Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was a simple enough plan.

The civilian Sol Olga Sayle had been brought to Aurostibite’s attention by one Corrupted Hauyne, as well as a Captain Prousite - or rather, the information had been submitted to the those of the Negaverse who worked with recruitments, which had then reached Aurostibite’s desk. Neither were people that he was very familiar with, but he was nothing if not loyal to the Negaverse, and he was nothing if not devoted to bringing more people in that would work well within their ranks.

Which was why he was currently dressed as a stablehand.

Magiore had never been to the stables before, but it was easy enough to blend into the background. His dark hair was pulled neatly back away from his face, and there was a shabby looking cap on his head, tucked low, Magiore dressed in a pair of worn, dirt stained jeans and a blue flannel shirt. It was, perhaps, the least presentable he’d ever been in many years, but it worked.

No one looked at the help, after all. Or at least, no one who was busy looking elsewhere would mind the help as they shoveled manure and shifted bales of hay this way and that without any real purpose to it.. Magiore was used to hard work and physical labor, but that didn’t mean that he was going to spend his time mucking out stalls if he could avoid it.

And now it was just a matter of waiting, as so much of things were these days. Close by were the other two; Magiore could see the top of Jack’s head somewhere among the stalls - and the corrupt, Morgan, was wherever Olga would show up. It wouldn’t do to overanalyze or micromanage; something told him the others knew how to work just fine.

Magiore gave Jack a small nod, eyes meeting his briefly, before Magiore stooped to overturn another pile of hay, as if it was a normal, every day occurrence for a simple stablehand.

Above him, a horse whinnied soflty.

It was their 25 month anniversary - nearly to the day.

Two years and one month since Proustite met Olga. They'd gone golfing and hitch-hiked and held hands under the stars, and he'd bothered her on and off ever since. It wasn't constant and it wasn't like clockwork, but it was regularly. Sometimes three times in one month, sometimes only once (and of course, while he was lost in the rift- not at all). He was pretty good at stalking. Liked to bring her pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream while she was supposed to be studying in the library. Threatened to incapacitate the librarian if she refused to share his spoon.

When Proustite found out somebody had decided to corrupt her he felt something that he wasn't sure he'd ever felt before. Jealousy. And then grief. He'd added her name to the list of possible recruits on a whim the day after they'd met -occasionally he tried to make it look like he did his job- and then forgotten about it.

He didn't have very many friends. Didn't want to lose Olga. Knew better than to defy direct orders from a superior officer. Decided against warning or rescuing Olga in favour of avoiding punishment.

And so he found himself (lazily) pitching hay in the stables alongside Magiore, waiting for Olga, writing and re-writing the note that he would leave for her parents in his head.

'Dear Wind and Ross', or maybe just 'Wind and Ross' - I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you're reading this letter than the Olga you knew is gone. She was taken from you by somebody who took advantage of the job you did raising such a sweet and trusting person. Sorry for your loss, Captain Proustite. PS: For a (small) fee I can provide more information regarding Olga's whereabouts.

If they took him up on his offer he thought that he would charge about $100 per lie.

Beside Magiore he tried to look like he was making an effort while doing the least amount of possible work. He was down 40lbs - face gaunt, almost skeletal, with a scar through an eye that wasn't much good anymore, skinny in the shoulders and the arms in ways that he had not been before, but he was not weak. Not really. His strength was the first thing that returned, upon climbing out of the rifk. But that had always belonged more to Proustite than it did to Jack.

At Olga's approach he met Magiore's gaze, nodded, and then started up a little whistle to the tune of pop goes the weasel while he didn't-really-work.

Somewhere over in another room, Morgan's voice floated over towards where Magiore currently stood, still scooping hay and not really doing much else. Jack was doing the same thing, mostly the pair of them biding time until they needed to move. He was a thin, skeletal looking thing; Magiore hadn't really put much stock in him, but then again, he knew not to underestimate any of the ones who didn't look like much, years of experience telling him otherwise.

The whistle filtered through to him, echoing through the wooden halls of the otherwise empty stables. Magiore's gaze moved through the hazy, dusty din to the figure moving towards the tack room, all cheer and good nature, and felt the beginnings of a thrill of adrenaline course through him.

Olga was hesitating in the doorway; Magiore waited, fingers curling around the pitchfork - and then she was through, disappearing beyond his sight into the room.

Magiore turned to Jack, gave a quick, brief nod, and, still carting the pitchfork, stepped around the stall he was working in, heading quietly but purposefully after the girl. He didn't have to turn around to know that Jack would be following him; it was the plan, after all, and he trusted Jack to close the door behind them.

A booted foot slid into the room, and then Magiore had stepped inside, chin lifting to watch the others, expression quite blank.

It wasn’t enough just to close the door. Jack knew that he could not prevent Olga’s corruption anymore than he could keep the sun from rising, and so he had resolved to make it special. By dragging it out as long as he could. By imbuing every moment with just a little bit of extra meaning. Still whistling, he waited for her to look - because, who wouldn’t?

The wood floor had already announced their arrival.

His weasel was about to pop.

He flickered when it did, a grin crawling its way onto his face as Proustite crawled over Jack, and then pulled the door to the tack room shut.

”Hello, Olga.”

Jack fished a cigarette pack out of his pocket, and fingered the foil only to discover that it’d run out of cigarettes at some point between midnight and that moment. He chucked the pack. Found a second pack in another pocket.

“I’d introduce you to my colleagues, but I understand you’ve already met,” Proustite pulled out a cigarette, used it to indicate the General and then the Corrupt in the room with them, “Aurostibite and Hauyne.”

He was patting himself down, looking for a lighter.

Damn.

He did give Jack a pointed look for the whistling, mostly because it seemed entirely unnecessary and just an attempt at roiling things up a bit more, blue eyes narrowing a little suspiciously. But there were more concerning things to focus on, such as the actual corruption process and making sure that Olga was not spooked enough to be able to get away. Magiore might have been the lead on this particular venture, but it had been Morgan who had brought the information and the proposal to light.

There was a slight shift, a displacement of air as a crumpled pack of cigarettes was tossed aside. Right now, as it stood, they were unpowered; it would be too easy for things to go awry, and it wasn't like Magiore could explain their presence just standing here.

It was now or never. Magiore flicked his gaze to Jack, then to Morgan, giving a small nod.

A ripple shimmered across him, and then, quite smoothly, with little to no effort at all, the glamour was there, flickering into existence, long hair cascading in a black and blue waterfall down his back. The weapons weren't drawn yet, but he didn't quite need them; instead, he simply lifted his head, pushing the brim of his hat up just a little so that he could see Olga more clearly.

"Good afternoon," he said calmly. "My name is General Aurostibite. We're here to talk to you, Olga."

This was just escalating to levels of bad and bad. This wasn't a normal visit from Jack (as normal as those visits could even be). This was serious. The appearance of a General Aurostibite just proved that. Olga gasped as she recognized him. It was the Gentleman Vampire---the first Negaverse agent who had drained her, period. She started as she felt a hand take one of her own. Olga's head whipped around to look at Morgan, and everything about her expression was panicked and dismayed. No. Talking wasn't good. Didn't Morgan understand that? This was turning into the Carnival. After talking, she was sure there were only two options. Join or death.

Olga's fingers tightened on Morgan's hand regardless, and she couldn't help but wonder how Morgan just seemed to remain so calm in all of this. She wasn't. A mantra of questions was running through her head as she desperately thought.

How did they know where she was going to be? The only people she told about her plans today had been her parents (duh), Nadia, and Sergei, and she knew for a fact that they were all Order aligned, well, she knew for sure, everyone except Morgan---Where was Haüyne? They still hadn't made an appearance, and Jack wasn't fibbing, since Aurostibite appeared (why did that name seem really familiar?), and once again she couldn't help but wonder how Morgan just seemed so calm.

"Talk?" Olga echoed, managing to find her voice after a long moment of silence. "Okay. I'll talk." That name, Aurostibite, was familiar, actually. She snapped her attention back to Jack, and it was at that moment she seemed to really see him for the first time since he arrived, and she started once more in surprised. Jack---he looked---so different. So gaunt. There was a pronounced scar running down from his hairline as well. The questions were overridden though, as Olga pointed her free hand at the captain. "General Aurostibite---" She started, eyes locked on Jack's. "Did you know that when I first met Jack here about a few years ago, he introduced himself to me as Aurostibite? I imagine I can't be the only one he's done that to, over this period of time, and it seems awfully rude to be impersonating a fellow officer, huh?" She didn't know what exactly possessed her to say that, but she chalked it up to stress. She then tore her gaze away from Jack to focus on the General.

"I won't say anything else unless you let Morgan go." She told him, feeling in her heart, that this was the right thing to do. As a senshi, she was responsible for making sure Morgan got out of here safely. That was her job.

His gaze flitted briefly to Morgan, then down to the linked hands, then back to Olga's face again, face utterly calm, registering nothing of what he was thinking. If there was one thing that Aurostibite was good at, it was not letting his emotions or thoughts overtake him enough to be obvious. There were exceptions, of course - Mintaka being the biggest and most important of them - but hardly anything else at present registered.

Still; it was a little thrilling, to be able to recruit. Aurostibite did not micromanage those he brought into the Negaverse like some of the other Generals did, but he couldn't deny that there was a sense of pride nonetheless at what he could see of their accomplishments (unless it was Kainite, but he didn't count).

Olga's little revelation about Proustite, however, had Aurostibite shooting the Captain a look, something sharp and annoyed in his eyes, a slight twitch of a muscle in his jaw indicating exasperation at someone else using his name. He resisted an urge to ask how long Proustite had been doing this, how many times it had happened, what exactly this meant.

Now is not the time.

Aurostibite slid his gaze back to Olga, resisting an equally strong urge to sigh. He'd deal with that later. For now, he said simply, "Is that so? Well, to each his own. As for the midwife - " Another attempt at resisting an urge to sigh. " - he'll come soon, when we call for him."

He was a patient man. He could have waited. But it seemed pointless to do so when there were so many outlying factors that needed to be taken into consideration. They did not have the luxury to wait for hours to see what would happen; the only logical thing to do now was to speed things up, put more pressure on Olga.

There was a small flash of steel as both of Aurostibite's weapons were pulled from Negaspace, summoned into his hands. Sunlight glinted as he raised one, directing the edge towards the two civilians; a clear and concise movement loaded with meaning that said you can't get away.

"Captain Proustite," said Aurostibite calmly. "Kill Morgan."