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Basiluzzo rubbed his face vigorously with one glowing hand, sighing and looking up at the sky. A flash of lightning cut across the sky, and he winced at the sudden brightness in what was darkness otherwise. It was later than he normally patrolled these days. But he had been busy during the day and not able to look around as much as he'd wanted. He'd gone to his wonder, just to find the shields that bubbled the whole area against the windblown sand actively discharging bursts to deflect the lightning there. It occurred to him then that he had never seen lightning rods anywhere.

He hadn't stuck around.

But now Basiluzzo was sitting on one of the giant red balls outside of what had once been a Target further away from the bustle of downtown and closer to the warehouses of the industrial parks. He'd needed a break in his streak of youma dusting. He had found more youma over this way than he normally did, but so far all that had done was exhaust him. Basiluzzo picked up his staff, the feather jingling softly as he did so, and spun it slowly in his hands.

"Glad you're magic and that I don't have to clean you," he sighed, inspecting the ichor that coated the ends. Grumbling vaguely, he wiped them off on the ground anyway. "I would learn to shoot if I had one of the blasters the Velencians have," came the quiet, to-no-one complaint. "I bet the Velencians don't end up needing showers after one youma encounter."

He took the edge of his cape and scrubbed at a spot of blood--not his, he was pretty sure--on his sleeve. He winced again as he accidentally pressed against a bruise blossoming into resplendence under his clothes. The last one had given him the runaround, with four arms that ended in dinner plate-sized fists and a movement speed that even Basiluzzo, with the speed boost given to him by Uranus and endurance honed by years of running and dancing, had problems keeping up with. Not having a melee weapon would have been nice. The last thing they needed, though, was a blaster ending up in Negaverse hands, which it surely would, if it hadn't already given, well, everything.

But he hadn't been jumped by a youma in a little while. Maybe that meant he'd cleared out this area for the night. A good clear time, considering it was only nine-thirty. Maybe his efforts would have been better spent downtown, where there were more people at risk of harm, but the early shift for the park businesses would start arriving in a scant few hours. Plus, he didn't think it was a good idea to let lesser-traveled areas potentially end up as pockets and reservoirs of youma and Negaverse activity.

What was the Negaverse doing now, anyway? With everything happening, were they still attacking people and--at best--draining them against their will? Were they still reaching hands into chests to extract glittering gems that represented someone's soul? It had been years, but he could still remember the feeling of Faustite's hand sliding in.

Basiluzzo heard Faustite's voice. He turned his head, the rebuke forming on his tongue, the adrenaline rushing for his arms, a fire of a different sort coursing through him.

There was a chill, a heat so white-hot it had circled back around to cold.

He was cold.

It wasn't going to be enough.

He was hot and he was cold and it wasn't going to be enough.

How dare he--

Basiluzzo frowned, rubbing at the center of his own chest at the memory. He couldn't afford to be distracted. Dropping his hand back to his side, Basiluzzo got to his feet and surveyed the area. Still no youma that he could see. Maybe it was time to head back downtown after all--

Basiluzzo had, indeed, already been surveying the area, and the motion of Caedus covering his face caught Basiluzzo's attention. His grip had tightened on his staff, expecting the motion to be a youma readying for a leap in his direction, but loosened as soon as he realised there was an actual person in the tree and not a monster. The lack of growling, hissing, oozing, undulating, or pulsating had helped. Absently, his free hand thumbed away some residual slime from his face.

He didn't sense any chaos signatures in the area, so the chances were slim that this person was an agent or corrupt waiting to get the jump on him. The chances were somewhat less slim that this person was an agent or corrupt hiding while powered down, waiting for him to leave so that they, too, could go. But there were plenty of hiding places that were easier to get to in a hurry for the average person. Why up in the trees?

"Who's there?" Better to cut to the chase, he guessed. Not wanting to attract too much attention, Basiluzzo kept the volume and tone of his voice pitched carefully to carry to the trees and no further.

No one?

That didn't sound like no one.

It did, however, sound like someone who very heartily wished not to be bothered, and the followup words confirmed that. Basiluzzo bobbed his head in acknowledgement and moved to take a step back. There was no powered aura, so even if this were someone from chaos, there wasn't much they could do against him if he pressed the matter. And Basiluzzo was not typically given to press the matter.

Then the voice registered in his memory. He caught himself just in time to avoid giving away the other person's identity to anyone that might be overhearing.

"H-hey!" Pitched, again, so that it was audible to the other person, but no further. "I'm Basiluzzo. Encke's husband. You're safe, I promise. Before you go--" One of his hands produced a wrapped meal from his subspace. "I have food! Do you need food? Water?" A pause that allowed him to breathe once, then, "it's vegetarian?" as he wiggled the little package. He remembered, from somewhere, that being important to these particular aliens. "You can have it. I have plenty more where that came from."

Caedus had a room at the Bell household with his name on it, in the finished attic where he would be able to come and go unbothered through the window, but Basiluzzo had not seen him make use of it even remotely recently. Encke had told him Caedus didn't stay in one place terribly long, which did make sense, but it didn't stop the Uranus knight from holding out one glowing hand with the food in it. Who knew where he was staying now? And how well-stocked it was?