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 Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 10:43 pm
"Oh," Elkurud said, unhappily, "it's you again."
He was not, if he was honest, well pleased to be running into the Captain with a sickle for a third time. He'd dipped without any injuries the last time, since two on one odds were pretty terribly not in his favor, but this time, it was just the two of them and a man a little ways away who was woozy in a way that made Elkurud suspect he'd been energy drained. Sure, he hadn't come up on the act in progress, but he also wasn't stupid and the inference seemed pretty obvious.
"Do you enjoy it? Taking innocent people's energy and using it for whatever ******** up schemes your Chaos masters have? Because that sounds like a shitty way to live, to me, and I wouldn't want to do it." But of course, trying to udnerstand the minds of people who served Chaos might well be fruitless, he didn't know. Demeter spoke well of her Lete, but maybe that was just one person, or maybe things were different for them.
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 10:50 pm
Vesuvianite glanced over to the White Moon rat and sighed, keeping his weapon loose at his side. "Nice to see you again," they muttered with an eyeroll. "Hey, I don't know if you were when the big ol' dragon-like world eater was gonna eat Earth, but we did do a significant amount of damage to that thing. With a laser. That we powered. Using energy we'd taken from people. They recover just fine. Get home, get some sleep, bada-bing, bada-boom, no harm no foul, and we keep protecting Earth from crazy horrific threats like that Herald thing." This guy could not possibly argue about the effectiveness of the laser. Right?
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 10:56 pm
"Oh, yeah, I remember that big ******** laser," Elkurud said. "I remember that it felt awful, like your queen was launching ******** poison at it and it was splashing on us." Nothing could really properly describe how awful it had felt, when that power blasted over them, but that felt close enough, Elkurud supposed. Bad. It had been bad.
"So no, I'm not really inclined to take that as an excuse."
He strode forward, cracking his knuckles.
"How about this: you ******** off and go back wherever you crawled out of, and I don't punch your pretty face in. I think that's a very reasonable and kind offer."
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 11:08 pm
"Jesus, guy, I've got a job to do," Vesuvianite snapped, backing up and holding up his sickle defensively. "You'll note that I'm not ******** killing anyone or jumping on any of you White Moon dudes!" They paused for a moment. "Look, can I ask you a couple questions? I mean, you're an alien, right? I'm doing research on this whole.... Chaos 'problem' thing and whatever happened a thousand years ago that seems to have obliterated the rest of the universe. Like, serious research. I want to help people."
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 11:15 pm
"Your job is ******** and you shouldn't be doing it," Elkurud shot back. He was more than familiar with that--with work that was unpleasant and, perhaps, shouldn't be done.
Alas. Sometimes people still did them. Sometimes Elkurud himself had still done them.
"....Are you serious? You want to research what happened?" That seemed like a ridiculous prospect, and Elkurud sincerely doubted that it was going to go anywhere. But it wouldn't hurt him to indulge, he supposed. "Fine. Ask your questions."
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 11:32 pm
"Yes, I'm serious," they replied snappishly, lowering their sickle. Then they sighed, rubbing their forehead with their free hand. "I mean it. What else am I meant to do, when aliens appear and all of them have stories about how they believe Chaos is what terminated life on their planets and they are the sole survivor of a horrifying extinction event? It's... I mean, come on. Aren't you interested in any of that?" They glanced around. "Would you like to at least sit on that bench a few feet away? You might have long answers," they suggested.
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 11:41 pm
"You'll forgive me for being surprised that you're interested in learning," Elkurud said, flatly. "But you make a good point."
He would stay wary, of course, but for the moment, hostilities didn't seem to be on the menu, as it were. Perhaps that was for the better; he wasn't exactly eager to get into a fight with someone who could do him real harm. Sitting, though, relaxing and having a discussion...
"I'd prefer to stand," he said. "But I appreciate your courtesy." It wasn't exactly what he'd come looking for or come to expect. But perhaps if he lowered his guard just a little--not too much, he certainly wasn't going to trust this, but a little--he could knock some real information into this Chaos agent's brain. Knowledge was half the battle, and he certainly had it to provide.
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Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 11:58 pm
... Okay, yeah, Vesuvianite couldn't fault this guy for thinking less of them like that. It wasn't like they'd given him any reason to in the two previous times they'd run into each other. And probably neither had any other officers. And perhaps it was a boneheaded move, but at least they could teleport if they needed to, so they backed up until they could sit on the bench. Somewhat awkwardly sitting sideways to keep facing the alien, but still. "Works for me." They pulled out their tablet to take notes. "Were you one of the awake or asleep aliens, and when did you notice things had gotten.... strange?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 12:05 am
Elkurud crossed his arms, looking thoughtful and considering exactly what he wanted to answer.
"I was awake, the entire time. My husband was not, if you'd like that as a data point." He was pretty sure Amateru wouldn't mind him sharing that; it wasn't exactly much. "And I know exactly when things started going wrong. I was hired to transport an artifact, which wasn't uncommon. My people were couriers. But while I made a brief stopover on my own world in the middle of the route, the person who had hired me conspired to have it stolen--so that the chaos in it could be unleashed on my world."
He exhaled.
"It brought a plague of violence and paranoia. Tore our people apart."
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Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 12:20 am
Vesuvianite made note of everything the alien said, then paused for a moment. "Eh... and what's your and your husband's names?" they asked sheepishly. "I totally should've asked that first. Oh. And what you, uh, do. Your magic, I mean." They tapped their tablet pen to their chin. An artifact that had chaos inside that unleashed a plague... Well, it could very well have been correlation, not causation. "Very Pandora's Box," they muttered, mostly to themselves. "I'm sorry."
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Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 12:25 am
"Elkurud and Amateru," he said. "Of Pigeons and Cattle, in that order." His feathery ears flicked, briefly.
He shook his head, briefly. "I appreciate it. My world is...dead and empty, now, but I hope that someday it might be restored." The way that even those Senshi who had not survived for a thousand years could restore theirs.
"Do you have any more questions?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 12:30 am
"Not right now. I've only just started this project, so I'm still working on compiling good interview questions," they admitted. "But hey, if we run into each other again, maybe I'll have more for you. Thanks. For indulging me. I know that... it's not easy to talk about. And for what it's worth, I'm glad that you still have your husband. Losing everyone is hard, but... at least you've still got him."
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