Welcome to Gaia! ::

The work didn’t stop just because the most direct Chief Superior Officer wasn’t around.

Not that Ilmari knew……much of anything, really, about what had happened with Faustite. After the battle with the Herald, he’d been out of commission and the team had been alerted to that effect. It had been two months since then, though, and Albite had yet to come bursting into any given moment with the joyful news of his husband’s recovery. Instead, Waru had come over to the townhouse smelling of gasoline on multiple occasions, a confession of starting dumpster fires for Faustite’s sake on his lips, which was probably not great.

Neither was the feeling of a Dark Mirror senshi’s aura elsewhere in the park. While not an enemy, they were still a potential nuisance, not to mention competition for the same energy.

So, maybe Ilmari was going a bit ham on his duties, staying out later and leaving more people more thoroughly drained of their energy in his wake. Plenty of the people out and about tonight were probably quite nice people too, so there would be no plausibly deniable handwringing as so many other Negaverse operatives got up to, about how their victims “deserved it” or how they were definitely dispensing justice in draining energy or removing starseeds. If others needed to tell themselves sweet little lies such as that, then fine, Ilmari guessed, but it struck him as a waste of time.

Ilmari’s take on the situation was much simpler. The people out tonight were present and full of drainable energy. As part of a team who valued that team’s overall integrity and wellbeing, Ilmari needed to pick up the slack for Albite’s own duties on meeting those quotas, to ensure nobody could complain to the other Generals-Sovereign or Queen Laurelite, about underperformance on the team’s collective part. Progressing through the park, draining the perfectly nice people full of energy two at a time, and trying to move on quickly enough that he would avoid detection.

As he moved through the park, Ilmari drew closer to the Dark Mirror senshi’s aura. He intended to keep something akin to distance, but looking back over the line of exhausted people groaning about headaches and needing to go to bed, Ilmari hesitated. While he didn’t like the idea of doing any charity for these people, keeping up appearances on the alliance would probably help keep more Mirror senshi content with the arrangement between their faction and the Negaverse, keep them from doing anything silly like panicking over Queen Laurelite’s display of power at the battle with the Herald and fleeing to the cold, messy embrace of Order.

Steeling his resolve, Ilmari approached the aura……and, it seemed, the other person who was there with the Mirror senshi. This time last year, the fact that they seemed quite busy might have dissuaded Ilmari from interjecting. In the past twelve months, though, he’d gotten more than enough practice at ignoring awkward things for the sake of an easier conversation.

“Hey, Mirror skank,” Ilmari said, devoid of judgment—almost as if addressing a friend—and studiously pretending he couldn’t tell that the Mirror senshi was currently entangled in some distinctly unpowered Boy. Same thing as pretending not to see Waru’s d**k in the mornings after he slept over with Jayce. “If you intend to get some work done when you and your boy are done askewing each other? You might need to find somewhere else. Or accept the increased risk of the sheep dying, if that doesn’t bother you. Apologies for going a bit hard on this flock; I’m covering my own draining quota and my boss’s tonight.”

Was it dangerous to talk work in front of a civilian? Absolutely. But the boy in question was also all over a Dark Mirror senshi, so either he knew about the magical business of it all already or he wasn’t aware of anything magical and this conversation was about to get hysterically funny.

Eles paused when he heard Malory — Hybris — speak, but he hadn't yet retreated out of the boy's personal space. In a sense, it was a little relieving that someone finally came along; any longer of a wait, and they'd likely wind up very horizontal with Eles very much not in the mood to even think about starseeds. Fortunate.

But not overly fortunate — Eles choked on a laugh when he heard a hole in the head. Straightening, he turned, and

There it was. A literal ******** hole in the head. Eles stared in disbelief, his laughter quickly forgotten. They spoke, though. Even sounded coherent. And, at least in the dim light, Eles couldn't spot any blood or brain matter leaking out onto their face. A little disappointing. Maybe it was just a tattoo, then. One that matched head and heart.

A little edgelord. Might even be more melodramatic than Malory. But, Eles would behave. For now.

Eles wetted his lips with his tongue. Looked from the bimbo goth cheerleader to Hybris. Neither looked particularly rattled by the other. No idea what the ******** Bimbo was talking about, but it sounded like Hybris wanted to drive the conversation.

As he sat back on the bench, Eles considered interjecting a little mischief. With his intact hand, he signed, He wants his starseed pulled. He fingerspelled starseed like it was a dirty little secret.

Catching the tail end of pulled and then the corrupt’s answer to Eles playing around, Hybris started laughing. Leave it to his boy to be caught signing at every turn by people who knew how to read it. Though…come to think of it, there was a possibility it’d become a requirement within the negaverse, considering they had a general king who used it. Especially since it seemed they had a sign for starseed. Cute.

“Oh…we just had, you know, The Talk.” He gave Eles a happy, doting little smile that was just shy of we just got engaged. “But he’s still sceptical about starseeds, and things like rebirth.” Hybris tsked and gave another little burble of laughter.

“And…” he lowered his eyes, a light flush raising up his cheeks, “I’d like to show him all of myself. Right down to my soul, if I can.” Well, at the very least, he’d like to know what it felt like. He wondered if it was awful but amazing, the way Lete’s magic could be. It was an absolute risk, and probably not one he’d take if the senshi in front of them came across as such. Instead, he seemed much more cautious than either Hybris or Eles. Downright fastidious concerning the relationship between chaos factions.

Still, he was nervous to an extent where he absolutely could not allow himself to be so. Let’s be in love, instead. Let’s be so idiotically in love right now.

The Mirror senshi’s explanation about what in the world these two thought they wanted here left more questions than answers, in Ilmari’s mind. On the other hand, none of them felt like questions he really wanted to ask. Aside from the overwhelming sense that any answers would be distinctly Not His Business, as Ilmari did another pass of dragging his gaze from one boy to the other, he felt quite certain that trying to honestly explain this situation in any future reports about it might have gotten him in deeper trouble than lying.

At least telling his superiors something like “Some Mirror senshi with a kink asked me to pull his starseed in front of his unpowered boyfriend but I put it right back when we were done” would likely get overlooked. Nobody would want to ask questions about that.…… Well, maybe Albite would. But Albite would likely also believe Ilmari was telling the truth if he did that.

Taking a deep breath, Ilmari nodded and closed some of the distance between himself and the others. “Congratulations are in order, I suppose,” he said, sidling up behind the Mirror senshi. Not that Ilmari entirely believed the story he’d been given—it might have been true, but for all he knew, the Mirror senshi only wanted to mess with him and the kept boy was going along with it for fun—but something else stood out to him that would make this encounter something unique: “You’ll be the first person for whom I’ll willingly give this back after taking it.”

Getting terrorized by some rabid White Moon princess and magically bossed around by the little space senshi who didn’t value himself enough didn’t count, obviously. Those incidents hadn’t been willing on Ilmari’s part.

“Breathe deeply. Relax.” Ever so gently, Ilmari pressed his fingertips to the Mirror senshi’s back. “Unless you want it to hurt.”

What did he know? Maybe the other senshi did.

That was all the warning that he got, though, before Ilmari plunged his hand into the Mirror senshi’s chest, before he curled his hand around his starseed, before he pulled out the little gem with the silvery, chrome-looking coating around it.

Curious orange eyes followed Ilmari as he made his way around the bench, a brow cocked at the advice given. So it was painful to take someone's soul out? Though, all things considered, Hybris deserved a little pain here and there —

Or so he thought, up until the boy slackened in his grasp as if his bones vanished and Eles was left holding the pile of meat and skin remaining. Breathing, but barely. Breathing, but no amount of shaking and jostling him seemed to stir the boy. If you're ******** faking this, Eles thought bitterly.

But it seemed real. Eles couldn't say with certainty. Prying an eye open with careful fingers, he observed that Hybris wasn't looking at anything. Wasn't responding to a finger hovering dangerously close to his eye, either. Alive, but not awake.

What the ********>, Eles mouthed. He shifted his attention to the cheerleader, but before he signed his shock and displeasure about the complete and total disabling of his boy, he saw the strangest gem on earth floating gently above his hand. A simple prism shape, somewhat gunmetal in its color, and a surface so reflective that he saw quadruplicate of himself in those beveled surfaces at any given angle. Saw Hybris, too, lying limp in his arms. How fitting that this boy's soul was a mirror.

Is he dead? He signed first. Did you kill him? If he was dead or permanently comatose, then Eles would be hooking his fingers in that forehead-hole and prying it apart with extreme prejudice.

Not dead. Assuredly not dead. Not dead was good — he wouldn't have to explain Malory's mysterious disappearance to anyone nor get evicted from the Medraut house. And Malory would still be alive to take him on these strange field trips, and take him to bed, and everything else that he liked. Most importantly, those three little doggy bastards wouldn't have the mourn. Good. That was everything he cared about, conveniently suspended in a state of unconsciousness.

His gaze sharpened, his expression calculating. They would have time, but it was better to make this quick.

Don't put that back yet, Eles instructed. He eased Hybris down onto his lap so he could better sign with both hands. Better to act with a sense of urgency, since it honored the astonishingly even-tempered cheerleader's time and hopefully Hybris wouldn't be aware of all the time that passed.

Pretty as he is, I don't trust him to tell me the truth and I can't tell when he's lying. Is a starseed really someone's soul? And does it carry over from body to body in some kind of reincarnation?

If his starseed isn't supposed to look like that — if it's tampered with — then is it possible to tamper with them in such a way that the owner, meat sack, whatever, gets amnesia for everything that came before?

He watched this other boy expectantly. For all that Hybris's life was vulnerable outside of his body, Eles was more on edge for the answers he sought. There would be time to spoil Malory afterward, draw him a picture of his own starseed, tell him how brave he was, anything he thought would make up for the time spent out cold to the world. But there was only this time for answers from someone who had no skin in the game.

That the starseed floated over his hand, even accepting it as nothing more than a mundane civilian, was such a curious thing. Far be it for Eles to refrain from staring it down in bare wonder as the lazily rotating prism reflected the park, his face, the comatose boy to whom it belonged. Mystifying, certainly, but he hadn't felt any hum or tingle of power. Nothing belying its pricelessness. But, evidently, an entire culmination of who Hybris was — from his memories to his deeds to his power — was encased in this tiny, seemingly delicate thing.

Eles kind of hated it. What a peculiar reminder that no level of magical wherewithal outbalance the precarity of the human condition. What a ******** scam.

Finally wresting his attention away from the gem, he watched the goth cheerleader deliver his answers in a manner every bit as placid as his greeting. Maybe the hole in the head was like an emotional lobotomy, then.

Evidently reincarnation did exist, so that was a point in Hybris's favor. No other details on that matter meant he was at an impasse with it; at least the accommodating cheerleader provided some idea of who to check with next, and Eles could likely ascertain what the ******** an Order senshi or a Knight was from Hybris when he let the boy blink and talk and smile again.

Though, as the blonde kept on, his inquisitiveness piqued and his brows rose with such a curious revelation. He couldn't comprehend the nuances — too many gaps in information — but he got the gist. People dodging, or being forced, from one power source to the next incurred some level of memory loss. Especially someone who was forced into the Negaverse. Maybe that was his problem.

But if that were so, wouldn't someone have come for him by now? Why waste all that effort pushing him into their ranks and then abandon him? Unless ending up with Malory was an unforeseen fluke… Eles gazed down at the unfairly pretty boy in his lap. If that was the cause of Eles's memory loss, then surely that would put him in a right mess. No one liked it when you had something that was theirs and forego returning it.

Thanks for the information, he signed at last. That was quite helpful. Exonerated him, too, he added with a coy smile.

Then, in a hopeful little gesture, Eles cupped the starseed in his hands and tried to shove it back into Hybris's chest as if he was at CPR tryouts.