Welcome to Gaia! ::

It happened that Hypatia had gone out to the water that evening to experiment with her powers in relation to actual seawater. It was something she probably should have tried out a while ago, but for some reason it had just never occurred to her.

She did notice the aura of a knight nearby, but didn’t think much of it, so continued with what she was doing. As the Senshi of the Reefs came into view, she was made more visible by a glowing orb of water which she held just above the rolling waves. Once the knight was close enough, she let the orb drop into the sea, where the glow dispersed briefly, and then was gone.

She turned to him and gave a small wave. “Good evening,” she called out, and began moving slowly back out of the water, toward the knight. It made her feel slightly silly to be standing in the water in a dress, but she had found that being in the water didn’t actually affect her outfit much…which certainly made sense.

"Maybe a bit cold," she agreed, stepping all the way out of the water. "But I'll survive." She touched a finger her chin, then shook her head. "I don't do that often, no. Never before, in fact. So...congrats, you caught me?"

With a small smile, she held out her hand to shake and offered, "They call me Hypatia, and...my er, what's the word," she considered a moment. "Domain? Probably not, but whatever. It's Reefs, so my magic is very water based. I wanted to see if it was much different in the water."

"It's not, but standing in the water works out much more pleasantly than I'd hoped."

This guy was giving off a bit of an air of disdain, by Hypatia’s reckoning, as they shook hands…briefly. “A pleasure, I’m sure, Gevaudan,” she said to him in her standard self-assured tone. “You’re right, I am fairly new to this,” she waved a hand in the air, “Magical powers and secret war madness. It’s all very…strange, but quite interesting, to be sure.”

Her eyebrows raised at his observation about the river. “Yes,” she said, drawing out the sound ever so slightly, “I suppose they might. And fish pee in it, too, you might be amazed to know.” She said it with a small smile and a light tone but did not laugh. “I’d suggest you avoid drinking it.”

With a small dismissive wave, she asked, “What brings you out here, tonight?” A glance around confirmed that no one was around…and aura-sense was pretty barren, too. “Doesn’t seem like much of a hot-spot of activity, after all.”

“Hmm, fair point,” she allowed, tone remaining level. “This is not the safest of cities.” Would make sense that some of the negaversers bothered to dispose of bodies…

Her brow furrowed slightly at his explanation. “Hunting the hunters, then?” she asked. “Or just providing discouragement? I can tell you’re no weakling.”

“I’ve had some instruction from a couple different senshis, and a cat,” she offered. “So I know a bit. Generally the what, a bit of how, but not a lot of why.” Hypatia allowed herself an exasperated sigh. “Why does the negaverse collect energy? I got an explanation from one of those Mirror people once, although it didn’t really feel…compelling to me. Like there’s something more to what they’re doing. But I just have no idea at all when it comes to the Negaverse.”

She gestured vaguely. “I know they have the Youma, and they collect energy and starseeds. And that is not…the most positive of things. But there must be a reason for it, beyond wanting kill off people like me.” She considered a moment. “I spoke with a Lieutenant not long ago, and he didn’t seem to know why, either. Just that he was supposed to.”

Perhaps, she reflected, I shouldn't admit to having chats with 'the enemy' so easily...But it doesn't matter.

The knight's candor with his intentions was rather surprising to Hypatia, and her eyebrows both rose appreciably at his statement. "Kill...whom, exactly?" she asked cautiously.


She listened to his explanation of energy use, nodding occasionally. It made sense: the youma needed the energy. But she still felt like there was something more to it. What exactly those 'plots' were, for instance, but she figured this guy wouldn't know, so chose to not press the point.

His demonstration of starseed pulling...and what it did...was a bit unsettling, but she still nodded. "I'm getting the impression that you have done that yourself," she said cautiously.



In spite of it all, the question of her mission made her laugh. Not just a small, sensible chuckle, but a big snort, and a good shaking shoulders laugh. "Oh yes, my 'mission.' That would be good to know, wouldn't it? But I swear, senshis are the most disorganized group of anything I've ever seen. 'Order'? Please. The closest thing I've got to a mission is an obnoxiously cheery high school kid telling me to 'stop bad people.' Yeah. We're a real dangerous bunch, let me tell you."

Hypatia’s only answer to the question of her intuition was to raise her eyebrows a brief moment, and she chose to not address the target of his ire—from what she knew of them, they were a strange lot.

Of course, it was not so easy to keep the same levity on the topic of the ‘wonderful’ Senshi organization. She didn’t find it particularly endearing to hear it assumed she would die…but truth be told, she could not fault him the viewpoint.

“Based on what I’ve seen, I’d call it extremely charitable to call the Senshis an ‘organization.’ It’s like a shitty Facebook group that nobody really keeps up to date.” She didn’t bother to hide contempt for the entire thing. It was rather terrible, especially given what went on with all this. “I haven’t seen what sort of monsters there might be among the Senshis, although it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. They say ‘power corrupts,’ after all, and with magic bullshit involved, I’m sure it can get bad.”

She smiled, a humorless, wan smile. “The one who told me to stop bad people was a kid. Couldn’t be older than 15. I don’t know why anyone would think it a good idea to give teenagers powers, and expect them to not get killed in a hidden, magic-fueled war, but whoever decides that cannot be the most…upstanding of individuals. I’d consider anyone choosing to throw children into war as ‘bad’ people to stop.”

That wasn’t really her reason for powering up, but she didn’t want to directly address that question. At least, not aloud, and not yet.

Hypatia’s eyebrows raised once more at the mention of children. “Chibi? I assume that means younger than the frog boy. No, I haven’t seen them, although, really, I’m not too surprised by it.” She paused, considering. "If anyone asked me what I thought, I’d say they should at least stick with the government’s enlistment ages.”

“Not that there seems to be anyone to decide such things,” she added with a shake of her head.

“My purpose…” she hesitated there. She didn’t exactly have one, all things considered. That’s not to say it was meaningless, just…not some huge conviction. Of course, that was her life in general. “Somewhat hard to say. Do what good I can, I suppose, but mostly learn, observe, and maybe figure out a way to use this stuff to improve the world…Or go move to space if it all goes to s**t.”