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Time faded not only physical scars, but also emotional and mental ones inasmuch as they could be healed without actual therapy or proper addressing of such things. Naturally, Colin - Aegir - had his own way of dealing with the traumas, stresses, and depressions that came with being a combatant in a magically enhanced war. Ways that were healthier in current times than once they may have been thanks to the strong support network backing him, but even that didn't mean the nightmares stopped.

Aegir often dreamt of pale hair and pale eyes, the soundless chuckle and caress of his magic. The sensation of being trapped and held against his will. Cold heat and pain caused by Schörl's hand at his starseed, and the bright, sharp pain that came as she used razor claw to etch into his palm. He dreamt of holding Thyrmr tightly, of hearing Schörl crooning at him to comfort the senshi of the Northern Lights. Woke from such dreams drenched in sweat, nauseated by fear and shame, though it happened less and less frequently.

When patrolling, he often started at the sensation of a general's aura, but refused to bolt or run. He had a team, he had family - he had others that looked up to him, relied on him. Running in fear from the boogey man really wasn't Aegir's style, which was why he tended to try finding a space favorable to his magic and skill set if he felt one coming after him. Rooftops and abandoned parking lots were good, parking garages and construction sites were better, but if nothing more favorable presented itself, Aegir just tried to make sure he wasn't going to be cornered.

Then he simply waited and prayed to his mother's god that it wasn't General Schörl.

When an officer of the Negaverse was intelligent enough to use deductive reasoning to gauge where a senshi or knight might repeatedly be found, it was bad times for the senshi or knight. Schörl was particularly dangerous, being intelligent in a way that seemed rare and terrible when one realized that she also had the wherewithal to actually apply it.

There were reasons her name could illicit shudders and revulsion from members of the White Moon.

There were reasons even the thought of Schörl caused Aegir to break into a cold sweat.

Aegir's wait was rewarded with the sickly scent of pipe smoke as it cut through the other scents of the night; cement, a hint of flowers, a restaurant dumpster ripe from the heat of the day and still cooling. His stomach turned and his hands grew clammy and damp; a reaction elicited by the oddly familiar scent, though Aegir was unable to place precisely why it did so. Was it from work? Was his brain trying to protect him from the reality of what could be coming?

The elite's power signature was still, close but out of view. Caution, or laying in wait? Either was likely, coming from a General. The senshi bounced nervously on the balls of his feet, the soles of his boots supple enough to let him go entirely en pointe while also being stiff enough for more support than his previous costume slippers. Sweat broke out across his brow and nape, dampening the moon-kissed curls darker; he knew something was up, but pinpointing the source of his sudden discomfiture was outside his purview, as was remaining still.

A state of motionless rest was not something he did easily off stage where it was sometimes a necessity; it was not in his nature either as Colin or Aegir to do so, rather he was a dynamic creature brimming with kinetic energy. Curiousity and nature stirred the blond to action despite the feeling of apprehension come over him; the entire area was suited well to his escaping if necessary and he was confident that he would be okay regardless of what came up.

Butt-wings and skirt billowing behind him, the Senshi of Silence made a moderately cautious approach towards the source of the smoke and aura. It wasn't until he was nearly on top of the source that his brain locked in just where he'd caught that particular scent before, and from whom. Aegir froze, every muscle locked, mouth dry as a desert at midday, mind simultaneously screaming and blank with fear.

Schörl.

Schörl was flashy, but only in that her aura screamed violent counterpoint to the queer manner with which she conducted herself. Kind of like a sociopathic serial killer from Wonderland, only so much worse as she was flesh and blood when Wonderland was stuff spun from gossamer and day dreams.

Still frozen, Aegir felt sweat bead and fall, prickling at his skin as it passed under his costume along the line of his spine. She smiled, rapping that wretched cane in a manner reminiscent of Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was probably the point, knowing the monster-masquerading-as-humanoid Schörl.

But he couldn't run, not now. Not ever. Once you gave up and turned tail, or even just let it happen - whatever it was - you set yourself up for failure from the outset. Aegir squared his shoulders and took in surroundings for likely exits, for ammunition. He couldn't beat her just with rope, she was....well, she seemed to like being choked, which would have been okay if she weren't his opponent. "Aw, I didn't know we had a standing date.

"Flattered you'd remember me, but not interested. Never been a fan of smokers." Was that a piece of loose asphalt from the roof that he could grab and chuck at her head? Options were broad, since he wasn't so close to her that her cane could be used - distance was better for Aegir's magic, after all - but that didn't mean she was incapable of causing harm out of arm's reach.

"So, what I'm saying, is-" The senshi kicked up the piece of roofing that had caught his eye and set it in the direction of the General's head. "-kindly <******** off."

Sometimes, he could be quite brilliant.

And sometimes, such as when he forgot that a General of the Negaverse did not in fact have to initiate physical contact to drain energy, he was a blithering idiot.

Aegir's heart hammered in his chest with each line quoted at him, each draw of vitality drawn from breast to hand.

Again, the creeping numbness came - what was even the point of fighting against her? She didn't have to touch him, she could simply take from him as she wished, when she wished. It was inexorable, there was no means of escaping Schörl and the abomination of a youma draped across her shoulders as a living cape.

Some of the colour and sound drained from his world, limbs heavy and hard to move. I can't... The last he'd been at her tender mercies flashed through the eternal senshi's mind; Thyrmr in his arms. Thyrmr the coward. Thyrmr, whom he had cherished and loved and whom had repaid his care with neglect and cowardice before ******** off to space to ignore his responsibilities.

Anger flashed across Aegir's features; anger he could use. "My safe word is pineapple." He called forth his magic, sluggish as it might have been with the energy the flame-eyed hellbitch had already drawn from him, and held the frothing ocean of it - and his ire - over his head briefly, cradles in the hand she'd carved up. "Pineapple, b***h."

Then he launched it in Schörl's direction. "Soundless Tranquil Ocean!" There was no doubt but that if he'd been at full power, being so close to the launch of the attack would have been truly bad news for the eldritch General, but Aegir was weakened, demoralized. Even anger could only help so much, his eternal attack was no where near full power, which was a pity. He quite would have enjoyed watching her drown by his hand.

Aegir watched his nightmare being pushed back and over the dormer by his magic, watched that eldritch hellbeast fall by his hand in a way he'd never imagined possible.

For precious seconds, he was utterly dumbfounded.

And then a surge of pure joy filled the eternal of silence and he laughed, bright and happy until he realized that Schörl had gone over the edge with all that implied. She might actually be dead, splattered on the ground and he wouldn't know because his magic would have muted the whole thing.

Joy turned sour, boots scrabbling across damp tile to the edge for a look; Aegir may have hated Schörl and wanted her dead but when faced with her possible death by his hands his stomach turned until he spotted the General and her youma cape. They were caught and dangling in a most undignified manner, tangled 'safely' in the softly glowing golden filaments of his magic.

The smile that spread on Aegir's face would have rivaled the sun for intensity; before he had quite thought it through, the curly haired eternal had pulled his senshi phone out and was angling for a really nice selfie with the trapped Negaverse officer. Revenge was sweet, if a bit juvenile.

Fifteen seconds, give or take... But now, did he just leave Schörl to whatever fate gravity might have in store, supposing she didn't just teleport out? "Looking good Schörl, real good." Since he had one selfie but the phone was still out, Aegir took another couple snapshots - he might as well, right?

After all, Schörl could teleport out, once his magic let go of her...

Which meant, actually, that he should book it. She was going to be pissed. Oops. Aegir panicked a little bit, caught himself, blew Schörl a kiss and went to make as rapid an escape as humanly possible, only his boots slipped again and he went crashing into his own magic and the now gently swinging General.

s**t. Panic. Panic was the feeling. Again, so much panic. He could feel the magic of the lines holding them ebbing around them. Why and how did he always end up in these situations?

Even without the ability to speak, Aegir could almost hear Schörl's voice like whiskey in his ear, curling there and inquiring how he might solve his newest problem. He could get no proper hold with which to push off of, that he might jump and take flight that way, but his mind was working - and quickly; the physics of body and motion ingrained by years of ballet paired with spatial awareness and imagination all pooled as the magic faded.

For a moment, both felt gravity's pull towards the Earth, but Schörl teleported as was her ability. Aegir took breath and cast his magic once more, basic magic spooling out in rope form to wind around rooftop outcropping to anchor and allow him to swing back towards the wall and hang there, glowing rope passing around his back and held tightly for support.

Breath caught, it was easy enough to use over-powered leg muscles to regain roof access, to allow the magic he'd used to save himself becoming a street pizza to fade into the darkness as the web that had caught Schörl had faded.

But there now was a larger problem. He was down his eternal magic...and that eldritch hell-beast seemed none the worse for the wear.

Green eyes narrowed, the colour in Aegir's cheeks rising with anger at the audacity of the general likening him to cattle. But then, she feels that way, doesn't she. Branding me...sick. "Oh, I'm sorry Schörl-" His voice bit venom, caressing syllable like a swear hard swallowed, "Were you expecting me to just lay down for you? I'm not the submissive type."

Barbary came down, operating on it's own - now the fight was two on one, less favorable odds. Naturally. Schörl was no slouch with tactics, it was part of what made her so goddamn frightening.

Respond, react--keep her away, don't let that monster get you again. He took the first bone-rattling blow at the shoulder, twisting to minimize the damage; she didn't let up, putting him at the defensive and driving him to distract so her pet could pincer him. "Isn't it though?"

It seemed perfectly reasonable to jump back, though it put him closer the scuttling flatlion. It also seemed perfectly reasonable to push right back in, unfastening his sash and trying to use it to capture the cane and keep it tangled up in the most ridiculous and pathetic veil dance so the Eldritch general couldn't use it.

And so he could put his legs to good use and send a nice left kick right at her kidney.

His triumph at disarming Schörl of the dreaded dragon headed cane lasted only as long as he didn't remember that she could summon and de-summon it at will. The feel of give under his foot as boot impacted over ribs was far, far sweeter and had no half-life to the satisfaction imparted. She'll feel that one for some while, broken or not. Even an enhanced General of the Negaverse was not immune to the power behind Aegir's kicks, though she did not give an inch, the eldritch beast.

It was like fighting a movie monster in some Hollywood horror: No matter what you did, they continued to gain. Their approach and attacks as inexorable as they were inevitable until the script called for the Hero to find Redemption and, if it were that sort of movie, eventual victory over the monster.

Schörl and Barbary might have been monsters, but this was no movie.

Her sing-song grated more than the feel of her palm against the heavy fabric of his uniform, she hit his center of balance and with the flatlion's wicked claws as a counter balance, sent him staggering to his knees in order to not topple over the edge. It put him at a distinct disadvantage and also at Schörl's tender mercies, the thought of which set his anxiety spiraling upwards once more.

No-- Even dropping the sash and cane only served to help give him two stable hands on the edge, not keep him from being caught, the pinprick pain of Barbary's claws singing up his nerves. He'd done so well knocking her off the roof! If only he'd just left, instead of being childish, stupid, and cocksure - now he would pay for his foolishness. If I jump, the cat shreds my legs or worse, closer to Schörl means possible star seeding. The magic I have left isn't good against her, she likes it.

"Is there a class you take to be obnoxiously insane? Or is that like, some Negaverse add-on package you can subscribe to? It's really not working for you."

Because snarking at the person that had you in her evil clutches was a good idea, right? Right.