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Commerce meant concentrations of people, which meant too much opportunity for chaos. Thraen tried to make a circuit of as many such centers as often as he could manage—the less resource at the disposal of any of the slaves-bands, the better. There was an aura this time that matched neither the Negaverse, the Dark Mirror, or any other unknown. A Knight? And of the strongest tier. Here? A boon, that, if others keep this on their patrol circuit. It does not move quickly as if passing on a patrol.

The other could be investigating something already done, taking a breather from a stitch, or any number of other possibilities. The eternal senshi made his way up to the rooves of the nearest buildings, then the lightposts and steel pylons of the powerlines that served the nearest warehouses and industry of the harborage. Eventually, he’d triangulated the nearest he could the center of the other aura and looked around for a visual confirmation. The strangest clothes usually did the trick: here a slight, small figure in a pale coat lined with colors still unusual to Thraen’s knowledge.

I remember you. It had been years over.

‘Gevaudan. It doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely as the other name did.’

There was no sign or feel of Ganymede, Valhalla or the still unknown Hawara near. Gevaudan was alone now as he’d been years ago. But still there, alive, and still uncorrupted and unkilled by revenge of the Negaverse. He called down and out to the other, “Knight! How pass your hours?”

Four centuries cites he of plays, spoken, write, loved and put on stage or film by Shakespeare alone, but I’m barely understandable. Define irony. And from the look, Thraen himself was among that which numbered ‘nothing interesting.’ Sparing words and time was tied to the prospects of boredom otherwise, and a reason to be grateful?

Thraen jumped down to the level of the other’s boardwalk stroll, but respected the choice of conversational distances. “ Always.”

“ As we fret our hour on the stage. So far clear, as you see and say. Our kind tend toward youth and young adult- some schools return to session already. Others are likely on last vacations before they, too, return to classes. It is a possible reason. Poor fortune, another. If jackpot is strife, then we’d best stay away from the Casinos today. “

“It has been some years. What does the Beast hunt for these days? ”

Mentally, acronyming the Dark Moon Court hadn’t come into the senshi’s phase of vocabulary. It took a blink before ‘DMC’ received the lightning strike of proximity to the mission long ago against the court specifically, organized by this very small person. “Hot spots, no. No spots of any kind. I almost never encounter them. “

Had the mission itself been the last time Thraen had even encountered strange, cadet Chaos force? It was possible. “Which is cause for suspicion. It could be a function of their going in and out of mirrors. Mirrors are expensive, and a thing of indoors. Most indoors are private property, or closed at night, and not accessible for patrols. It limits the amount of time their aura projects...unless it can feel while they’re still in the mirror of a bathroom or changing room. You’ve more research than I on that sort of information.” Yet the knight hunted out of doors as much as one might for youma or Officers of the Negaverse. “In your experience, do they lay mirrors about out doors and hunt outside? Like foxes with bolt-holes?

Thraen’s own aims hadn’t changed any more than those of Gevaudan ‘Wolframite’: “Chaos. Any. To converse, teach, or kill. “

“It’s difficult to gauge from the outside. All the more in not knowing what is new to you and what isn’t, or what information network you have or don’t have yourself as far as their projects, leaders and dealings. “ So many months between meeting Gevaudan in the first and now was enough for other conflicts and wars to have resolved in the civilian world. In their own struggle, it was enough for new generals, deaths, captures, the feeding up of some new youma monstrosity to release at a holiday of the city…

Nor does the whimsy engender confidence. Short questions, the familiar ‘they’, the redoubled article to explain the pronoun-subject to an outgroup who the ingroup referenced is. Ingroup. His sympathies haven’t changed so much as his coat has, I expect. All the more dangerous to the inexperienced, who may trust him with information freely. And his petulance likely to resent anyone wiser and use it as fodder to prove his machinations justified. This is a trash fire waiting to light.

“Always has my hand been ready, as it was before, when you proposed the strike that nearly rid us all of their Princess. One of the General Sovereign’s stopped us then, among others. There was interference from knights, senshi and officers. Are you looking to establish another such strike?”

Rarely. And by which or what lines? A few clarks of his metal mindset were thrown to archives of Alois, black feathers, and the beginner’s basics blurbs that alerted senshi who bothered reading of the option of purification, How many purified in any month or year? How many officers were there in total that for there to be an amount of turncoats in Destiny City the event was still considered rare by whole?

Or is it? The American Military has lied in propaganda and mind games often enough in modern history, or made strategic subsidies to films like Blackhawk Down or Top Gun. The Negaverse could keep internal affairs as hushed as possible. If they didn’t trust their own methods or rhetoric to convince loyalty, subterfuge can do the heavy lifting. Could be both. The idea of it truly being an inconsequential minority is terrifying.

“Capture for information was tried by the loosest and vaguest of efforts some time ago. But there were no concrete goals of information, ransom, or trade made within it. Have you acquired the new tech for your ring since last we spoke? Or made contacts with new teams or partners in the knights to be able to call on? Having access to your old army is hardly necessary if you’ve cultivated a new cadre of ….knights of your same banner. Or a mix from various planets. “

“Or senshi. But the tech will allow faster communication. I am willing to hear out and try to give aid to what may bring at least one of the Mirror Court down. Any reason to focus on Leto? What of the other two names- Princess Ares and Prince Remarque?”

Long time to be ‘occupied,’ all the more if with hunting the DMC so specifically, to forego and forget the technology that was made available. It makes it madness, foolishness, or a set up of some kind. Of course it would be ‘I'm lacking the army’... lacking method to communicate with anyone save face to face. And how much has that been attempted? This gives no confidence in that being the truth of his months and months. Reason didn’t offer, without more information, what the answer was with the Knight’s time and effort having gone to in the interim. Asking right out would be an incendiary, no doubt.

Why shouldn’t he be mad. Even self imposed, isolation for the majority of personalities of humanity was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Where were the others that Gevaudan had stalwartly asserted he had, and didn’t need help before. But now ‘slipped?’ “There is a dearth in the senshi of anything not pacifist. There may be some knights that could be found who would not be squeamish in dealing with Chaos. There used to be a gathering of Knights every so often where you could network if it still happens. The upgrades, though, will be a necessity for ease of coordination. Saturn’s banner had some with little love for Chaos and no qualm of kindness. “

Scholomance came to mind immediately, if it didn’t involve masses of blood. The Saturn knight’s easy way with that other senshi….her name…? It didn't come to the fore. Still, he might have further networking that could be called on. It was a lot of maybe.

“Divide and conquer is a sound strategy; has your gather turned up who of that court flocks together? Which chicks flock to the Goose and which to the Gander would further designs on where to start a hunt. “

‘never interacted with their leaders’ fire-eyes sharpened at the tidbit, turned it over this way and that. It meant there was something particularly different in how the mirror made it’s senshi from how the Negaverse managed the feat. It was information not related in the Primer, and absent in all the years since of his own patrols and operations.

“The ring is the best of steps for coordinating over distances. Keep me in mind once you have, and send missive. There is one senshi that I know that may be recruited...and one knight of Saturn. The knights I’ve known, otherwise, kept to their own: you as one of their number would have better luck mobilizing them. “ Thraen tapped one heel of a hand against his other, considering. “Yes...as you say. I’ll look forward to hearing from you, Gevaudan. The works that goeth forth from our mouths may yet bear fruit. May yet.”

“If we are swift and sure. “