The setting sun cast a red-orange glow over Destiny City, reflecting off the gleaming windows of downtown buildings and throwing long, deep shadows across those nearer the ground. People of this city knew to avoid the long shadows of evening, the dark places where the sun rarely reached. There were monsters afoot in Destiny City, and they mostly came out at night and lurked in the dark alleys and deep shadows, waiting for the unsuspecting and unprepared to happen by.

Some of these monsters were even human.

One such "monster" sat atop one of the downtown buildings, gazing into the sun as it crept below the horizon. Chrysotile had not had a very good year so far; beaten up by senshis and knights alike, nevermind the youma… He had managed to make a number of enemies amongst the Order faction, though goodness knows it wasn't like he'd done anything to them. It seemed that just existing and wearing the uniform he was wearing was enough to label himself a convenient punching bag for any Order type who had a bone to pick with the Negaverse. And that was pretty much everyone in the faction.

He hadn't escaped the notice of the Negaverse either, not after the pummeling he'd just taken at the hands of Captain Carnotite, the half-youma with the electric attack. Surely she would be going back and reporting to his commanding officer, General Quartz about what had happened. He wondered how many other Negaverse officers knew about his desire to purify -- probably more than was safe.

Yet despite all this, despite the purification plan he'd been meticulously laying the groundwork for, despite the binder of lists of things to remember once he purified, despite the offer of a place to live afterward, he still had not acted on any of it. He was sure that Camelot would have forgotten about him by now, it had been so long since the Royal Knight had been contacted. Truth be told, he couldn't say why that was, because he had no clue himself. He still persisted in toughing it out in the Negaverse, harvesting starseeds for Quartz, Sure, he had never ranked up to Captain, but that, he knew now, would have just been asking for trouble.

But he knew this couldn't go on. His goal, his reason for being, for allowing himself to become a lieutenant in the Negaverse was to protect his family, and really, that was about the only good thing he'd done. And he really hadn't done anything to protect them -- he had just gotten lucky and his mom and sister had avoided becoming victims of this stupid, senseless war.

That wouldn't last forever. He had to do something to truly protect them. And he knew what he had to do.

Hands shaking, he powered down and retrieved his cellphone. He thumbed through the contacts and found the number he was searching for, and paused, thumb hovering above the call button. Was this really the right thing to do? Was this really the only way, to change sides? A word stuck in his mind, a word uttered to him by a super chibi senshi who'd broken his nose in a fight: EVIL. He didn't want to be evil any more.

He pressed the button and waited. "Camelot? This is Chrysotile. I'm ready."

word count: 559