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He had been Eion Risk again.

His thoughts were every tumultuous these days, swirling around the troublesome Saturn Knight, Alkmene's troubles, Headache's inexhaustible will to torment him, his rocky relationship with Lysithea, ever quiet Kamacite, and so much more. He'd intended to use his time to go shopping — it was difficult for him to keep tea on hand for more than a week, and he wanted to use his money on a few gifts for his paramours. Not that there could be much he would find for Ren, and…

That's where he ran into trouble. He thought about Ren, wasn't paying attention to what he was doing, and donned Eion's guise while he was still on top of a building.

With no fire escape.

And the service door was locked.

He declared his weariness at the door, hand still on its handset. "********." He imagined that the door thought the same. His hands were cold, after all.

Unwilling to shed his disguise just yet, he looked back, looked around. There were always illicit activities on these rooftops —

Ah. There's one. Guardian cat, by the ears and tail. One of the ones who could play at human, like Tiberius once did. Cute.

The unassuming coal-haired youth lit up, burned bright as Faustite, and the General vanished into his quarry's space with a thought. Then he realized — this was the one with the Cosmos Knight. Fortuitous. The Youma General melted into flame, tongues of fire braiding toward and around the feet of his quarry.

"Enjoying your plays at human, Cat?" With each sibilant sound came the hiss of fat on a fryer.

Faustite smiled, a thin-lipped thing, when he reformed into something approximating the shape of a person. Saw the forehead star glow before the beam, knew the dangers of that from Encke's cat. He vanished, just before the beam would strike, and reappeared to the side of the humanized Mauvian.

"Neither are you, Cat." He drew his hand up like a signal, and portals from the Rift flashed open, belched out their youma. A broad array of them, all feral, all snarling and snapping and hateful toward the feline that awakened so many of their adversaries. "This is a human space."

He pointed at the Mauvian, and the youma followed his gesture.

"Your Knight," he started as he approached the cat. He paced toward him with purpose. "Tell me about him and I might dissuade my friends."

"Not human at all," he echoed with a smile. "Makes it easier for you, doesn't it. Dehumanizing me."

One of the youma was a flyer. Wad of tentacles. Thing couldn't hover more than a couple feet off the ground, but it was enough for it to reach for those humanoid feet.

"Easier to do this Before." Eion raised up his hand, and on it formed a shield glove bracelet. Old, tarnished thing of Plutonian make, aglitter with jewels from an otherworldly space. b*****d conglomeration of two opposing powers, and yet it hummed with brimming energy over his palm. Easy enough to reach for the catboy's chest, drive the jewel home over its starseed.

See what there was to see of this Knight, or any other wretched little part of its life.

"Don't need you to let me, Cat. "

How now. Precious thing it was, to the Knight. So he pushed his hand through the creature's chest, found where the starseed lay. Defenseless thing. "He'll be so excited to see you," he murmured. "You'll have a surprise for him."

Faustite knew that feeling — the one that lay between them. Knew it better, now, than he had in the past. Small surprise that they were so close, then.

It was easy enough to seize and wrench. Easy enough to liberate a starseed from the body, incapacitate the cat, and banish away the snapping youma with a gesture. Better that it wasn't their snack. No, cats were too precious a commodity to go to waste in the endless mouths of youma.

The glittering thing lay fresh in his palm, glistering in the moonlight, as he summoned Headache from its nowhere place among the rift. It, too, went instinctively for the starseed. Faustite warded it off with a word. "Don't.

"Take this." In his free hand appeared a tablet, only gently singed, and he tossed it to the creature. Naturally, it fell through the host of fireflies and clattered to the ground. "Play a human and pick it up."

Headache acquiesced. This time, it was Nembus again. The General frowned, his expression clouding. "Open communications."

Nembus's nimble fingers went to work, though they lacked the finesse of someone who had been using their tablet devices for years. Knew it would have to do, and knew they needed to hurry; the longer this starseed stayed out, the more chances they took that someone may come around to reinsert it prematurely. The sooner the body could die.

Once the comm link was established, Nembus held the butt end of the communicator toward its General.

Leaning in, Faustite spoke: "Any available Sovereign, I have a cat in need of persuasion."

Aurically, Laurelite couldn't sneak up on anyone. Faustite felt her presence flood the area as soon as she arrived, though he heard no part of her arrival — not even a displaced pop of air when she suddenly stood next to him. Without thinking, he very nearly gave her the starseed. It had crossed his body before he realized what he was doing, and the audacity of it, and kept it in hand.

Worse that he wanted to eat it. More than anything, more than the boys he kept or his love for all the tea in his office, he wanted to taste a Mauvian starseed. Felt his mouth water for it.

Headache watched him expectantly with Nembus's eyes. When Faustite swallowed enough spit that he wouldn't drool on himself when he spoke, he followed her instruction: "Sovereign unnecessary; the Queen answered."

He was distantly surprised that he could still form sentences.

While Faustite hadn't much practice in imposing chaos on someone, and he doubted there would be reason for him to learn how to overwrite their enemy so thoroughly (for he had no aspirations to sit next to Axinite and suffer the responsibilities of running an entire branch the way that Jet would now suffer), the Queen had made an offer. And offers from the Queen weren't to be refused, even if he was uncertain that he could continue trusting himself to avoid eating the starseed. The Queen could stop him as Axinite had been stopped, he was sure.

Jaw wired shut, Faustite nodded. Whatever he thought of the idea, he was committed to it now. He crouched as he replaced the starseed in the Mauvian with his hand still clutched around it.

The last thing he had seen before his eyes darkened and the whole world went black was a starseed held above his chest — no, taken from his chest — glittering in the palm of the man’s hand.

Such a fragile thing, it looked. So small. So breakable.

———

Tama did not know how long he had been unconscious for a body without a starseed was nothing, just an empty shell. But he could still feel the pain when he awoke.

It was unlike anything he had felt before and his whole body writhed. His hands were around Faustite’s wrist, their claws digging deep before he even opened his eyes, an instinct too strong for even the pain to dull. He screamed in agony as he fought against the Chaos being flooded into his chest, his violet eyes wild like an animal caged.

There’s no reason to fight this.

Who was she? Why did she say there was no reason to fight? What knowledge did she have of his future?

“I must go to him and show him.”

Was that would he had been doing before… before…

His eyes grew wide as he stared at Faustite and his grip on the man’s wrist loosened as he realized it.

He didn’t remember anything about his fight with Faustite or how he had gotten to this situation or if he had made it to Erytheia at all. Panic began to set in, numbing the pain in his chest so that he could not feel it over his own concern.

“Where is he? Where is Ery —” Or had he said ‘Yuri’?

It was hard to tell as he could barely choke out the words.





☆

Laurelite’s expression shifted to something kinder, something more tender. “You poor thing,” she said gently. “Just breathe. You’re not alone anymore, we’ve got you. We’ll take care of you. You’ve had a horrible night, haven’t you? You’re in good hands. You are with friends. Allies. We’ll help you recover.”

She didn’t know exactly what she had walked into or what the Mauvian had been in the middle of when Faustite caught him, so she did not comment on Ery--or the ‘blonde friend’ he’d had.

“Do you remember your name? Do you know where you are?” she asked gently.