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As always, Alkaid had been deep in the rift when the signal came through. Stellerite’s voice chimed clearly through the communicator and she pursed her lips where she stood, shrouded in a thick mist and looking for a shadow that kept eluding her. Annoyed, but with her eyes still glued to the slippery target, she fished her crystal out for a simple response:

“Heard.”

Three day’s time found her standing in a bare, stone meeting room of the Negaverse subspace. There was a fire crackling in the hearth that seemed to have completely enamored her, drawing her gaze in a way that said the flames had thrown her head over heels in the depths of her own mind. There was little knowing how long she’d actually been there, standing, staring at the dancing oranges and golds. Time had a way of slipping through her fingers and she typically showed up either too early or too late for most of the meetings she arranged these days.

She was here, this time, before her loyal Captain.

There was nothing different about her, not that there ever was, but in one hand she was holding something that seemed altogether out of character. A crisp, new journal was held in the palm of one hand and pressed lightly into her upper thigh where she lingered, waiting. The colors seemed much more suited to the woman on her way to meet the Ascendant General than it did for the general herself.

How she had acquired it, well, that was certainly a story.

There was only a minute change in the General's stance to indicate that Stella's presence was noted at all, not more than a fraction of a turn so that she could hear her better and a shift of her fingers where they curled tightly around the journal. Stella had been chosen for her ability to read people, to deal with Alkaid's distance without perceiving it as anything other than her own nature. It was a small blessing to cease her need to overact in the presence of others - Stella was a rare gift in that regard. Perhaps not irreplaceable but very, very close to.

Her Captain's words flowed through Alkaid's thoughts even when she remained largely unresponsive, until she voiced her opinion of the greater youma. It made her eyes narrow on the flames and her mouth curled down at it's corners, bringing back the first semblance of presence to her eyes. Suddenly her thoughts were not the aimless wondering musings of a creature with too much time and endless questions of the purpose of existence but instead the quick, curious calculations of Alkaid's memories.

She had not encountered a greater youma on the surface since before her Ascension, since Tanzanite.

Yet even that connection was not what finally spurred her to motion, it was instead the simple, silly name.

Alice.

The woman, if she could even claim the title any longer, spun on her heel so quickly that her dreads whirled in an arc around her legs. The bright eyes narrowed their attention completely upon Stella now, intent and serious.

"What else did the bird say, Captain?"

Alkaid had not missed the flash of amusement in the other woman and, had she cared less about the message Stella had to deliver, she might have praised the recognition she saw in the captain’s eyes. There was nothing in that moment more important than the words that passed her tinted lips.

Reaper Rose.

The Ascendant General drew her brows down over eyes that had regained a bit of their distance, mulling the three syllables over and over in her mind. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t understand but, rather, that she was almost in disbelief of having heard them at all. Stella was relaying something with more importance than she really understood - she had no reason to know the connection the raven had to her or the significance in the fact that it had known to Stella, of all people. That youma was playing a game that she couldn’t knock him for, not when it was playing into her hand right at that moment.

“General Labyrinthite has returned,” her eyes were calm as they stared across the space between them but there was a notable shift in her shoulders. It was an uneasiness that drew them tight, spurred by a sudden fight against the urge to leave. She and Stella had other matters to attend to - she could find him, after.

A crackled hand held out the journal she had been clutching while the other slid to the small of her back, tucked behind her torso.

“I have written several names in this. I need you to find as much information about each of them as you can and return it to me. I’m becoming.. forgetful with my age.” Her lips quirked just a fraction over words that sounded like a joke but for anyone that knew Alkaid at all, it was clearly truth. “Some of them may be alive but others I very much doubt.”

The joke sparked a small quirk at the corner of Alkaid's lips that was entirely for Stella's benefit, giving the General an air of amusement for just a moment. All things considered, her Captain was one of the few people whose presence was almost always entertaining and she, under normal circumstances, took great pleasure in watching the woman as the cogs ticked quickly in her mind. Amber eyes settled on the blonde while she scanned the list of names she would find mostly unfamiliar to her, and Alkaid found herself wondering what Stella made of them or where she might even think to start.

"I intend to ask him for help," she began, taking a few languid steps forward towards the other woman, "right after I figure out what in Metallia's grace he has been doing for so long." She paused as she reached Stella and raised her hand to the journal splayed open in the woman's hands, pointing a single finger at the name atop her list.

Nemesis.

"Start with her. I don't think she's around Destiny City any longer but I would very, very much like to know where she has gone." When her hand fell away from the page, it rejoined her other at the small of her back. She squared her shoulders and leveled one last look on her subordinate.

"Is there anything else before I go?"