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Fulgurite was doing parkour. It was arguable that he was in the mode, running up alongside a building and using it to jump off and twirl in the air until he landed on a railing. It was a bit more of a complex trick, and when he was pretty sure he was only pulling off as well as he was because he was a senshi, but he wasn't sure he cared! He didn't have to collect ******** energy anymore! As long as he actually powered up once in a blue moon, he was fine!

Sorta.

Might as well have fun with it at least--

His balance nearly faltered. Nectaris' voice rattled in his ears and his head and his heart and it was only when he realized where it came from that he calmed down. Good, no fights with overzealous white moon angsty pages--

Now when he looked at Nectaris and related it to that other page, they were both of the moon weren't they--

Whatever.

"Nectaris," he breathed, the sound coming up almost as a hiss even as he was relieved. "Glad to see no one's gotten you yet, although I imagine if you had the whole Negaverse would know. The whole letting a princess leave thing." And in some respects, if those same people found out that Fulgurite was talking to Nectaris and not telling them where she was, he'd probably also be strung up. Hopefully not literally.

Though maybe it didn't matter anyway.

"They're doing fine, I guess? I mean you know about the whole new General-King thing right?" He ran a hand through his hair. "They haven't done any new operations lately, but your team has pretty much gotten entirely redistributed. I guess my boss is Albite now? He's not making me do quota, which is nice, I guess."

He bit his lip. "Honestly, not entirely sure where the rest of us ended up. I think Gismodine is under Ashanite? Anyway, I don't think you got anyone to beat up for me."

Oh, so she did know. And she had somehow read about it. Interesting. Did Order have like a newspaper or something? A news website?

It didn't really matter either way, he wasn't going to say anything about it. There was a time that when he was working for her when she was Sylvite he would have reported that kind of thing right away, if just to make her happy. Now he just didn't care.

She gave such a winning smile when she confirmed his newspaper suspicion that he couldn't help but wonder if it definitely was not a newspaper-- didn't matter. He'd let her have this one.

Especially because she was more concerned with Albite.

"Yeah, that's actually part of the reason why he took me on as an underling? The fact that you purified and he was trying to keep your team together I guess. I don't think he got to most of us in time, but he did get to me." Fulgurite shrugged. "And he offered to take on my quota if I became part of his team so at least I don't have to do that s**t anymore."

Wait, he was trying to murder her?

But didn't she deserve it, by Metallia's will?

He knew no one who deserved it less than she did--more than she did--less than she did--

"I mean, he's literally married to Faustite now so I guess it kind of makes sense. Wasn't that guy part of the mission to trap the princess in the first place?"

Was he supposed to say they were married? Oh well.

Oh.

She froze.

Alright, so he shouldn't have said that one, but not really for the reasons he thought. She didn't really seem concerned about the connection there but more so it's relation to herself and her relationship with Albite. And he could understand that in hindsight. If they had been dating, the news that he had gone ahead and married someone else who would have been jarring. Were they committed to that level? Was Albite supposed to marry her?

Would she even remember if they had been? How much had Albite told her?

"Yeah, married. I attended the ceremony and everything." Well, considering he already busted that detail, he might as well just say the rest of it. "They seem pretty attached to each other. I have no idea how long they've been engaged, but they do also live together?"

That probably was also a detail he shouldn't say. Well, she didn't need to know where they lived, or the fact that it was in the Negaverse. Saying a fully married couple lived together was not really news. The city was huge, the two of them could have been anywhere.

He rubbed his neck in part to stop himself from saying anything else stupid to the woman he used to be the most open with.

"For what it's worth, I get the impression that he's very free with his love in general. Like, I think he's attached to most of the people on his team in some way or fashion." Even if it was just intimately. As in between the sheets. As in the way he occasionally wrote the dirtier fiction he barely wanted to ever see the light of his own eyes-- "I'm not sure that he moved on so much as enhanced one of his other relationships."

Maybe.

Why was he trying to comfort her? If he was legit trying to kill her, maybe he should just be encouraging her to stay away from him.

"Though maybe he has entirely moved on." Didn't quite match with him trying to adopt Fulgurite onto his team but. "I've never asked. And if he's trying to murder you, I'm not sure you should either."

He couldn't tell if anything he said was either helpful or hurtful with the way that she paused and seemed to ponder it over in her mind. He gave Nectaris the space to say anything else she wanted to say about it herself at least, keeping his mouth shut until she asked if what he was referring to was "poly."

"Yeah! Like that. I think he's polyamorous." Fulgurite wasn't necessarily sure if that was a thing he could be, but then again he had never actually been in a successful relationship. He did write about a few OT3s when he was annoyed with a series and felt that they could have done it in a much better way than a shitty not actually a love triangle but--

He probably shouldn't sound so enthusiastic about that whole thing though. She was upset, and she was also right: it wasn't really his problem.

Except it was in a way, because he was the one who introduced the thing to her and she never had to know about it--

She asked if he liked the Negaverse now, though, and that yanked his brain out of the spiral as he couldn't help the bitter chuckle that left his lips. Like? That was definitely the wrong word.

"I think tolerate is a better word. I don't really like the Negaverse, and that hasn't exactly changed with my quota being gone." His quota was just being performed by someone else now. He was still free to be able to be yanked anywhere at any time. He still had to acknowledge that he surrounded by people who murdered people. He still had to deal with a place that was supposedly their home base that was swimming with monsters. And on some days, that stopped mattering. On some days, he remembered that he would have been lying to himself if he said he was innocent. On some days, he even wondered if he should just go back to doing it anyway.

He ran his hand through his hair again, but the source was different, this time.

"I mean, this place still sucks. But at least I don't have to think about it as hard."

His lips lifted in amusement at the way she reinforced terrible, and he couldn't really disagree. It was a place filled with monsters that actively spent its time draining the civilians of Earth, and even couldn't necessarily keep its story straight anymore. He's still didn't quite understand why they were working with aliens now when they were supposed to be protecting the Earth from them--

"You were. Trying to be good, that is." Fulgurite would make the argument that she was doing good, but then again, was he just thinking of it from an altered perspective? Did she just seem good because he was so used to terrible that she seemed fantastic? Or was he looking at it from a different metric, and did that metric seem different now that she was on the side of the white moon?

He shrugged. "You were even working with me to try and get me to be less harsh." Or less prone to fighting and anger at least. Ironically, she kind of got that now. It was just through her ex taking the responsibility away after she left herself taking the wind out of his sails.

(He just made a water reference. Albite would have jumped on that.)

But, god, did being on a team with her again sound so nice.

But then he thought of his father. How his father would feel if he had truly lost a child. How his father would feel if there was no returning in the way that Orah had. And he trusted Orah to take care of him, but he'd be heartbroken. And what about Orah? She would probably be heartbroken too. And on top of that, she would be handling the heartbreak of her father, and also dealing with the fact that he was doing to her what her disappearance had done to him. He remembered how he had shattered. He remembered how it changed his intentions, his behaviors, even his career--

He couldn't.

It was a strained, "I can't," that was his response.

A weaker, "I can't," as he reminded himself he was supposed to not be saying stupid things to the person he used to be so honest with.

A broken, "I'm sorry," that followed.

At that moment, he felt small and pathetic.

Her second instinct was the right one. It wasn't her at all, it was never her at all, and honestly her being in the Negaverse was one of the few things that had made it more tolerable. If she had been the only thing holding him there, he would have left without another thought.

And he knew that. The depressive time he went through, plus trying to separate himself from the people who once taunted him, plus losing the closest thing he had to a relationship gave him very little in his personal life that was worth hanging out for. He'd figure out how to readopt his online persona he was sure.

He wasn't necessarily hanging out for his personal life. Orah and Dad were keys in his life, his entire life, but it could be argued that he was hanging out for his familial life.

Fulgurite leaned into the hug.

He bit his lip.

He wasn't so sure it was gonna be okay.

And he wasn't so sure he should tell her what they had over his head either.

"I never asked to be here, you know." He chuckled wryly. "Was forced from day one, minus the memory loss so I guess that's a plus." But was it? If he had lost his memories, maybe he wouldn't have been so conflicted. Then again, his father would have already had to mourn him. Sounded like he was facing a loss either way.

Should ******** it.

"I can't abandon my family."

There was a moment where the instinct spiked. She was close. Very close. And he very much knew how to do it. He had done it before and was almost doomed to do it again. And it was the right thing to do, considering what she had done to an important operation of the Negaverse--

But just like that, the instinct passed, and he relaxed into the hug as much as he could despite the height difference.

He wasn't playing cat and mouse.

"I suppose someone who had to abandon their family to leave would understand better than most," his laughter was mostly self comforting and was mirthless. He wasn't certain it would make her feel any better.

This was getting very personal. What could he say without invariably revealing his identity? Destiny City was a huge city. It was honestly unlikely that she could put all those pieces together and figure out who he was if he just kept things vague enough. He would have to trust that she wouldn't tell anyone else what he had said though, because if she did, they would probably be able to figure out who he was. The Negaverse knew Too Much about him. They knew too much about the last ten years of his life.

"I don't know." He legitimately didn't. It wasn't a conversation that had ever come up, and it wasn't one he cared to bring up. If his family wasn't involved, he would have preferred them stay that way. It was already enough that his sister had gone missing a couple years back, and he couldn't really confirm if that was some Destiny City shenanigans, or just something that she had gotten swept up in. And if they were involved, well, maybe it was better that they didn't know about each other.

There was something about the way he was recruited, though, that made him suspicious.

And maybe that was enough to bring up.

"But the guy who forced me in?" Careful, do not speak the truth that he was dead. "He knows my family. Very well. And he recruited me because he thought I'd be a good fit, such a good one that he didn't give me a choice in the matter." Such a good one that he brought in their now queen to help-- "I don't know what that signals for my family's involvement, but,"

But it did signal that the Negaverse likely already had an eye on him, even ignoring the fact that he was attached to his family.