Welcome to Gaia! ::

The scent of smoke behind her wafted over Hopeite as she moved upwind from the captain she led. She was visibly furious in all aspects of her visage. Her motions were staccatoed, steps clicking sharply on the tin roofs beneath her feet. Her shoulders were set, blades pulled down to pull the line of her collarbone up and out. Her lips were a thin line and her brow drawn heavy over her eyes. She did not speak. The news of the knowledge report filed on her burned in her brain like a grease fire, spitting and popping angrily the longer it sat. Beneath her, the city moved in slow motion, mimicking her own stunted movement. Despite the purpose in her steps and the anger in her eyes, Hopeite felt like she was moving through sap, unable to get to her destination quick enough.

As her surroundings grew familiar, Hopeite slowed her pace and rolled her shoulders to loosen herself up. Going into this spitting with anger would only spoil things for all three of them. She needed to get into the right headspace. She halted on the rooftop of the prison she had made for Harmonia and waited, calming herself before she went in. Once again, she turned her eyes heavenward and breathed deeply, the crisp autumn air cooling her lungs and her nerves.

“I am… understandably upset that you submitted that report on me without gathering all of your information, Captain.” She spat the title over her shoulder, not bothering to turn and look at her follower. “For someone of so-called superior rank, this was sloppy. Rash. It was… a deeply emotional action from someone not worthy of their rank. I hope tonight you can learn a lesson.”

She leapt down from the building then, dust rising around her ankles in a small cloud. She took a moment to make herself presentable before gently unlocking and opening the door. Next to the jamb as she walked in, a nonplussed looking cat sat, flicking his tail back and forth. He looked up at Hopeite through lidded eyes and licked his paw before going back to watching their prisoner. Hopeite flicked on the light and illuminated the shackled girl in the middle of the room.

“Say hello, Harmonia,” Hopeite purred as she approached her. “We have company tonight.” She brushed the hair from Harmonia’s face and drew from the pocket of her uniform a small hairbrush. Beginning at the bottom of her hair, Hopeite worked out the knots while she spoke. “This Captain came to visit me today when I got home from work. You see he’s taken it upon himself to submit what’s called a knowledge report. Do you know what that is sweetie? It’s a report that people make then they know someone has broken the rules.” As the knots loosened, Hopeite was able to work in longer strokes of her brush. “And while I can understand how what he saw that night you found me with him can be… misconstrued… instead of coming to me like someone of his rank should have done,” she flicked her eyes up to Faustite, anger flashing there again, “he pitched a fit and tattled on me. Told the Suits that I’m a defector. That I’m a traitor who conspires with the enemy.” Hopeite grabbed Harmonia’s chin from behind her, moving her head to look at Faustite fully. “Tell him honey. Tell him what a bad girl I’ve been.”

"I don't care about your feelings, Lieutenant." Faustite kept the words as brisk as his pace. The ignorant city passed in swift lopes, as their chaos-laden power spurred their walk. Tension snaked its palpable fingers through their conversation. This must be what Schörl felt. What Leucite felt. How little it matters to see a lieutenant mouthing off. How impractical. Words too green for truth find busied ears.

"For someone who has low rank, Lieutenant, I expected to find submitted reports for this stunt. There were none. You notified no one about kidnapping this senshi." Ha paused, scoffed, wanted to laugh. Was she serious? Was he really having this conversation? I wouldn't waste a 'deeply emotional reaction' on you. "Your hubris is showing, Lieutenant. Best shelve it before it makes its way into a followup report."

The Negaverse tries to assemble a whole out of the sum of our broken parts. But no matter the chaotic resonance, we don't fit together. I can tolerate Hopeite no more than Leucite can tolerate me. Where do they expect to find solidarity. Our only anchor is in the doldrums of our duties.

How unkind. Pity for us, the uninformed and the uninspired.

He followed with little more to say to her on the matter. She would speak, keep speaking, keep harping on his indiscretions as an officer. That he deserved not his rank. And for this, he tensed, for he thought it true himself -- he earned his captaincy through increased efficiency. Through finally adhering to the duties assigned to him. But here, presented with his first opportunity to demonstrate rank, he found a situation where the lieutenant castigated him -- where he was played the ignorant fool walking into a master's game.

When they reached the ill-lit room, he found the senshi's features quite the same: cotton candy hair, bright eyes dimmed from poor sleep, light skin and too-bright colors on her ostentatious outfit. She looked tired. Bruised. Not yet broken. Strained, perhaps. We aren't that different. You wear your ropes as restraints, where I wear pipes and inhumanity. Here we're being played by the same person. Subjected to the same exasperating game. Browbeaten for our ineptitudes. Would you walk away if you had a choice, Senshi? Would you turn your back on Hopeite and let the waves of Negaverse ire take her?

Faustite remained silent, idle in his observation while Hopeite spun her tale. Black fingers steepled, then folded into an interlace with one another. Pacing came invariably. "Do you always play with your food, Hopeite?" He spoke to the lieutenant, yet his gaze remained trained on the eternal in the room.

Harmonia had found sleep to be fleeting. Often she’d wake herself up as her head fell forward or back when she dozed off, or her reeling mind just wouldn’t quiet enough to allow slumber to fully take hold. Eventually she just gave up altogether on any sort of decent sleep and just let herself fall in and out of a light doze as the night, and day, stretched on.

It was hard not knowing what time of day it was. No matter what she said to the guardian cat watching her, it said nothing in return. Most of the time it would just walk away from her, obviously uninterested in what she had to say. It was odd how lonely a person could get in such a short amount of time when there was no one to speak. Toss into the fact she wasn’t even able to move from the chair she’d been zip tied.

She was miserable.

Harmonia had been in one of her light dozes when the sound of a metal door squeaking against its frame broke the never ending silence of the warehouse. Eyes squinted past the single light that illuminated her as she tried to see who it was. Her heart beat heavily in her chest when not one, but two figures stepped into her vision.

Despite what she had done, Hopeite wasn’t the one that Harmonia was most afraid of. Instead it was the half youma with his black smoke pipes, eyes and hands that accompanied her. In futile effort she attempted to free her hands of their restraints but only managed to dig the plastic further into already raw skin.


Hopeite’s demeanor put Harmonia on edge. Her back stiffened as she felt the woman begin to play with her hair, pulling out the knots that had formed in Harmonia’s attempts at freedom. She listened though. Carefully. Hoping to hear something of use. I guess Hopeite didn’t get along with many people in the Negaverse if she never told anyone about this idea of hers. Vaguely, Harmonia wondered if it had all been the woman’s plan from the start or something that had been birthed out of need.

A warm hand grabbed her chin and forced her to look at Faustite. Green eyes didn’t disguise the fear in her, but they certainly didn’t lack a light of determination and hope. “I don’t think what you were doing was for all of this. You want freedom from them.” She said, giving her head a little nudge to indicate Faustite as them. “Don’t lie to yourself. I told you I’d help you, Hopeite and I still mean it.”

---
Harmonia stiffened under her ministrations and Hopeite smiled.

“For a group that calls themselves Chaos we are awfully orderly aren’t we,” Hopeite mused, straightening Harmonia’s fuku for their visitor before venturing back over to her crate of supplies and drawing out a clean cloth and bottle of water. She carefully dampened the cloth and moved back to Harmonia’s side as she spoke, nodding all the while. Of course she would still help her. Because Harmonia was Harmonia and Hopeite schemed to use that against her. So she hummed and wiped the grime and sweat from Harmonia’s face as she continued to address Faustite.

“I didn’t tell anyone about my plan because I have always found it easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. And while I am very much aware that there will be punishment for my actions, I sincerely hope that what I accomplish here today will offset any ill will that I may have inspired here today.” Hopeite finished her work cleaning Harmonia and patted her cheek placatingly.

“What good are corrupted senshi anyway,” she asked, circling back around to put the cloth and water away. “All they do is more of what we do. We’re constantly crashing against the rocks, it seems. We thrash and we thrash and we thrash against the onslaught of order and yet… what do we have to show for it? Precious little from what I can see. And now there is this process this… purification…” She caressed Harmonia’s cheeks as she spoke, the soft flesh still warm beneath her fingertips. “It’s taking from our ranks. And we are taking from theirs in equal measure through corruptions and the like. But in the end we breach the surface for air and have only a net balance of zero to show for our efforts.”

Zero balance to show for their efforts. Chaos masquerading as order circlejerking to the sound of running in place. And she was sick of it. Either she would fix it or she would revel in the madness she caused. Either way, she was going to disrupt it. And she was going to start here.

“What do we know about the other side, Captain? Do we really know anything of value? Until we change tactics, we will never have a clear picture. And our corrupts cannot do what we need them to do. But this new breed that I’m creating can. Think about it, Faustite. A whole army of senshi who look like the enemy. Sound like the enemy. Feel like the enemy. Think of what we can learn.” As she spoke, excitement began to crest in her voice, making her words quiver with anticipation. She looked down at Harmonia with eyes alight with fire, smile twisted into a cruel, oily thing across her face. “And she will be the mother of them all.”

You dote over her for mockery. Or are you plying for Stockholm syndrome, Lieutenant? Do you plan to spend the necessary months with her like that? Your tactics are a paltry copy of Schörl's.

She isn't broken. She won't be for some time. Mounted as she is on the stern of your ship, do you really think a few broken waves would deter her? They grow stronger with each rank, as we do. They grow more convicted. They know dedication as vast as the sea. You can't expect to sway her with hair brushes and water baths. You're nothing, Hopeite. You're a half-measure. An incomplete thought. An inconsequence.

But so am I.

"What do you expect to accomplish?" Hands fit together at the palms, and devil-black fingers curled over half-pale hands. "Listen to her. You want freedom from us. She offers you help and safety and -- most of all -- your namesake." He paced about the wan room as he drew ever closer to the pair. Smoke found the abrupt corners of the room, ever coiling and furling into senseless shapes. "She doesn't sound broken, now does she?"

When Faustite reached her fore, he leaned over for a closer examination of Harmonia's features. While unkempt, she looked hale. Whole. No pallor touched her features. The supple fat lending shape to her body hadn't waned. "She hasn't been here long." Black fingers found her chin, turned it side to side. He paused when he took in the left side of her face, where her cotton candy hair was brushed over ear, and traced the outer helix carefully but firmly. The cartilage bent willingly under his hand. He considered it, then straightened. Now would not do; she wasn't his to manipulate.

He would not confiscate from Hopeite the autonomy that Leucite coveted. She would succeed or fail her own way, irrespective of his meddling.

"You misunderstand breadth, lieutenant." The Negaverse owned all the world but one city -- and the senshi owned dead worlds. What net worth was there to glean? The Negaverse preferred to toy with their food, to generate opposition over stagnation. A world without an Enemy did not a cohesive regime make. Perhaps she never read The Prince. Corrupted senshi and knights each formed an exchange, she was correct, yet she did not comprehend its purpose. Neither did he; with all the withering nights spent shut in Schörl's designated closet, he came no closer to answering a plethora of questions.

His lashed gaze swapped to the slight lieutenant, her hair spruced with traitor-yellows and demure browns. The sickness tastes all the ranks. Look at you, so bowed under the weight of your own pretension. You would make good company for our generals, eating their rotten fruit in all its opulence. Hanging their facsimile stars on their own dulling skies. "You plan to make a spy network out of her. Set her on her peers. Spread her faith in the Negaverse from face to beleaguered face until you form a stronger backbone of double agents. What then, Hopeite? What will you gain? What if they betray you?"

You're shaking like a lunatic. Are you bluffing? Scared? Angered? She isn't broken. She won't by your charlatan scheming.

It was almost like she wasn’t there. The two of them spoke about her as if she were just some object to bicker over. It was not a welcomed experience in the least. Hopeite spoke of plans to turn her into something worse than a corrupt. Just the idea sent a shiver down her spine and faint recollections of her own near corruption manifested. No. No she wouldn’t go through that again. She wouldn’t become something worse, either.


Harmonia attempted to flinch away when Faustite approached her but there was nothing she could do to keep him from grasping her chin to study her. I feel like meat on display. She felt too hot fingers press against her skin. Another hand rose to press upon her ear and she attempted to jerk away with little success.

In an attempt to appease to the woman she thought she knew she attempted to look at Hopeite but failed with her lack of ability to turn. “Hopeite. Please. Let me go. I promise I will still help you. Please.” Harmonia’s words were strong. Determined. She didn’t cry though she wanted to out of frustration and fear.

“You will help me, my dear. All in good time,” Hopeite crooned, smoothing Harmonia’s hair over the crown of her head, “for now just let me talk, alright?” She smiled easily, winking at Harmonia playfully as she did so. She then turned her attention back to Faustite and regarded him with icy chill. He clearly did not share her vision… he was part of the problem, she supposed. Too narrow-minded and short-sighted to see the possibilities of what she was doing. What she was creating. As Proteus was created from the remnants of man, so too would Harmonia be torn apart and created with the remnants of her own ideals.

“She’s only been here a day,” she admitted with a shrug, facing away from Harmonia with her arms clasped lightly behind her back. “But I have… such plans for her. Such… sights… to show her…” Reams and reams of pages strewn about her room with notes and sketches. She had gone mad the last few weeks, reading like a lunatic on the human psyche and how much it can take Physiology, psychology, account of prisoners of war. Dutifully annotated and marked with her musings. Confuse the mind. Love and pain in equal measure was going to be her tactic.

And then he spoke of ownership… if world domination. A single chaotic dominion over all mankind, with one shining beacon of hope. Destiny City. True, she was not aware of how far reaching the Negaverse’s hold was, but that only cemented her faith in what she was doing further. She circled back behind Harmonia and rested heavily on her wrists, fingers curled around Harmonia’s shoulders. She considered Faustite for a long while, small tongue darting out to moisten her lips once… twice… as she thought.

“If we own all the world, Captain,” she began in measured tones, “then what makes this city so difficult?” Hopeite paused then, to allow a moment for the question to sink in. “Why can we take London, Tokyo, Milan, but not Destiny City? What makes this place so difficult to conquer? What secrets to these senshi have that others do not? And how do you intend to find those secrets out?

“She is proof of concept. If this works and she succumbs to me, then I bring her in, show the Suits what is possible. I ask for a team to lead in this new operation. It won’t just be me, it will be dozens of us. All with our own network, overseen by those in absolute power.” Her voice was trembling again, caustic combination of her own nature and the chaos twisting it to it’s will cresting in her words. “If I asked permission they never would have allowed it. But this way… this way I am assured no losses. If she works, then she is brought before the General Sovereigns and my punishment is lessened for my work. If she does not…” One of Hopeite’s hands spidered down to Harmonia’s sternum and she purred, “then no one has to know what happened, and we have one less senshi to worry about.”

'Hopeite.

Please.

Let me go.

I promise i will still help you.'

Is that what you need, Hopeite? 'This purification'? You talk in nothings. You spin airy tales about deceit and grandeur with no path to lead you to their heavens. You are no different than Leucite — fundamentally misguided. Torqued too far from under the strain of your own dreams. You'll crack soon. You'll splinter under the weight of your own dreams and all the blood will come rushing out to meet parity. Is that all you're worth? Blood? Blood and flesh and dirt and dreams and disappointment.

You took a General's path too soon. Pity for you.

Faustite shifted attention from the captive senshi to the swaths of madness coating the walls. Articles and photographs and handwritten notes dripping their inked ire down moldering sheetrock. Peeling coats of paint covered by a seafoam froth of overblown ideal. Hopeite epitomized delusions of grandeur. Hopeite exemplified the madness that ate through every general unfailingly, this time replicated in someone so slight of bone and great of bombast. He paced away from the captive, ever murmuring pleas as Hopeite's own babbling brook. He strolled the perimeter with no great hurry, his hands oft folded behind back and knuckles working at each other in a fit of nerves or simple restlessness.

Faustite paused as he faced a crumbling tack on the wall. "'They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.'" But you've broken under your burden. Even now, we'll all looking down at splintered bones.

You expect to question me now, Hopeite? I'll answer you as much as you answered me. "We carry the world, Lieutenant. We carry the sky. The whole atmosphere, we carry it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, we carry gravity. Destiny City…" He thumped a black finger against the wall, turned, and scraped a fine nail across the page for a superficial cut. "Is just another ounce on our backs."

He watched her, unwavering. Hands clasped together in anticipation of something greater from her scheme. Something to tame the ill tides that rolled through the room. But he would sooner drown in empty words before she brought him the truth in her teeth. You miss the point, Hopeite. Destiny City isn't a difficulty -- not in the way you think. It isn't a battlefield challenge. It isn't a matter of staunch resistance.

We play with our food. We pick and fight at the remains because we need an Enemy. This empire needs a Them. And what would we have if no senshi were left, if no knights stood in ardor against us? This isn't a fight for superiority. It never was. It's a stall for our Kingdom's survival.

"Tell me how you'll do this. How hemming in this senshi like a dog is going to buy you power outright." He gestured to Harmonia, still stick with grease in her hair. Fuku still rumpled from an ill-spent night. "Explain it to me, since I lack your vision."

Her pleas, though heard, were brushed to the side as nothing more than a nuisance. Instead, Hopeite caressed her head and spoke to her as if Harmonia was nothing more than a small child needing to stop pestering her mother for trivial things. So easily Hopeite dismissed the senshi as she turned to address the Captain, leaving Harmonia to sit neatly in her chair.

With nothing else to physically do, Harmonia, once again, began to try and slip her hands from her restraints. Each time she hoped to feel the pop of one of the zip-ties moving just a fraction of a centimeter but each time she tugged, pulled, maneuvered, nothing happened. The zip-tie, likely of the highest strength, did nothing more than rub her wrists raw. A flinch indicated the plastic finally breaking through skin.

Hopeite rounded on her again, forcing the senshi to stop her attempts of freedom. Hands settled on her shoulders as talks continued. Hopeite seemed enamoured by this vision she had created. This….ideal ally against Order. It was such a crazy notion. The eternal could fathom nothing that would make her want to do such things yet...Hopeite seemed so sure.

The Captain appeared on a similar note as Harmonia herself. Disbelief. Lack of understanding what exactly Hopeite had planned. Maybe...maybe this was all just as ridiculous as she thought. Maybe, something would change Hopeite’s mind about all of this. Perhaps she’d realize that none of this would work? What good was Harmonia then?

A small ray of hope blossomed.

A hand slipped to her sternum. Instantly Harmonia froze in fear. She knew what lay just beneath. Hopeite wouldn’t…

Faustite made a good point. While Hopeite knew, in theory, what to do, she packed the… practical experience. She had been a blunt object thus far, using brute force and unabashed terror to achieve her goals but now… she needed a more… finessed hand. She regarded Faustite again, eyes narrowed in thought. Would he show her anything? She’d attacked him in the alley several nights ago, antagonized and essentially sicced Harmonia on him. If anything, she supposed, he would welcome the chance to show her up. The way he stood, the way he spoke… all of it screamed inferiority complex. She should know, after all… and any chance to prove that he was better than his counterpart would be welcomed.

Hopeite dragged a string of violet orbs from Harmonia’s shoulders as she smiled, expression belying nothing of her musings.

“I’ll admit,” she answered finally, when the last of the energy that Hopeite wanted had flickered out of their reality and into another plane, “I have only theories… but perhaps… if you would be so kind.” She stepped away from Harmonia then, gesturing widely towards her as she stood away. “I welcome all opportunities to learn, after all. And you seem to have such vast understanding.”

She took a place by Faustite’s side, ignoring the acrid smoke that stung her eyes and made her lungs recoil from the memory of the fire from before.

“How do you break the human spirit, Captain?”

While quiet, she wasn't idle -- telltale tics of zip ties were noticed, noted, and observed through a well-disguised side-eye. Can those restraints hold an eternal? Zip ties and metal can be broken by men without power. I wonder if you want her to escape.

It explains your lack of process too well.

Hopeite's plan for restraint echoed clarion with the quick reps of drained orbs, each wildly disparate from one another in size. The lack of control echoed back to him with too much familiarity. His jaw tightened, he drew breath and loosed smoke in tandem. He sighed, and the air cleared of additional detritus. You have only theories. All your research pasted around the walls and you have only theories. So this is all a ruse. Your misbegotten show of good faith to the Negaverse. Look, you captured an eternal. You fettered her lightly. You posted your research to show the world that you know how to bend a life to will.

Obvious is the new subtle. White is the new black. A too-thin snarl threatened his features.

Her unabashed cajoling rubbed him raw and his hand snapped out of hold to strike her across the face. The sound split the silence in the room. His hand echoed numbness with the force of it. "Don't mock me, Lieutenant.

"This is your show," he explained, leaning over her, "the one you never asked for. The one you'll be forgiven for. Here's your opportunity, Hopeite. The stage is yours." He gestured outward in a mock bow, a beckon, as sarcasm curved thin lips.

"But you floundered. What will they see but your own ineptitude?" He caught her hair by the traitor-yellow bow, the lurid twin to Harmonia's too-bright outfit. He pulled taut against all her will, toward the chair where her quarry sat. Toward the girl his age, with her too-wide eyes too bright with fear and determination. He pulled the lieutenant's body to a seated position before him, nearly sitting on his toes, and caught her jaw in his too-warm hands. "I don't like pretenders, Hopeite.

"Look at her. Look at her eyes. Look at her strength." He leaned down, his voice dropping to meet the shell of ear only inches from his lips. "Tell me how her will would break before yours. Give me a procedure. Now." Smoke unfurled about them as his nailed thumb grazed her lobe.

The strike tossed Hopeite’s head to the side with force that hurt her neck. She should have been expecting it… and yet… she had pegged him for an emotional reaction. An action before a thought. She had expected to be smoked out, to leave Harmonia in a cloud of carbon to choke on her own mucus for a time before returning. And while she was correct, he was acting, for the most part, on emotions, it was not the wildfire that she had been hoping for. Instead it was… a gas leak. The insidious scent of Faustite’s temper snuck around her ankles, too heavy to lift and be sensed until a spark ignited the explosion.

Hopeite thought she had the upper hand.

Hopeite was wrong.

Forced to look into Harmonia’s eyes, anger and something else welled in her chest. She bit her lips to keep from mewling at the pain in her skull and in her pride. She looked away from Harmonia’s then, face fluctuating between resentment and shame. They warred with one another for a time before her expression settled in deep, seething rage. He had a captain’s strength, to be sure, but she also knew that he was delicate from the foreign bodies in his back. He should have ended her in the alley. Should have had no trouble dispatching her. But he didn’t. Because he couldn’t.

In a flash of motion that mirrored Faustite’s previous one, Hopeite clasped the too-hot hand in her hair and anchored it to her skull. With her free hand, she yanked the first digit that she could find backwards. Hard. Until she heard it pop. She wasted no time rising from the position of supplication Faustite had forced her too and slamming her body weight into him. She still held onto his hand and clenched the now-injured extremity in her own smaller hand. It was slight in size, but wickedly clawed fingers and carefully shaped nails found little nooks and crannies between muscles and bones and took root.

“I will break her,” she purred close to his ear like a secret only he was to know, “because I know her. I know that she wants above all else to save me. Enough torture and enough cruelty and only to ‘give up the act’ as it were, and beg forgiveness. For redemption that only she can offer me. Convince her that if I am to be kept safe after this failure, I need a steady stream of intel. Soon she’s singing like a bird, and never the wiser, thinking all the while that she’s saving me from a fate worse than death.”

She smiled easily again, eyes nearly shutting with the force of it.

“Good enough for you Captain?”

Faustite yelped raw, the wishbone-snapping of his smallest finger wrenching out sordid pain. She crushed her wispy body against his, too ethereal and vaporous to pitch his smoke, too light and lilting for an undertow, and his heels slid with keen screeches on the concrete floor. Faustite gritted teeth against bitter pain, with lips peeled back. Brows furrowed under the weight of the pain. Cold sweat sprung forth unbidden.

He hated pain,

and he hated Hopeite. He hated the caustic little wretch with her fingers too-tight over his hand, with all her biting jabs and too-obvious jeers peeking out from beneath the surface of her traitor-yellow smile. He hated the untamed ire in himself that rose so easily to her bait. He hated how the Negaverse's insidious chaos changed him so to beasty status, whittling wit and growing instinct past its capacity. He wanted her burning from the inside out. He wanted her starseed in his hands, regardless of her paltry mission. He could collect the set from both of them.

But so long as Hopeite held fast to his break, pain paralyzed him. Suppressed him under its weight. He loosed a raspy groan against its power. Torture and beg, then. Play your dualistic roles. See how far it gets you.

See how pointlessly you ply into her innocent's heart.

"It isn't me you're trying to impress," he replied, strained. His hale hand caught hers as he wrenched away her leverage. He let out a breath he never knew he held. Smoke coiled up around him like a seashell, like a bird cage. Then it raveled out into the thinness of the atmosphere.

And a thousand miles under the earth, he cradled broken hand to darkened thought.

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

It wasn’t subtle, but what was she to do. Bit by bit her energy was drained in varying amounts as Hopeite leaned against her shoulders. Efforts to pry herself free from restraints dulled to nothing more than half-hearted attempts as weariness spread through her body. Sleep beckoned to her, but the senshi refused to fall into it’s sweet embrace. She wasn’t alone. She couldn’t drop her guard. Not with Hopeite hosting the half-youma who, quite frankly, perturbed Harmonia with his black eyes and smoke. The room was beginning to fill with the moondust and sea scent that protruded from the never-ending wisps of black curling from his pipes.

And then things happened so quickly. Faustite grabbed hold of Hopeite and wrenched the woman to sit in front of her. Green eyes met brown and Harmonia watched as an array of emotions flickered in those orbs. It was the shame. That one twist of her face as Hopeite turned away from her, that Harmonia grabbed onto and help tightly within her mind. It was hope. Hope for her and for her friend.

Harmonia barely heard any words as she clung to that image of humanity within Hopeite.

A pop followed by a yelp caught the senshi’s tired attention. Somehow Hopeite had freed herself and turned the tables on the half-youma. What had happened? The senshi had momentarily lost track of time and herself in the weariness.

Faustite pulled himself free from Hopeite’s grasp and very quickly disappeared in what any normal person would describe as a magic trick, but the Eternal knew better. He’d teleported away. Possibly shown up and likely still seething if his expression stated anything before his departure.

Harmonia looked at Hopeite, wanting the woman to leave the other half wishing to hear apologies or something of the sort. To tell her this was all a ruse to convince the half-youma that changing Harmonia had been her plan all the while. It would certainly work as an alibi, wouldn’t it? Keep Hopeite safe for a bit longer?

Perhaps that’s all this was? Some large hoax and Hopeite would reveal it all now. “Hopeite?” She said quietly, with a voice betraying her weariness.

As the smoke thickened to nearly intolerable levels, Hopeite began to choke, her eyes watering with the force of her coughing. As soon as Faustite was gone, she kicked open the door and propped it open with a stone, wafting the fumes out the opening as her hacking abated slightly. When Harmonia’s voice cut through the silence, Hopeite turned to face her, rubbing the tears from her eyes carefully so as to avoid smudging her makeup, so meticulously applied before work.

“Yes dear,” she replied, finally catching her breath. The air was beginning to clear and she was able to see again. “Sorry about all that unpleasantness. I guess I… well I know I lost my temper. But imagine my surprise when I came home and there he was, in my kitchen, fixing himself a meal. The hubris of it all. Ha!” She spent a bit more time fixing her hair before she finally turned her attentions back to Harmonia in full. She was tired, that much was obvious. But she didn’t look particularly haggard. That would come in time. Time and patience and lots of tender love and care from Hopeite.

“You must be hungry,” she announced with a smile, pulling from subspace a large, greasy, but still-warm bag from a fast food joint. “I brought you a present.”

Meandering over to a folding table set up behind Harmonia, Hopeite let the scent of food waft over her, and continued talking.

“So, do you think he bought it, my dear,” she asked almost musically, setting the bag down and rummaging through the box for flatware and a plate. “I certainly hope so. Truth be told, I have no idea how I’m going to make this happen I just… I don’t know.” She sighed, cutting the burger into bite sized pieces as she spoke. “I feel it in my bones that this is the right thing to do. This is the path that I was baptized to walk. Do you know what it’s like to feel… deep and unabiding purpose, Harmonia?” The knife shrieked painfully on the ceramic of the plate, though Hopeite’s expression remained steadily passive. She just kept working, cutting, and screeching the metal along the surface of the plate.

“I’ll figure something out, I suppose,” she finally relented with another sigh that welled up from her toes. “A few weeks here and you’ll be willing to do whatever you need to do to get back home again. Gosh it’s been a whole 48 hours already. I imagine mommy and daddy are missing you terribly.” She tsked to the steady beat of her heels on the concrete floor as she circled back around to Harmonia’s front, crouching before her with a plate and fork in hand.

“Open up, sweetheart. Can’t have you dying of starvation on me, can I?”

---

Harmonia’s own lungs protested Faustite’s remaining self. Smoke wafted from the building as Hopeite coughed and ushered it out through the door. A cool breeze from outside seemed to help as the half-youma’s smog was sucked out into the questionably clean air of Destiny City. That door opening was like a tease to the senshi. It was right there. So close, yet she couldn’t get to it.

Hopeite spoke of lost tempers and Harmonia only watched the woman with tired green eyes. There was nothing to say. She just listened and watched as the woman closed the door behind her, blocking off that bit of freedom from view.

A white bag appeared in Hopeite’s hand. Two corners of it stained with grease, threatening the integrity of the container. “I am not hungry.” She said. Determined not to completely give in to Hopeite’s whims. It was only day two, right? That’s what Hopeite had said. She’d eaten the day she was taken. Food wasn’t important at this time.

As the smell from the bag wafted around the room, Harmonia’s stomach began to protest her train of thought. Gurgling sounds of hunger rumbled from within her and almost immediately the Eternal’s face reddened in embarrassment as a frustrated look crossed her face. My own body just betrayed me. The pangs didn’t abate either. Not with Hopeite taking the time to slice the burger up into bite size pieces right next to her. “Why though?” She questioned, hoping to deter herself from the sight of food by conversing. “Why me? Why all of this? How did the Negaverse make you want to do this? After everything you’ve told me...why so much loyalty?” Brows furrowed in a saddened, hurt expression. “Unless you were lying?”

Metal on ceramic protested their inevitable meeting. Harmonia flinched at a particularly bad rubbing.

Her mother and father? Oh god...I wonder what they’re doing now? Surely they were beside themselves with her missing. What were the chances they’d get themselves in trouble while looking for her? There were a multitude of things that could go wrong and Harmonia instantly envisioned a plethora of them. Vulnerability and pain flashed across her face as she leaned back in her chair. Again, hands tried to find a way to slip her restraints.

With the burger cut into what Hopeite deemed small enough pieces, the woman turned to Harmonia, standing in front of her with a ladden fork in front of her. “I said I wasn’t hungry.”

Hopeite sat back on her heels as the sun slowly dawned on Harmonia’s face. Hopeite smiled with that sunrise and nodded slowly.

“I’ll admit, I was worried that you weren’t ever going to realize what had happened to you,” she cooed, “Maybe I was too good at what I was doing. Some days I was scared that I’d given myself away but,” Hopeite gestured around with a small smile and giggled lightly. “But here we are.” Hopeite cast her eyes around and took a long deep breath, letting the air swell in her chest and lift her shoulders before she let it out in a long, steady exhale through her nose. “I never thought that we’d get here. Never thought that we’d see this day.” She fell silent for a long while after that, twirling the fork in her fingers as she gazed around the room with a small, contented smile painted on her blood red lips.

“But,” she cut into her own musing suddenly, “As for your previous questions the answer is actually very simple. Chaos. It’s very strange but… this new guise has… awakened something in me… my eyes are… opened somehow.” Truthfully, she didn’t even know what had happened to her. Everything around her was… sharper. More innately itself. She understood somehow. Awakening was the only word that she could think of to describe it. Like she’d been sleeping her whole life and now that Chaos had seeped into her blood it was like a shot of heroin with a high that never left her veins. The feeling took her so far away that sometimes it was like she was looking at herself through a third set of eyes, and she was just… watching the great picture unfold in front of her.

“Oh… oh my,” she breathed, laughing despite herself. “I’m sorry my dear I… I sometimes get a little carried away when I think about what I have become. It’s beautiful in a way. Chaos has made me more… essentially myself. I don’t know, I’ve always been petty and vengeful. But it’s always been a kind of… harmless endeavor. Little things like charging someone a little more at the bookshop if they were rude or sitting at a green light if they honked at me. But now it’s like… my potential has been unlocked…” she paused in her musing and watched Harmonia’s expression. “I would never have been capable of something like this without Chaos’ help.”

And then Harmonia killed her buzz by speaking.

“Oh now, don’t be like that,” she sighed, holding the laden fork up to Harmonia’s lips. “You need to eat.”

---

”No.” She shook her head, curls bouncing with the movement, her lips brushing against the piece of burger on the fork, but still not allowing admittance. “No, this isn’t you.” Conviction laced her voice. Eyes held steady on Hopeite. “I don’t care what you say, this isn’t who you are. You enjoyed yourself when we met up.” Harmonia was determined to convince Hopeite that this wasn’t what she really wanted.

“Our laughing together, smiles, meeting up and enjoying our time together. Not all of that could be faked. It’s been going on too long. I don’t care what you say chaos has done to you, this is not who you really are. Chaos has just...just twisted you. It fed the part of you you wouldn’t have ever wanted to be.”

Green eyes never wavered. Brows knit together. She was worried, of course, but her worry was less for herself and more for the woman in front of her. “Chaos is stopping you from being who you’re really supposed to be. This.” She gestured to the warehouse room with her head a nod of her head. “This isn’t what you should be doing.

“You said yourself they aren’t the nicest of people. But, I know you! You are nice. Nice, warm, giving, and fun. You don’t belong to chaos. No one does. Please…” She tried to lean forward a bit, purposefully avoiding the fork. “Please try and see. I want to help you. I am your friend, Hopeite. I wouldn’t lie to you about this.”

---

Hopeite listened unflinchingly to Harmonia’s pleas, food still raised to Harmonia’s lips. Imploring to her humanity… Hopeite had worked hard to kill it. Which might have been why Harmonia’s words made her feel sick to her stomach. She kept her eyes locked to Harmonia’s carefully searching for weakness. She found none. Not a single crack in her resolve. Not a single fissure in her belief. Her belief in Hopeite. Had she been so convincing an actress? Had Harmonia been so naive a child? Had she done her job perhaps too well? All of those questions bloomed into her mind and faded as the wind passed over them in the absence of answers. Only one question remained as other inquires grew and faded. How to undo what she had done? The smaller woman pursed her lips, searching for understanding about what had to happen for this to come to pass.

“You’re preaching to a dead woman,” Hopeite finally sighed, eating the bite of burger herself and dropping the utensil back onto the plate with an alarming sound.

“If you won’t eat, then starve,” she snapped, rising with such quickness that she nearly knocked Harmonia over, “And then you can let me know when you’ve had enough wasting away.”

She moved swiftly, gathering her things and tidying the space up before she left. The cat by the door yawned and groomed, blinking slowly at the scene before him. It was about time for them to trade shifts, she knew, and soon a grey tabby would slip through the door allowing the other to go back to it’s owner and rest. She tossed the cat a bag of treats as she passed him on the way to the door, but then paused as a single question bloomed brighter than the previous enduring thought.

“Besides, Harmonia,” she asked gently before she’d made up her mind about asking, “imagine I did come clean and ask forgiveness. Would you even give it?”

And she left, clicking the door closed with the softest sound behind her.

She flinched as the fork rang on the plate like a death knell. Hopeite was determined to ignore the senshi’s pleas. The cold response and abrupt retreat from Harmonia was enough to make that all so very clear. Are you running from me or yourself? The thought crossed the Eternals mind after her chair stopped it’s threatening lean.

She’d survive a night without food. There had been doubt that she’d be able to keep it down despite the grumblings of her stomach. Anxiety about her parents and friends was swiftly working to remove the pang of hunger and the last thing wanted would be dealing with upheaving the greasy burger later on.

Green eyes trailed Hopeite as the woman worked to clean up and gather things. Harmonia didn’t say another word. Instead she watched carefully how the woman busied herself. The entire room was quickly cleaned up without a shred of evidence that anyone beside Harmonia herself had been there the past few hours.

And then the question came. It hung in the air between herself and Hopeite. A swell in her chest. A chance that, perhaps just maybe, the woman she knew was still there!

But before she could answer the door clicked shut leaving Harmonia alone with only a few brightly burning bulbs and an untalkative nega cat.

“I would.” She said softly to no one.