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His patrols had (for the most part) had fallen into the pattern of being relatively quiet of late, so Athene had been a little surprised when he'd picked up on the flare of aura–

And especially so early into his patrol.

It felt like a knight's aura, the warmth similar but not quite the same as a senshi aura and the blaze of it suggesting that it belonged to a Knight rather than a Squire–

And it had felt close enough to try and track down.

So he had, because he had thought that it would perhaps be nice to have a bit of company that was more than his somewhat customary takeaway hot drink (hot chocolate this time around)–

Only to realise that he recognised this particular knight.

"Valhalla?"

At least Athene was reasonably sure that the knight was Valhalla–

It had been a while.

As the knight looked at him, Athene realised that it really was Valhalla, although the taller knight looked awful, almost as if the other had been pushing one too many late nights–

And it had taken a few moments before Valhalla's words had truly sunk in, but then he had found himself blurting out somewhat stupidly "Wait... What?!"

Because for a moment Athene thought that he'd heard Valhalla say that Ganymede had been taken.

Valhalla had kept speaking, however, almost as if the other hadn't heard his earlier blurted out exclamation - and as Athene listened he felt a sick feeling start to pool in his stomach–

Because from what he was piecing together from what Valhalla was saying, not only had the Negaverse taken Ganymede - but they had also had her for weeks.

Weeks.

Athene bit his lip and tried very hard not to think about the fact that the Negaverse was not known to treat people they kidnapped particularly kindly, but it was hard not to when all he could think of was that it was like that god-awful New Year's Eve party all over again–

Well at least the period after because Athene hadn't actually been at that particular party himself.

"You said that you've been told that she's alive" he forced himself to say instead as he did his best to try and hold on to that and not think too hard on the fact that Valhalla had also said that, that had been a few weeks ago.