Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was Headache — it was almost always Headache — who took the call. Those who spent much time in Faustite's office learned to recognize when Headache was close to returning to the Rift, for the youma stopped speaking within a half hour of needing that wild space to recuperate. Thus, Headache did not answer, but its reliability in passing on the message was evident enough in the moments that followed.

Borax would feel it first: a spread of darkness in the vicinity, of a kind, and of a familiarity. Had that aura been able to grow with proximity, Borax would have felt an increase in its potency as its owner drew near. Instead, it hovered on the air like Borax's hand hovered in Evan's chest.

Headache passed along a motel and a room number. The buildings were multi-story but separated, each with a door that faced the outside; at this early hour, Faustite needn't trouble himself with others seeing him.

By the time he found the right room, however, he was one starseed richer. Bending at the hip, he caught a glimpse of the room where the motel's cheap slatted blinds were bent up and at an angle. Equally cheap and shitty on the inside, then, which made seeing Borax's back and part of his leg inside that space paradoxically out of place and perfectly in place. Faustite's slow exhale of smoke pressed against the glass.

There was two, then there were three. With Faustite's presence came another light source and a change in temperature by some sweltering degrees. His attention lingered on the wrist that protruded from the civilian's chest. There was a story behind that one, though he wasn't yet certain what it was. Must've been in the midst of pulling the person's starseed when they said or did something to flatter him. But why the spear?

"You say daring," Faustite started, and he began to pace around the boy in question. He was cute, but he was likely already tangled up in Borax. "I hear contumacious.

"We have EMTs, field medics, nurses, doctors, surgeons. Background's helpful, but secondary to his point of contention. What proof have you that this one will follow orders?" While he spoke to Borax, his attention never left the boy.

The arrival of Faustite's aura was in a strange way comforting. He knew why, conceptually--that was someone with a deep power he hungered for and envied, someone with a power he had tasted before and had delighted in. It had been an enthralling thing to be wrapped in while at the same time feeling like home. He knew a relationship with chaos demanded a devotion to it, and perhaps this was a sign of it.

He just wanted the power.

Borax shoved those feelings down when Faustite formally entered the room, Borax's hand still wedged inside Evan's chest. He easily stayed quiet as Faustite observed the surroundings, observed the candidate, observed where Borax's hand lay. It was obvious he had attempted to starseed Evan. It would likely also be obvious that something had stopped him from doing so. Best to explain his reasoning, no doubt.

He had done well with Hestia. Time to make this a repeat.

"That's valid. He can be a bit of a brat." Borax's eyes slid to Evan meaningfully as he pulled his hand out as requested. He trusted Evan wasn't a ******** idiot and wouldn't duck and run. He'd be dead within a minute. "For one, he's damn good at his job. Working in the field of emergency medicine requires the ability to make quick decisions on your feet, but also being willing to yield when someone else on your team knows the better route to allow people to live."

Was he bullshitting this slightly? Perhaps. But once Adam had weaseled out Evan's full name, he had done some background research just to see what he had been getting into.

Since he had failed at his intent...

"He's also staying put right now. I can tell he is motivated by what we can hold for him. Those who see a benefit to obedience are certainly more likely to obey."

Borax shifted where he stood, pondering other points in Evan's favour that did not lead back to something suggestive. He didn't think Faustite would reject the notions in reference to boys, but the point remained. Why reference Evan's talents in bed when he could instead offer, "There are other points in his favour. A former boy scout, for one. The descendent of a rich family, for another, and as someone else born of rich blood, to gain access to an inheritance often requires obedience to a fault. This also means we would have an EMT directly on our team. One more can never hurt, especially one that belongs with our circle." He glanced up and down Evan.

Borax smirked and turned back to Faustite.

"He's also fairly clever. Clocked a weapon fast on my person that he thought to turn against me. Too bad my daggers appear to be peace-bonded, but nevertheless."

To be fair, he had tried to counter Adam because Adam was trying to murder him. But he wasn’t going to say that out loud, even though the desire to do so showed in the set of his jaw. He was going to stay quiet and let the focus stay between the other two in the room.

If he made it out alive, Adam had mentioned he’d get the ability to do what Adam had tried to do to him. He’d get the ability to reach into someone and grab onto something intimate and vital. He wanted that, if only for the novelty of it all, but also for the rush he knew it’d give him.

What he didn’t like was the indication that he’d have to follow Adam’s orders and do what he told Evan. Evan could obey authority he either respected or knew he had to act like he respected. He neither respected Adam nor felt particularly compelled to pretend he did once the threat of imminent death was past.

It didn’t seem like Adam’s boss thought much of him, and that admittedly coloured Evan’s view of him somewhat.

It was simple to Evan. He didn’t want to die, and he did want to do at least some of what Adam could apparently summon up. There seemed to be one path to that, and, lucky him, it tied up both ends at the same time. He didn’t need Adam to make him keep his nose clean. He could do that himself, please and thank you. He worked alongside a lot of cops. Last thing he wanted to do is take a ride with whoever they picked up.

He got the feeling that whatever outfit this was was something he couldn’t just go around telling everyone about. Fine by him, if he survived learning about it. First, he had to survive learning about it—

"Won't abide pettiness," Faustite warned Borax, his attention laden with cold fury.

"Hand on him," he instructed, deciding it was better to get this over with and return to his prior duties. He wasn't interested in laying hands on the ones that allowed such affairs to happen, nor did he think himself a proper pick for that job. Hands on fire caused more pain and strife than the more delicate touch from the human General-Sovereigns, but that was a perception that he kept carefully internalized.

He paced around to the back of Borax, where his superheated hand could slowly burn a hole in the man's uniform instead. It would be deserved, he decided. Let them melt to his skin.

He waited until Borax got into position before he began transferring any chaotic power.

Evan would have said aloud that if he'd known "Borax" was going to handle it that way, he'd've rather dealt with "Faustite" himself, thank you. At least, he would have if there wasn't a hand in his chest. Again. It rather limited his options. Though, it was worth at least a thought as to if someone like Adam botching his introduction was also limiting Evan's options.

'Only thing motivating him right now is the spear at his back.'

Fair, but the cool powers didn't hurt.

He didn't need to be told to hold still. The last thing Evan wanted was for him to fidget and have Adam nick an artery or something. He could probably nick an artery or something. Either way, Evan wasn't about to chance it. He'd seen enough people bleed internally that he knew it was a rotten way to go.

When the power reached him, he visibly winced, fingernails biting into his palms to offer an alternative pain to focus on, instead. He supposed it was fitting that whatever powered these two would hurt. Neither of them seemed particularly soft and fuzzy. Either way, he'd be alive at the end of this. Unless he wasn't, in which case he didn't really have a choice in the grand scheme of things, did he?

Death by spear or death by... magic powers? One of them at least sounded cooler.

<******** senshi.

So that was what was causing the delay. Borax snorted and muttered, "Of course you are," because it seemed such a prevalent presence in this city. How had he managed to locate a senshi, of all ******** things? There was a push of victory in his mind--he had managed to recruit two senshi now--but also a push of a strange sense of being humbled. Perhaps murdering him would have been a bad idea, in the end.

Another one of the White Moon forced to their team sounded like a win condition.

It wasn't something he got to reflect on for more than a few seconds as the push of General-King Faustite's aura flooded the room and also Borax. That power was something he had gotten a chance to touch when he was the conduit for Hestia, and he was getting to touch it again. He was getting to feel it again. It was enthralling in a way that made him hungry for it.

This was what he wanted, truly, to be able to hold that level of power in the palm of his hand, to be able to alter people beyond what should be allowable by the normal bounds of reality, to be able to summon that magic and summon people, monsters, nightmares--

"You're gonna be a magical boy, Ev," purred Borax.

He sounded both excited and mocking all in one.

Faustite didn't want to know the extent of their relationship to one another, but the nickname was enough to know. This boy was off-limits, then, because he already had enough cross-contamination with Borax via Albite. It was terribly disappointing, but he wouldn't cry about it in front of those two.

He felt all the more weary for using so much power to overwhelm one starseed, but the end result justified the expense: one more senshi in their repertoire. This one had a look that reminded him more of Cryolite than Albite, which was likewise upsetting because this one looked like some ******** eye candy. It wasn't fair. He had to wallow around in an endless sea of failures or corrupt a bunch of girl senshi while Borax got the ******** boy senshi and the White Moon maids and people who didn't turn tail and leave at the first opportunity. It was disgusting. And Faustite supposed he aided and abetted that good for tune every time he turned up to shove his power into someone's chest.

While he was mulling it over, the new senshi grabbed a pair of pants and a wallet off the floor. ******** people and their ******** shallow attachment to possessions. Fine, ******** him and his pair of pants, anyway.

What now was as good of a transition point as any, he supposed. Wordless, he touched the back of his hand to Borax's bicep and took brief hold of the braided ponytail at the back of 'Evan''s head. As he exhaled, they vanished.

The three reappeared atop the roof of a smaller, locally owned cafe with conveniently stacked crates in the back of the building. They were somewhat like stairs, primarily because the roof often leaked, but they doubled as safe passage for anyone who wanted to power down and spend a few hours unbothered by auras. They likewise offered to-go cups, so if Borax wanted to explain Evan's new role in the Negaverse in the prestige of his own tiny postage stamp of an office, or try to use Faustite's office until Headache kicked him out, that was an option.

But there was an aura in the air when they appeared, and it caught Faustite's attention immediately. Shoulders stiff, it took only a brief moment of scanning rooftops before he spotted the Super Senshi that immediately about-faced upon seeing them and was trying to book it in the other direction.

"You know what to tell him," he said to Borax by way of sparse instruction. Then, in a blink, he was several rooftops over and in hot pursuit of their accidental interloper.