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He'd only just gotten the temperature in his office right for the purposes of speeding along the germination of some of his most recent finds. He had in fact been in his office when he'd received Mizuki -- to the shattering of empty pots and the heartfelt sobs that were inevitably dirt-smudged by his own hands reaching out to hug her properly. A whole mess to do with Faustite, a man whom he wasn't about to risk having around either the freshly sprung saplings on his vertical planters, nor see which would win out over the dampening humidity in his office. Fire and plants often did not mix well, and there was a clear differentiation between trying to grow hot house plants and setting them on all on fire.

So Prehnite was out to find Faustite himself then...

"Faustite, I'm sorry to bother you," he wasn't in the slightest. If anything? He was inconvenienced by having to bother Faustite at all, that he needed to go seek the man out instead of having been invited to begin with. There was no changing that now, and so Prehnite invited himself into Faustites office without so much as a knock; woe to the living Firestorm that he be burdened with a singular pink/purple visitor, "but our daughter just came to me in tears."

That had been the most shocking thing. For Prehnite couldn't tell if this were some joke, a brazenly cruel training tactic, or if his darling Mizuki: his loveliest of lilacs (and being super did look stunning on her, he would've relished the surprise if she hadn't been angrily weeping!) had finally lost the plot. Faustite, dying, he'd just seen the man alive only months ago? Less than that maybe? A fire dying out -- a halfyouma at that -- made as little sense as some of the strangeness in DC did.

Which was what prompted him to do this at all, stranger things had happened, Faustite very well could've been dying----If not? Then there'd been some horrible miscommunication that needed to be rapidly remedied for all their sakes and some peace of mind.

"Sobbing something or other about how her Firefather is and I quote, 'A big, meanie, jerk face' who's also apparently dying? Care to clarify on this--this---miscommunication?" a gesticulation and raised brow, the way he swept his trail of a half cape off to the side while looking for an undamaged chair -- so many backless things, and maybe he was simply better of standing for the moment.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I needed to be bidden by anyone anymore--your office is so warm and inviting, so open." Prehnite liked this game, liked Faustite in General for the way he could work with the man on and off with some feel of familiarity; while also having the added benefit of being one such 'affronted-divorce'-co-worker', however silly the ruse, he'd always taken some measure of entertainment from it. Some abject joy in being cold and feigning disinterest when it suited him, while also being Front and center to Faustites trysts into the Rift. He'd expected more banter, a roll of flaming eyes, bullshitting -- what he hadn't expected was some measure of actual truth from the man. Not quite the 'truth' Zuki had posited to him, but a form of it that was no less serious than 'dying' would've been categorized as.

At least, not for him, "You're shitting on me--" and maybe that wasn't the turn of phrase, but it felt accurate enough that he didn't backtrack his use of it. Not for the way he must've sounded surprised as his eyes roved the Generals form, a fresh layer of scrutiny behind them, for all that he hadn't ever been overly close and personal with Faustite before -- he did know the difference between healthy, and hacking up a smokers lung.

Prehnite did eventually find his way to a seat, his fingers steepled, pressing together callouses of a different kind; the kind that came from holding too many red pens late at night, typing at keys for hours on end, rooting in the ground -- he pressed blunted nails beneath his own chin and stared openly, now. With fresh new eyes.

"I canno't say this has ever happened before --- because it has, but that was---Well, that was Apatite..." Prehnite winced even as he stuttered to snag the words back off his tongue, because he did remember the one incident prior. The singular one he'd had nightmares of for months after bearing witness to it; and if he were to say Rakonovite’s Chakram didn’t give him flashbacks every time the other man whipped them out? He would’ve been a liar.

Apatites final acts, and all the ways there had been no stopping that transformation once the process had begun. There was, in fact, a history of overconsumption being a cause for the curse of full-yomafication in officers.

But was this the case for Faustite specifically?

Faustite was no Apatite, he'd been half of what he was likely as long as she'd been wholly human. Specifically she'd been on a starseed high, uncaring of whether they were Agents, Enemies, Senshi, Half-Youma. She took from the living and dying alike, from the bisected and those caught bleeding out into the great beyond by slow, arduous degrees....

She hadn't cared --- driven to desperation she'd devoured all around and failed regardless.

Faustite seemingly did care, wasn’t consuming souls endlessly, for all the Senshi he kept at his side were looking, healthy, loved, and unsupped from. Team mates, not snacks. Faustite was no vampire, much as he had the sharpened canines and bloodless pallor to assume the form of one -- even had the bruising darkness of something coffin born beneath his eyes.

Though in his case? Flameborn seemed more apt...

"What I mean, is that I can't say it's ever happened to someone whose already a Half-Youma, not with any way to stop it at least....So I suppose from where Mizuki stands? You are actually dying." Prehnite said the words slow, with consideration, with a tilt of his head in study. Because Faustite might've been actually 'dying-dying' -- not only from Mizuki's standpoint as a Senshi who could never have hoped to follow her 'father' into the Rift the way an agent did with ease. But literally dying — Prehnite’d seen agents turned by other agents both mistakenly and on purpose; seen it done by higher ups, by careful choice or cherry-picking. Save the ones that simply lost their minds and finished the process, but this? Faustite was some fresh new horror to admire— to worry about — Afterall? Apatite had died eternally, had dusted after an explosion of bleeding pink scales; though Prehnite assumed some of that was their enemies doing entirely. There was only so much one could consume, of either attacks or souls, before going down.

"You wouldn't believe how many half-wolf and lizardlike agents we've had running about over the years, be-scaled, dragonesque - like Tanzanite -- Wolfeite -- Wolframite -- Cinnabar; and I did like her attitude, for all that her form gave me bad dreams....it was the eyes...I think? None, however, quite like you...missing pieces and being consumed by the flames that made them..." there was a sadness for that, deep beneath his thin pressed frown. He'd worked with Youma before, but not like this -- had lost them, friends, foes, feral creatures that crawled in and out of the Rift proper. Never anyone so close who still clung to the dredges of humanity in this way. Never so close at all - because he'd never put to risk his precious Iolanthe in ways neither of them consented to. Couldn't consider the others anywhere near human as Faustite seemed to be -- but Youma had been treated differently back then than they were now.

His bonded was his partner, not an expendable weapon. Even when he dreamed of making her so—he worshiped her far too much to wield her in any sort of true danger unless absolutely necessary.

"That is -- entirely besides the point. ********, have you tried everything? No, have you tried the Forge? We did break down Pandoras entire front and back door, levels and stories of that box. So surely there must be something in there that -- it was designed to what, mold youma into something more? Kill Agents, kill the counterpart knights of Senshi? The whole of the thing was confusing as Galavorns s**t-a** screeching about the past being the present being some ugly mess of future..."

"I can't believe there's nothing that could slow this --" he did not say ‘cure’ doubted anything in the rift existed which could do that when it was the youmas true home, and maybe he was sorry, but he was busy pulling back his fingers through his fringe of pink and crossing his knees, couldn't decide if he wanted to say the words until he'd heard more out of Faustite.

Becoming a youma wasn't a form of dying; except for the living it left behind. Except for an entire team of Senshi. Except for -- ah -- how unique faustite was -- that instead of retreating into the rift as so many did and had? That he'd become human enough that his phasing into other mattered so. It was those thoughts that had Prehnite inseparably invested. That? And the lingering notes of Mizuki's wail, all the ways the sound wouldn't leave his brain. Which meant he'd sit and pick over options with fine toothed combs....

Least till someone told him to not bother at it anymore.