---
Pulling the wine out of the bag, Lena felt herself blink only a moment before bursting into a high laughter. “That’s okay! Really!” She said between breaths as she tried to calm herself. “I don’t have cooties so…” Pulling the cork, she put the bottle to her lips and took a taste. “We just don’t have to refined. Who is here to judge us? Hell we could run around naked under the stars and no one would know.”

But something would.

Back along the line of the trails, something had followed Xanthus through the woods and now stayed hidden, watching the pair as if watching prey.

“You did good Xan. Now come here and let me educate you on some basics of space from a science side. Oh! There is Polaris.” She said pointing up to a bright one.
---

“Senshi of… Magnetics I think. Haven’t seen her for a while.” Xanthus provided, settling down beside her and looking up. “Glad I could provide a better comedy routine than desert.” It had all the makings of an interesting conversation, the science side and the magic side, at least the parts he knew.

He didn’t even anticipate the presence of a threat, it seemed too… remote. Hunting grounds less rich than the youma he was accustomed to battling would find closer to the city lights, and the company was good.

---
“Seriously? Magnetics? It’s a Pole Star I will give you that but it won’t always be the North Star. Once the Earth shifts some more, it will alternate and…” She was going on in some sort of lecture given to most students of her profession. However, since he had sat down next to her, Lena and moved herself over to close the distance between them. One hand now rested on his thigh. “...but it isn’t even magnetic north…”

Seemingly a little puffed up about the power of that senshi, Lena turned her eyes to the sky. “Fine then, how about...let’s see...that one! Directly under Polaris. Shedar or Alpha Cas. Is there one of those running around?”

Boy this could go on all night!

And yet it was now that somewhere behind the pair came a sound of a rather large twig snapping. What was strange about it was how close it was.

Turning her head to the side slightly, Lena gazed at the ground looking for a branch one of them might have leaned on only to realize that wasn’t a branch behind them. Green eyes scanned up and she realized she was looking at something with fur...and claws...and scales...and…

“Xanthus...don’t move…” She whispered, that hand on his thigh becoming a death grip. Brain said bear. But bears did not have scales covering the lower half of their body like a snake...nor did they have tusks…
---

“I…. haven’t…” He started, but then there was a twig snap, which could have been a deer… save for the sudden intensity of her grip. In spite of instruction, he couldn’t help look, although slowly, in case it was a natural creature they might spook… and let out the rest of his breath in a tense string of curses through his teeth, and the one word that wasn’t was “Youma.”

“...Lena… power up….” It wasn’t that he expected her to fight the thing, it was -big- and ugly, and he could picture what those tusks would do… but she’d be faster, stronger. Might have to rip the dress but it would give her a better chance to stay out of it’s way. “I’ll handle this… but it’s faster..”

He was already thinking of his own armor, trying to guess the best way to use the field… guessing they’d potentially lose the telescope and backpack, which he’d rather not… especially the telescope but…

Better it than her. Needed to tell people too, get patrols out here. What if there were more? What if they went after campers?

---
Xanthus would find that as the words came out, the creature slittered forward, a powerful fur and clawed arm swinging out in his direction in particular. It was the back of the muscle arm that came at Xan’s chest before pulling itself up higher on the snake like back half.

The Lena who had not been scared out of her mind and rather more or less up front with the nega that had attacked them in a coffee shop was nowhere to be seen as the woman there let out a scream. She could take on a human. A Bear? A Bear Snake? A Bear snake boar?

“What the heck is that thing!?!” Lena cried out, scrambling away just as the swing came between them, grabbing the closed thing to her...over seasoned cake...and throwing it at the creature. “And how the heck do I power up again? We didn’t go over this in make out camp!”
---

“********!” It was faster than he had been hoping for given it’s size, and it packed a staggering blow that left him thankful that it had used it’s backhand, and not it’s pointier ends. “I just… Think about your uniform! Your weapon!” He yelled back, or as much as one could yell when you’d just been hit in the chest by a shaggy bear like arm. That was going to leave some bruises where it had smashed armor into his chest. Probably because it had never been really designed for this kind of combat, it had limited useful padding to prevent blows from bruising, but he’d take it over worrying about those tusks to the gut any day. “It’s a Youma! A… a monster created by chaos energy!”

He’d have to save the part where it had probably been a person once for later. Right now he needed to deal with this thing. And no Asterion. Probably just as well, he’d be as like to start a damn forest fire as solve the problem, so he called on his net instead, and made a push forward, swinging the horn-weighted ends viciously, hoping to catch it across the face. Eyes, maybe the nose and ears… he could hope those were sensitive. If it was pissed off and chasing him, it wasn’t hurting her. He could deal with youma, and he was guessing this one was at best animal intelligence… or… rather he was hoping. “BAD Yogi! NO PICNIC.”

Horrible joke, but it was more to keep its attention, keep hitting it until it went down.

---
Youma right. They did cover that. So not an animal and did not matter if they killed...ugh...dusted it. Dusting was prefered over other options such as it killing them.

So for a moment, Lena closed her eyes and whispered. “Please work…” she spoke trying to hold out her hands for that scarf she had seen before. Xan...Kairatos had mentioned it was her will that did it. So...will will fear and some more will.

It had been enough and Meteora could feel her hair drop around her shoulders and the pants she wore disappear leaving the white fabric around her legs. How did this help again?

Those eyes opened just in time to see the net strike the youma’s face. Fur and what she guessed was youma blood went flying from where the melt struck. However, Meteora realized something on that net…

“Watch it! Those things could catch and send you…” She didn’t have time to finish as a green scaled tail suddenly wrapped around her leg and yanked. With a thud, Meteora was on her backside before being pulled sliding across the ground. “Oh no you don’t!” She hissed, trying to yank her leg free.

How it did that little trick was talent because the two clawed arms had come up to its face, trying to protect it from the swinging net. Several strikes made it through before one struck its eye causing the creature to let out a painful yell. This time the arching paw that came at Kairatos was not backwards...and was going for his head….
---

He preempted another curse, and the swing did what it was no doubt intended to do, as Kai lurched backward, raising his arms by instinct to try and and stave off that blow, net swinging wildly, and it would be more luck than skill if it wrapped around that descending arm. “Someone tried that already, hairball!” He snarled between clenched teeth, half braced to feel claws on flesh. He remembered feeling a sort of… camaraderie to Red Line, but he had nothing with this creature, who, for all he knew, could have been Cinnabar, for all it lacked her particular colors, it certainly had her scales and claws she would have relished.

---
The force of the arm hit the net and low and behold it did wrap! Which caused the one very angry growl as Meteora let out a yelp. She was suddenly upside down and hanging by the tail of the creature.

“How is this fair!?!” She cried out kicking at the coil with her other leg at the wrapped snake tail. As the beast yanked the net that was being held by the Mars Knight, trying to also yank the male off his feet, Meteora was busy with the scarf, trying to thread it between her leg and the coil to pull...damn abs…

But that didn’t distract the youma from keeping its focus on the male. Net around arm, it tried to lift the man off his feet and in jerking motions, throw him away some distance. Otherwise he might just get air sick!
---

He tried to yell something like ‘Drop her’ but it came out more as a wobbly jumble of syllables that failed to come together quite right from the jerking and shaking.This… wasn’t exactly going to plan, or… the ambitious mental image of hauling on those massive arms. This sort of thing apparently went much better in the myths, though he supposed the legends where the mighty hero did something like ‘ripping off the monster’s arm’ might have had some… creative embellishment, and he certainly had time to think about this when he was forced to let go (or risk something in the vein of broken fingers by holding on) and hit the ground with an unimpressive thump.

s**t. s**t. s**t s**t s**t. Everything hurt but he rolled over as fast as he could, looking for any kind of improvised weapon. A rock maybe? He could drop it into the net, easy enough to call back, and really give that thing a class from the school of hard knocks… maybe. If he could find a rock.

...Why was it always harder to find a rock unless he was hiking? Damn things were forever in his shoes -then-.

“Youma don’t do…fair.” He called back, trying not to gingerly check on his ribs, which would have been hard to do with the armor anyway, prying hastily at a chunk of rock he hoped wasn’t secretly a boulder. “They’re COWARDS!” This last was directed at the bear, testing if it was intelligent enough to understand, hoping even if it wasn’t, really, that it would react. “C’MON YOGI, I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU YET!”

---
As Kai went flying, Meteora stopped her movements and gazed at the man with a rather frank ‘my hero’ being mumbled. Her attention turned back to the tail holding her. With the scarf though, she was just about to start yanking on it when she suddenly felt herself being moved again. This time, the woman found herself not just upside down but upside down and eye to eye with, as Kai lovingly called it, Yogi.

Mouth opening, the creature gave a long howl straight into her face. Finally, when she could breathe again, Met coughed before giving a “Your breath stinks. But thanks for the shot…” And her head came forward making contact straight between the tusks into the center of its face.

That was all she needed to earn herself a one way trip in the same direction Kai had just gone. “LOOK OUT!” Met made out, having no clue where she was flying as the clawed arms came up to cover its face.
---

Oh man. This was one for the record books, and he was glad they were the only ones there to see it. He shifted his focus up from the rock he’d just pried loose just in time to have to shift his weight so that Meteora, who barreled into him a second later, wasn’t at risk of being gored by his Pauldron, which didn’t make it any easier to stand up straight, and he flew backward in an undignified fashion, dropping his hard gained rock, at least for the moment, but hey… caught her. If by caught you allowed ‘acted as a landing pad’.

“Sonofa…”

“You ok?” He added, trying to gently get out from under her. Man, maybe he was getting too old for this s**t. Was this why he never saw Camelot out anymore? He felt like this should have been… easier. Or was that his ego talking? It was, after all, a freaking… Bear… Snake… thing. “Can you… I gotta get that damn rock... “ He’d have about traded his left hand for Titan’s damn hammer, even if it would have been awkward as hell. Must be nice to be the size of a small pick up and tall enough to have your own weather system…

The Bear thing was roaring again, pissed and trying to shake off the stars the Cosmos knight had left it seeing. “Sorry. Didn’t exactly plan for this s**t out here. Maybe I should have some words with my cat… he seems to have it out for my baking, it might be a larger conspiracy.”

---
It might not have been hard ground she hit but it was hard. Her so called landing pad had taken the worse of the beating but still she had to admit that his armor was better to look at…”This was not what I had in mind when you took me into your arms…” Meteora managed to get out as she tried to climb off him. Missing the Pauldron was helpful in preventing knew holes in her body. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t get a bruise...or twelve.

“I’ll live. Now stop apologize and show me what the Bull of Mars can do…” Meteora hissed, more out of pain of smacking into him than anything as she moved away. She wasn’t going to admit she might have been seeing just as many stars as that youma. “Thing has a hard head. Maybe try for meatier areas? Or got anything to get through scales?”
---

“Horns on the net… Asterion… shoulder plate. That’s… that's as pointy as I get. Apparently having swords is too easy or something.” Man if he ever figured out what cosmic armory they’d pissed off to get shafted that way….

Then again… He’d given someone an up close taste of that Pauldron before. Which didn’t mean it wouldn’t ******** hurt… but when his strength was otherwise negated by being too lightweight to not get tossed around like a rag doll…

“...If this doesn’t work…”

He didn’t finish the thought as he found his feet, adjusted the buckle on his pauldron…

… and football charged the youma, bull pauldron first, hoping to get there before it’s head stopped spinning.

---
“If this doesn’t work...what the HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?” Meteora caught on rather quickly as she watched the man charge the youma, bull head and his own head first. Hands rose up to her face as she took in the creature still seeing stars, lashing its head around as it missed the football player coming at it. There was nothing she could do but wince…

Though she did wish she had ear plugs when she took a guess that the knight made contact.

The howl was deadly and send birds from the faraway trees flying into the air. Meteora was finally able to open one eye and saw the sight. Oh the youma was in pain alright but what she was more worried about as she saw clawed hands raise up and come down towards the man in red was if he had gotten stuck or knocked himself out. If the later, s**t...what was she supposed to do? Run? In this? Self defense did not teach how to fight creatures of the night.

It did however teach how to make use of…

Green eyes turned onto their little camp site. With a sigh and a slump of her shoulders, Met made up her mind. Hiking up her dress and making use of the creature clearly focused on Tall, blonde and idiot, the woman made a spirit back towards their things. Was she suddenly faster? In wedges? Think on that later.

First thing first. Grabbing the bottle of wine, Met then looked for her own bag.

“Hold onto him a moment!” She called out clearly looking for something.
----

Kai didn’t so much answer as make his own, not entirely language like noise, trying to cover his head with his free arm, and press his gauntlet into the base of it’s neck if he could. If he could keep it from being able to readily get an angle to bite with… he thought he could take a beating while he dug in his heels and tried to shove the horns harder against the creature, twisting his shoulder in the hopes that he’d actually caused harm and might make it worse.

“Trying!” He managed, after a moment, not sure what she was after, but he couldn’t spare the attention to look. “b*****d! Go. DOWN.”
---
Fur and claws flew out then came down to smash over and over again onto the armored shoulder not pressing into its flesh. As that seemed to only result in the horns pressing more into its neck, the beating stopped, but only for a second. Claws at the ready tore at the Knight’s back now just trying to pull the male off him. It was trying to latch onto anything...cape, armor, flesh…

It’s tail moved behind it, sliding across the ground and often lifting up and beating down trying to shake the land around it. However, when it finally brought it around to snake around Kairatos was when the young page in training found what she was looking for.

Grabbing the neck of the bottle, Meteora took a long drink, half for herself and half for use. She would need more later but...now was not the time. With one hand to hike up the dress, she made her way back over to the struggling pair, placed her hand on the tail slightly out of the way of the flying arms, and broke the wine bottle over the back and side of the fur. She didn’t know if the liquid hit Kai as she brought up what she had been looking for...a lighter…

Suddenly the Cosmos knight became a stage performer as she lit it and brought it up. Only hesitating for a moment when the youma stopped beating the life out of kai to gaze at her, Meteora spit the wine in her mouth through the fire and into fur. “Move!” She cried out between coughs as she tried to hit the fur with the lighter as well before one massive arm caught her in the chest and she went flying again…

Did Knights get Frequent Flyer Miles?
---

Well at least he’d done one thing right, though if he’d been anticipating the wine being used for something other than drinking, he’d have raided the high test whisky stash. He had a few seconds to guess what was going on with the sharp, alcohol smell of the liquid soaking into already unpleasant smelling fur, and Lena shouting before he flung himself away from the thing between blows, pushing off with a boot to give himself more distance than he thought he might be able to get before he managed to catch his breath. It was, as far as he could tell, barely in time, with with distinctive whoosh of alcohol fumes going up in a blaze that illuminated the night.

He was lucky to escape much of the initial blaze, but even being that close to it made his skin feel painfully overhot, and he was pretty sure he’d lost any arm hair not covered by the bracers, which themselves now seemed to press, uncomfortably hot, but not so warm that they’d do more than leave red marks, on his arms. If nothing else this would be a few days of advils and ginger movements, nothing he hadn’t gotten used to, but Lena… Lena hadn’t, and he would be surprised if she wasn’t hurt.

Get to his feet, recover his weapon -get to Lena and see if she was alright-. Not much he could do hand to hand against the youma without getting burned, and he didn’t know how long the flames would last or if they’d finish it, but they’d need to keep the fire from spreading to the woods.

----
The cry of pain the creature let out could only have been described as nails on a chalk board. High pitched and just the right level to make you wish you could go deaf for a moment.

At least that was what Meteora felt as she felt her back hit the ground. It wasn’t enough to do lasting damage but she was going to have a lovely bruise there later that evening. Not to mention breathing was a bit of a challenge. But she would live to see another sunrise.

Wincing as the air came back to her lungs, Meteora slowly, and begrudgingly began to edge her way up into a sitting position. “Anyone get the name of that train…” She mumbled before her eyes could focus back on the rather tall, rather moving bonfire she had started.

It wasn’t trying to run back to the tree line but that tail was spinning around. The cries were becoming less and less as they smoke became clear. Her eyes followed it up to the night sky where she mentally cursed.

“We need to put that out! Before a ranger or someone sees that…” Trying to get back to her feet, Meteora’s foot caught the edge of her dress sending her falling back to the ground now face first. “Damn this thing…” She hissed, taking two moments to calm herself down and close her eyes.

Lena, back in pants and flats was who crawled up and back towards their blanket.
---

Kairatos’ initial response was a groan, half relieved, half sore, and a hand clapped over his face as he tried to think of the best way to put word out that there might be youma on the hiking trails, and relief that Lena was alright to be talking.

“******** rude a** youma. I hope you run into a goddamn royal next time…” He grumbled skyward, sitting up slowly and checking for any other traces of energy in the area… just to be sure. “Think a guy could get one night off once in awhile.”

But then he guessed maybe not, from what he remembered the Code telling them about the balance of things. Damnit.

“Gimme a sec, I’ll get some dirt on it.” He added, rolling to his feet stiffly. “Are you ok? How bad did it get you?”
---
Lena was grabbing once more at the bag Xanthus...hu...Kairatos...had brought. Inside, she found the two bottles of water. Looking at them, then back at the youma bonfire, she wondered if they would even make a dent…

Looking back at the bottles, she figured ‘no’ was the correct answer. But Kai’s idea about dirt did make more sense anyway. They cries were already becoming more muffled, almost silent as the movements had stopped all together. The...thing...was becoming dust as the fire went on.

“I’m okay.” Lena called back, rising with her two bottles and opening the first one. She was going around it trying to put out the small areas that had caught fire from its thrashing. “At least I think I am. Shock is still in my system so I can’t feel everything.” As one fire sizzled out, she glanced back at him. “Are you okay Sparticus? Did I get you?”
----

“Well I might check and see if my eyebrows are still there…” He joked. “I’ve had worse nights and that was -brilliant-. I’ve seen knights and agents both not that good at thinking on their feet.” He moved a hair gingerly, but kept powered up, for the boost of strength and speed to scrape dirt on the burning youma. It would turn to ash he was reasonably sure but … possibly not before it started a forest fire.

“Seriously you did good. I’m… sorry it interrupted. I didn’t think we’d have a problem out here. I should have been better prepared.”

He was supposed to be a damn knight, he wasn’t supposed to get caught off guard like this.

---
Lena froze mid step and looked back at him, a look of confusion on her face. “Worse nights than a snake creature that likes to send you flying or going through windows?” Hanging her head, Lena shook her head and the hair fell into her face. Slowly she started to chuckle and then picked her head back up to gaze into the sky.

“Oh well. You will just have to make this up to me as well. And coffee doesn’t count.” Looking back at him, Lena seemed to be accepting things. This was a reality. She was a knight now and as Kairatos had made clear, things weren’t going to be the same.

“But you know. I am glad you came.” The smile grew as she walked back towards him. A hand reached out to touch his arm. She could feel the leftover warmth and dirt. “This would not have gone well if you hadn’t been.” Leaning in, she moved around going to kiss him...almost.

Smack!

Her hand had come up to smack him in the side of the head. “But what they hell were thinking running head first into that thing? You could have broken your shoulder or if it had been faster!”
---
He had to give her points for a continued sense of brilliant timing and the ability to lure him into a sense of false security. It added a certain startled sting to the smack that wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t been expecting an entirely different sensation that made his eyes water in surprise, and he reflexively jerked his head back.

“Ow! That’s… that’s what the giant door knocker is for! I don’t… My weapon is a net, and not a big net! And since it wasn’t heavily armored or rock I figured it would give before my pauldron did. Had my shoulder broken once sure, but that was a friggin hammer. Long story. Well. Maybe not long but… irrelevant. I’m a knight of Mars, we’re not… exactly… surgical instruments. I mean what was I supposed to do? Hit it with the telescope? That would be a disaster.”
--
“No! That giant metal thing is supposed to protect you, not give you an excuse to dance with death!” Lena snapped back, her finger going straight into his chest with a poke. She then winced realizing she just poked real armor…

“Ow….” She winced, shaking out her hand, glaring at him.
When he brought up her telescope though, Lena’s eyes looked at him as if he was asking to die...again. “Touch my baby and I’ll hit your groin with my heels…” Lena hissed.

But the hiss was too much. She had to laugh at herself. Laugh at it all. A laugh that made her drop back to her a** on the ground as she gazed up at the man in red and shake out her head. “What am I saying?” Lena finally managed out. “You aren’t going to listen are you Bullhead? This world of yours...this…”Her hand jestered at his attire. “This is when you are comfortable is it not?”
---

“See? Didn’t touch the telescope. Saved myself from the heels.” Kairatos pointed out with a grin. “I’m…” He struggled for the answer, because he was afraid there wasn’t a good one. “...This is… I can help people. I mean not just ‘help people get to work’... but I mean… actually save lives. I’m as strong as most knights are ever going to get, and i know what I’m doing. More than I do out of uniform. I can’t… I mean… I couldn’t give it up while I can still do it. Not knowing I might be able to stop someone else from getting hurt or corrupted. I’d never not feel like it was my fault. I… spend enough time feeling that way for the ones I can’t save anyway. I mean… if that’s too much to deal with I get it… I don’t … exactly come without the magical crap... but it’s not for everyone.”

---
Lena was silent for a long while as he spoke. Every now and then she would still shake out the hand she had used to poke him in the chest but it wasn’t so much it hurt as she was just dwelling on it.

“I have two issues with you at this moment.” Lena finally said as she turned from him, heading back to her telescope and the blanket. So much for seduction under the stars. “The first is that you have given up living. Well, no. You have given up living for yourself is more like it. How often do you do something because you enjoy it nowadays? How often do you just get away and not think about the war?” Leaning down, she gazed into the telescope to make sure it truly was in one piece. “Because even the best warriors get burnt out after awhile.”

Picking her head up, Lena now looked back at him. “The second is the fact that you owe me a date that has nothing to do with magical crap or fighting s**t. So tell me how far away we have to go for that and plan it.”
---

“...Not much I guess.” He admitted, in answer to her question. “Partially because of things like this. This was supposed to be ‘getting away from the magical crap’, or I thought it would be. Obviously I thought wrong… And last time I tried to take anyone out it…. Wasn’t…” He grimaced. “I’d love to take you someplace fancy but I’ve still got the scars from the last time I took someone to an event.” And even if he didn’t, he was pretty sure he’d be paying off the bills into his next life. And for hobbies… hell. Hard to even think about them without Titan’s reminder that they’d looked into who he’d been. What hobbies he had were picked off the bones of that life, and it was hard to so much as consider bending the speed limit without wondering if anyone else on the road was harboring a black uniform under their civilian guise.

She wasn’t wrong. He’d managed to avoid being consumed by any number of monsters, even the rift, but the war itself had been devouring him.

He scrunched up his nose, pinching the bridge in frustrated thought as he tried to figure out how far they did have to go. Mars? No… that counted as magical nonsense.

“... Pick a restaurant in town. No place is free from this crap… but at least here we could reasonably count on someone else picking up the slack for one night.”

Elsewhere… not so much, and he knew she was smart enough to pick that out of the subtext, and he’d tell her about it later, about that awful conversation at Olympus, but he kind of hoped not tonight. He was feeling, abruptly, rather done with the magical crap himself tonight.

---
Based on the facial expression she saw, she had hit home. Even if his words tried to reason everything out, she didn’t need to say too much more as she leaned on the telescope, an action that if anyone else did would have them hopping away in pain, and watched him.

“Do I have your word that you will not jump into the fray and fight like a mad cow should something go wrong? That you will leave it to someone else and just be….Xanthus for an evening? A man on a date with a woman who might be rather interested in him…” Standing back up, Lena gave him a quick wink with those striking eyes.

“That is unless he would prefer dinner with a friend. Either may be arranged.” Shrugging, she gazed back down in the telescope eye and moved with the device. “Damnit. I’m going to have to clean this thing now…” Lena sighed, giving up and stepping back.

“So much for showing off to you.”

---

“Unless someone’s literally about to die and it’s one of ours… I won’t.” He promised, which felt like as good as he could get. “And hey, you showed me Mars. From Earth. That’s… that's definitely something I haven’t done before. And then you showed some damn amazing guts and brains, better than a lot of new recruits I’ve seen on either side. How on earth am I supposed to be -not- impressed with you? I mean hell all that and you’re gorgeous. You are the equivalent of winning the lottery. You know that right?”

She was so confident the rest of the time it was a bit strange to hear her sigh or give up in defeat on anything, even cleaning a telescope.

----
Those words drew a smile back on that face. They glanced back at the big man and that smile tweaked into a playful smirk. “You think I’m gorgeous?” There was a tone about her right then. Something that sparked.

“Well, I guess I can work with that then. Come here you lug.” She was still smirking as she moved her hand, asking him to join her back over there. Slowly her head lifted and she raised an arm up to the sky. “I wanted to show you one other thing tonight. And I think the show is just about to start.”

There, in the sky above, a shooting star. Followed by another a moment latter. It didn’t take long before the peak of the Perseids Meteor Shower had begun.
---

Image fun