Welcome to Gaia! ::

Fulgurite watched the civilian fall as he tucked away their starseed.

There was a part of this job that still felt uncomfortable no matter how many times he had been ordered to do it, and there was a moment where he considered returning the little gem he held to where it belonged, but he felt the edges of an aura nearby that had him rolling his eyes and tucking the starseed away before he was noticed. He hadn't come out here planning on a fight, mostly just planned to collect quota and go home, but he could also use some stress relief. The ice cream venture with his general had helped ease things, but...

Whatever. Punch a foolish senshi, go back to what he was doing.

He turned toward where he felt the aura approaching -- approaching, of all things, what the ******** were they thinking? -- as started heading toward it, cracking his knuckles as he prepared to continue on their supposed duty of ******** saving humanity.

Oftentimes, he felt like his sister was doing a much better job of that.

Guy with blue hair.

Yeah, that was probably him. He squinted, looking up at her and watching her as she asked, of all things, if he'd be willing to-- "Goth senshi?" his voice hitched in a bit of disbelief. He'd heard corrupted senshi and he'd heard Negaverse senshi, but ******** Goth Senshi was new. He guessed it was more suited to his usual way of dress but, beyond that--

Did she just ask to come back later?

"Sure, I'm busy," he tilted his head, crossed his arms, and looked over the senshi he declared, "Mainstream Senshi. I'm on patrol. But my primary mission is to look for people like you, so."

He cracked his knuckles.

"Did you want to come closer?"

It didn't quite sound like he was suggesting conversation.

The concept that she was looking to make sure that the so-called obvious good guys weren't actually secretly really evil hit him as a bit naive, and he showed that with a snort of a laugh. There were moments where he questioned, himself, who the obvious good or evil guys were, even if the whole thing was met with some derision at best. He had never really been asked to join. It was arguable that he was working with Team Evil, and he wasn't necessarily sure he cared.

"You really think talking to me is gonna help you figure that out?" He quirked a brow, cracking his knuckles once more as he studied her. "You think I'm about to stand here and call myself out as Team Evil McBadGuy?"

Wait.

Was she seriously offering him... money?

It was so absurd as to almost be stunning on its own right, and he paused, blinked, and stared at her with some surprise. It was a moment before he replied with a flat, "You're bribing me," that lifted into an incredulous, "really?" at the tail end of it.

It was so ridiculous as to almost be believable. He held out his hand.

"Alright, fine, you hand me the money, maybe I don't punch you out."

It seemed logical at the onset to check to make sure she wasn't fighting for the wrong team, though he wasn't entirely sure why she had opted to check with the theoretical wrong team about that. It sounded like she already had an impression, and to be honest, he did have trouble arguing against the position of Terrorizing Children with Beasts is Bad. It probably was. That was why he usually didn't opt to go for children.

When he thought about it, he wasn't sure what made teenagers or adults much different, but it was an inspection best preserved for when a White Moon senshi wasn't doing the absolutely ridiculous thing of actually handing him five ******** dollars.

He couldn't believe this. It was definitely new. It was also definitely appealing; that was at least a couple of gas station burritos.

He took it and tucked it into his bodice.

"Alright, Raksha. You have my attention." He opted to lean his back heavily against the building, hauling his unnecessary hair over his shoulder and crossing his arms over his chest afterward. "You're lucky I'm a recent graduate. ******** college, ya know?"

At that, he rolled his eyes. Maybe she didn't know. She looked younger than him, though how much was hard to judge. Probably not that much, when he thought about it.

"It's Fulgurite. Ask whatever you got about us Children Terrorizers. Can't promise you'll like the answers."

"Suit yourself," he responded, with an air of nonchalance punctuated by a dismissive shrug.

The determination to do the right thing reminded him of his sister. It would have been cute if not for the fact that she was filled with a naivete he didn't think his sister possessed. As it was, he was minutely concerned she was going to ask these questions to the wrong person and end up flattened for it, but he supposed that wasn't his responsibility.

"We're fighting you because you're invading the Earth and we're here to protect it." Something about the way he said that felt detached as if he didn't even quite believe what he was saying, but Fulgurite pushed on to give her the answers she sought despite. "And to protect the planet properly, we need s**t to reinforce and power that. Energy. Starseeds. Guess you could argue that's the pay for protection."

Another shrug.

"You think people just gonna give their lives for that? No one's ever just liked being a sacrifice."

The homeworld question brought him to pause for a moment. By now, he had heard that the senshi of the White Moon could go to space. It wasn't exactly an unknown, it just was something he had never considered as someone who didn't even know what that name would have been. "Do I? The only name I've ever had is Fulgurite. What I was granted with when I was recruited." He snorted. "Don't even know what homeworld I'd be going to if I could, which I can't, so."

Where did he get that information? It was strange; he knew both that he felt like it was the truth and felt exceeding dissonance with it. If they were protecting the Earth from invaders, why were they cooperating with aliens? If they were protecting the Earth from invaders, why had he been recruited in the way he had been?

"By accident? You're only here because your homeworld is dead, right?" Fulgurite quirked a brow. "Taking up resources from a still-living world, attacking people here, causing problems here. Sounds like you're the invaders, yeah? And we're doing what we can do defeat you?"

It was absolutely a deflection away from his own belief.

To be honest, he had never really questioned why he couldn't go to a homeworld he had never heard of before, and to be questioned on why they weren't using them for things like space lasers or secret bases both confounded him and seemed like a valid point. Would certainly give them other ways to deal with the senshi and knights if they could go to their playing field. By the same token, did it matter? Their priority was Earth. Always had been.

At least, that was the party line.

"So far as I know, we don't have a way to get to wherever the ******** my 'homeworld' is. Our source is Earth. It's why we got these mineral names. We have a base on Earth?" If Negaspace was a base, in any case, moreso a kingdom atop of a sea of monsters -- he had no interest in returning to that sea ever again in his life --

It was best that she kept her opinion on how flimsy the party line seemed to herself; there was a part of him that was high strung and it displayed in the way he shifted on the wall as she watched him, seemingly concerned with what she was going to say next.

"Could also just leave to free up some resources," was Fulgurite's suggestion, though it was interesting to hear from a senshi whose apparent goal was a sort of cooperative relationship with Earth. It railed against what he was told of the Negaverse's mission. Why would they be working to kill those who were cooperating? What was the purpose? He shouldn't have been surprised that the stories conflicted, really, and every time he reflected on the illogic of the Negaverse's actions, he considered the intimidation of his own recruitment. "And who is to say your White Moon fellows beside for that guy would agree with you?"

The display of White Moon Mauvian technology, though, was a distraction that he launched onto, and he observed her phone and tried to collect some information about it because if he was considering joining General Sylvite's division, collecting information was one of the things he was supposed to be doing. So they could just go back to their homeworld by pressing a button on their phone. Could their Mauvians rig something similar?

Maybe a button that could be useful for lieutenants to get back to the Negaverse on their own on the tablets...

Maybe if he suggested some ideas, they'd just leave him alone.

"You can't go there whenever you wish?" Fulgurite snorted. "Then how can you monitor or do any of these fancy projects you wanna do? I can just go to our home base whenever I want. Could right now."