Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hyde followed calmly and quietly in Wolf’s wake, this place was strange and almost dreamlike in its construction, the crystals and lighting almost unreal to his senses. There was a conflict in him where he understood that if he wanted to appear normal, an emotional entity that lived in the world, he would express some degree of awe and potentially fear outwardly. However, he didn’t really feel like he needed to perform that pantomime for Wolf. There was a little of honesty others did not receive in the way he simply looked the sights over and consumed the information he was offered.

“I appreciate the warning.” He said. “I was certainly never blessed in the brute strength department.” Even with the augmentation that came with his new identity, Hyde wasn’t one to go testing his limits and picking fights with strangers.

He inclined his head thoughtfully at the mention of twisted creatures that were once human, choosing to protect their planet and surrendering everything they were in exchange. It certainly wasn’t something Hyde could ever imagine doing. He was assisting with whatever this cause was, but fundamentally the only side he would ever truly be on was his own.

He nodded. “Sure. Just, keep me safe.” He said, with a playful little smirk.

“I’ve lived most of my life avoiding fights. Most of the people I’ve known who charged headlong into arguments were – for want of a better word – idiots. There are other ways to get even that does not involve directly putting oneself in harm’s way.” He nodded. “I intend to become very, very good at running away. Teleporting for instance sounds much more my speed.”

He looked pleased at the idea of running away from his problems. Far better than getting involved with hand-to-hand combat with aliens.

Hyde did as he was requested, sticking close to Wolframite, more than happy to follow orders when it meant not getting murdered by strange creatures.

He wasn’t sure what to expect, but as he saw the creatures, shadowy and strange writhe against the crystal’s surface, he had to pause for a moment, hardly daring to breathe. His heart fluttered in his chest and there was a thrill of excitement that lodged itself somewhere in his chest. It was suffering, suffering writ large, writ on a scale that would have fitted beautifully in any of the works of Milton that he enjoyed.

He wanted to press his palm to the crystals, to be close enough to that suffering that he could feel it through the walls, to consume so much anger and rage until he was full. It was passion and he was nothing and he wished he could drink it in like a draught.

It took Wolframite speaking to him to jar him out of his reverie, resisting the urge to reach out.

He had no words for what he’d just witnessed.

Hyde followed as close as he could to Wolframite without bumping into him, possessed by a child-like desire to hold onto his clothing but resisting on sheer force of will. He didn’t want to upset his guide or weird him out, being left alone here in this alien landscape felt like it would be a hasty way to die.

“A personal youma.” He said, as if testing the thought out for size. He had seen one or two individuals with strange creatures in tow since arriving, but the idea of having one himself at any point seemed like a far-off pipe dream, besides, they were probably high maintenance. “Sounds difficult to manage. Though no doubt the bonuses are substantial.”

He didn’t ask what had happened to Wolf’s youma, assuming that it might have been to do with his hybrid nature. Maybe it was weird to be bonded to someone who was half the same as you were.

“That’s very interesting that they might work with us. Something for the future. I certainly wouldn’t just come sauntering down here on my own. I’m no caver and no fighter. Fascinating that all this is out here though.”

It was the kind of thing someone could write a song about, he thought. There was an intense and overwhelming sort of beauty to the abject desolation of it all.

“Oh really?” The news that there was pretty much no maintenance had Hyde’s attention piqued. It sounded prudent to enlist a youma when possible, to him, especially given that he wasn’t exactly hand to hand oriented. He would have to weigh the pros and cons carefully. He didn’t like relying on people other than himself and getting his own monster would put him in a position where said monster could murder him instead of a target. Sometimes owning a weapon made you more likely to die by that weapon.

“The immortality part is also very useful I bet. I’m not regenerating, so it makes sense to obtain help from something that does. I just must hope I am eventually sufficient to warrant one.”

Though already he found himself wondering what it would be like to be as Wolframite was, was his lifespan increased? Could HE regenerate? Those were questions for another day perhaps.

He shook his head. “No questions at the moment. I very much appreciate you taking me on this trip though, it is good to see things hands on, it gives me food for thought. I’m just absorbing as much information as I can at present.”

He smirked a little. “It’s a good bit of time to expend on someone, if you were at my workplace, I’d send you a gift basket.”

“Well, I appreciate it regardless. There are plenty of places I have been and worked where people are simply too burned out or wearied from a high turnover to speak to new recruits from scratch. It’s important to me. I enjoy a human touch.” For Hyde it was as important to get a handle on how people behaved in a group as it was to understand the reasons for what he had to do.

He’d been given a briefing on the reasons for their work, but listened keenly as Wolframite elaborated on it further, eyeing the little scorpion youma and taking a subtle step back from them as they scattered. He wasn’t about to test how painful or poisonous things might be here.

Hyde nodded, his features hardening. If there was one thing he didn’t understand or really believe in at all, at it was love. Driven entirely by hormones and their own ideas of what it meant, people made foolish choices and destroyed their life and wellbeing. It sounded like this prince had forsaken everything he represented to sell his people out to an alien army that had nothing in common with them.

“That’s horrible.” Hyde said coldly. “Though not surprising, those with power will do anything in order to keep it, it is simply logical. I would not expect mercy from a powerful ruler, and that sounds like what this Queen Serenity was.”

It wasn’t that Hyde resented powerful individuals, it was simply that he felt more suited and deserving of it than they were. Clearly this foolish queen had lost control of her own family and neighbouring kingdom and did not deserve the power she possessed. The Negaverse rising again would mean a harvest of power to partake in, and Hyde always liked to get the lions share of whatever was up for grabs.

“People in the modern world.” Hyde said idly. “Give their life force piece by piece to faceless corporations who use it only to keep them locked in their little cycles. It is only fitting that we take that particular tithe for ourselves. Once they are protected from the imminent threat…”

He waved a hand vaguely.

“Then they can be fully freed.”

He smirked at Wolframite. “I’d let them talk to me about it.” He said. “But I am /certainly/ not going anywhere. I’d just like to understand their propaganda, I like to understand people.”

“Well, I appreciate you working through it. The double lives part can be absolutely exhausting at times, I will admit being a little regretful of joining when I’m worn out after a shift and have to go out chasing down essence from strangers. It’s a situation I’ve never quite been in before, typically I can just pay other people to do the little things in my life I don’t have time for. I can’t pay someone to cover this.

He shrugged. “But, as you say, it’s a war, and an important one, it can’t all be sunshine and roses.”

He made note of the scar, optimistic about future interactions with the youma, he was sure that given how trapped down here they were in some ways there would be means of coming to an agreeable arrangement that suited them both.

He smiled gratefully at Wolframite. “I appreciate it, I’d hardly have believed a plane like this lay just below our feet. I’d like to have seen it when it was whole before it was destroyed. It’s a small honour to be able to witness it before I’m strictly safe to do so.”

Hyde tried to imagine it as he looked over the landscape. Unfortunately, his imagination was probably one of his weakest traits when it came to things like this. All he could envision was something from a medieval painting, something he knew was likely very far from the land that once flourished here.

He gave up and turned to Wolframite instead, always a little chilled when he brushed up against the limitations of his own thinking.

“I’d like to avoid being struck by lightning today, so I’m in full agreement.” He said, pressing on with the more imminent matter at hand.

As they went, he fell quiet at the question, thinking about it for a short time before replying.

“I had a family.” He said. “I do not have a family now.”