Welcome to Gaia! ::

Chrysotile's body still ached from the last fight he'd been in. Still, he had to go out and collect starseeds or his superiors would get suspicious. He really didn't want to; he really just wanted to lie about at home and watch sports on tv and drink himself into oblivion under his family's concerned gaze. And they were starting to get worried about him, he noted to his chagrin. Was he having second thoughts about committing to the NBA, which was what he'd led them to believe was going on? He reassured them that no, he still planned to do it -- only he didn't tell them that what he really planned to do was purify into a knight.

And he still wanted to do that! It was just hard to take that step, hard to walk away from everything he knew and risk forgetting the thing that had made him join the Negaverse in the first place: his family. Would he still be able to protect them? Would he even remember them? He had started to put together a notebook of things he didn't want to forget, that he was going to hand off to either Manheimr or Denebola for safe keeping, to be returned to him after the deed was done by Royal Knight Camelot. But he really didn't want to forget in the first place. That would be horrible.

As he cut down a side alley, he suddenly detected an Order aura not too far away. "s**t," he muttered to himself. What was it going to be THIS time, another kid? Ducking behind a dumpster, he prepared himself mentally for a fight. Even if he lost, as he figured he would, he didn't want to walk away too damaged.

Hiding never worked, Chrysotile should have known better by now. With a sigh he stood and stepped out from behind the dumpster, holding his empty hands in plain sight. He looked the senshi up and down in surprise. She was just a kid! Her aura was strong, tingling all over him with that sensation of irritation that every White Moon warrior had. But a kid! Not a little kid like that other senshi had been, there was at least that. Maybe a young teenager. What was she doing out patrolling on her own this late at night? The streets of Destiny City were dangerous!

The tall Chaos agent sighed again and tried to not roll his eyes. "Look, miss, I'm not looking for a fight," he said as calmly and non-threateningly as he could. "I'm just trying to go about my business quietly and without causing any trouble. Now we could just go our own separate ways and pretend this encounter never happened, right? Just mooooove along, no harm no foul. You good with that?"

Evil? Chrysotile supposed what the Negaverse did was evil -- no, he was sure of it. That was one of the reasons he wanted out. But HE wasn't evil…. Was he? Did doing evil things, even under duress, even though he didn't want to, make him evil? He was having a hard enough time living with what he had to do in order to survive in the Negaverse without having to worry about their evilness rubbing off on him as a person, as a future Knight. He didn't want to be evil.

His thoughts distracted him just enough for the Super Senshi to attack. She was fast too! Unable to dodge out of the way, he took the full force of her punch right in his gut; the force of the blow sent him reeling back a good three feet and he toppled down onto his rear, which knocked the wind out of him briefly.

Scrabbling backwards on the ground, he summoned his afghan. Fat lot of good it would do, but he had to try. From his seated position he threw the brightly-colored crocheted blanket at her head, hoping he could blind her temporarily and buy himself a few seconds to get to his feet.

"Yeah, sucks doesn't it?" Chrysotile shot back at Anser as he got to his feet as quickly as he could, catching the afghan deftly. "They can't be bothered to give us lieutenants USEFUL weapons. Maybe that's why we tend to die so easily!"

He straightened, towering over the girl. "Look, I don't want to hurt you -- hah, like I could, with your power level and all. But I don't want to fight. I just want to be left alone. I have to make my quota or they'll punish me." Stepping forward, he spread his hands pleadingly, still holding the afghan. "I hate the Negaverse as much as you do. But I have to survive!"

The senshi charged him again; seemed his words had fallen on uncaring ears. Chrysotile tried to dodge out of the way, but she was too fast and too strong for him. Her roundhouse kick knocked one of his legs out from underneath him, and he once more tumbled to the ground, landing hard on his hip.

"I mean it, I don't want to fight you!" he cried, struggling quickly to his feet. Squaring up for attack, he swung his afghan at her, hoping his long reach would allow him to strike her with a sting. He knew he had no chance against her -- she was a whole level above him power-wise, and that at the very least balanced out his height advantage.

But he had to try to defend himself.

Chrysotile felt her grab his afghan, but his grip tightened so the senshi couldn't rip it out of his hands. "I want to stop being a villain!" he shouted at her. "I don't want to steal people's starseeds and leave them as empty husks lying on the ground! But if I don't, my superior officers will punish me!"

His anger and frustration grew, and he attempted to pull her toward him, a snarl on his face. "But if you wanna fight, I'll give you a fight!" He wasn't about to be taken down by another kid, even if she was a super senshi!

There was no arguing with the kid. She was right -- Chrysotile was evil. Even if he was planning on and working toward purification, he was still part of the Negaverse, still ripping starseeds out of chests, still fulfilling his quota. He hadn't stopped; he was too scared to stop. Not without being completely ready to purify. Why was he so hesitant to just do it? Why hadn't he just gone ahead and contacted Midgard and Denebola and told them it was time, and then gone through with it?

Perhaps he was afraid he wasn't worth it.

With a noise borne of disgust with himself, he let go of his end of the afghan and fell to the ground. "Go ahead, beat me up!" he shouted. "Should be easy for a super like you!"

The punch landed square on Chrysotile's nose, right between his eyes, with an audible crack of bone breaking. His head snapped back from the force of the super chibi senshi's blow and hit the ground with a resounding thud, leaving a sizeable crack in the cement pavement of the alley sidewalk. The lieutenant's ears rang from the concussion of the impact with the pavement and his head swam with pain; he feared he was going to black out from the kid's punch.

He lay on the ground for long moments, all the while aware of the girl's breathing and her presence through her super aura. Doing almost anything was out of the question lest she attack him again and kill him -- which he had no doubt she could do. But he had to get out of there, because he was clearly in no condition to fight. He could play possum, pretend he'd been knocked out (which he almost had been), but that carried a number of risks, not the least of which was having to stay still and risk a thorough pummelling. Kick him while he was down and all that. Or he could lay there and recover a little bit before getting up to run away. Yeah, he decided, that was probably the best course of action: lay there like a poleaxed steer until he thought he could stand and move without toppling over, then get up and retreat to his villain's lair like the evil coward he clearly was.

"Alright," Chrysotile finally moaned, very slowly sitting up, one hand on the back of his head checking for blood. He felt sure his nose had been broken, but he didn't feel like he had time to check for sure. "You win. You beat me fair and square -- I can't beat you, you're a super. I'm only a lieutenant with a useless weapon." He nodded at the afghan in the chibi senshi's hand and immediately regretted moving his head. "I can't fight any more. I can't. You were right," he murmured hoarsely as he gingerly got to his feet. "I'm evil. I'm part of the Negaverse and I'm evil. I pull starseeds out of people's chests and take them back to my commander, who feeds Metallia. I'm a monster. But I know when I've been beaten.

"And I ain't stupid."

With that, Chrysotile called on all his basketball training and all his strength and all his speed and sprinted off in the opposite direction from the girl as fast as he could run. He could hear her shouting at him as he fled, but couldn't make out the words. Words didn't matter anyway; getting away safely did. Darting sharply around the corner at the other end of the alley, he kept running and running until he couldn't feel her aura any longer. Only then did he slow down into a loping trot as he got his bearings and knew where he was, slowing even further into a walk.

Reaching up, he touched the bridge of his nose and hissed at the pain the brief contact caused. She had got him good.. He drew his fingers back and saw blood on them, pretty much as expected. He'd have a lot of explaining to do to his mom when he got home. Keeping to the shadows, he broke into a trot again and cut a zigzagging course home.

[[FIN]]