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Blarney was starting to get used to this whole patrolling thing. Yes, he was still usually doing it alone, violating one of the first commandments Miss Joyeuse Garde had given him, but--well, at least he was meeting more people he could possibly ask to patrol with him. Almost every time he went out, he met some new powered person, and most of them were even aligned with Order (with one big, glaring, Albite-shaped exception). He was still exploring this Connections app, and the Database he now had access to, reading everything as voraciously as his sister consumed novels and biographies and true crime books. It was, finally, actual information, from a variety of sources, not just the few people he'd met and were willing to speak to him, be bothered by him at all hours of the day and night.

But even the database had its limits. It mostly focused on people - which was certainly important - but there was so much terminology thrown around it made his head spin. How did someone 'claim to be forcibly corrupted but want it all along'? He had no idea. He didn't even know what corrupting was, except that it sounded deeply unpleasant, and purifying sounded...well, a little judgy, honestly, but from what he could tell those were sort of opposite things somehow, and people were trying to do those things to each other, or had had them done to them, or...

It still shocked him that he'd lived here all his life and just never known. Never known about any of this. If not for a youma deciding he looked tasty, if not for Aruna descending from on high like an avenging angel, if not for Logan getting chased by a youma like a cat out of a comic strip, he might never have known. How many people were there like him, just waiting to be awoken? How many people had secret lives, bent on saving or destroying the people around them? Even Albite said he was someone else when he wasn't Albite...the time before he'd awoken seemed so...small, now. The world was so much bigger, now that he knew--and maybe he was getting his head above water about it. Maybe he would stop being surprised when--

"...What is that," Blarney said, the words escaping him unbidden. Or maybe Destiny City would continue to surprise him at every turn. He had barely even noticed the person, from which the energy signal he'd been following had emitted, his eyes falling on the... "Is that a--" his mind flashed back to a certain movie about lions, which just kept coming up, "--a warthog?" Blarney blinked, cautiously moving his attention to the human nearby. They didn't look perturbed or bothered or indeed in any way alarmed by the creature's approach, so Blarney didn't think the thing was a threat--after he'd almost nailed Miss Joy's pet Pal, he'd been forced to adjust his views on what could be friendly and what might be a foe.

"Sorry, I didn't mean--I'm Blarney, Page of Earth," he said quickly, giving the other a sheepish smile. "I didn't mean to be rude, I just--was not expecting that, but really, I should know better by now around here, shouldn't I?"

"Tulip. Nice to meet you, Tulip the Flowering Boar Summons," Blarney echoed, looking from the boar to the Page - Halle. He was about to ask what a Summons was, but something about the name Halle caught in his brain, interrupting the thought process.

Halle. Halle, why did he know that name. Not because of Halle Berry, but he'd had that thought before, what was it--

"Oh! Hey! No! Yes!" Blarney said, snapping his fingers. "Halle! Yeah, no, I'm super new, but I just--like, I just got this thing," Blarney held up his hand to show off his signet ring, "up and running all the way, I just--I saw your name, in the--the Connections app thingy? You asked about a forum or a group messaging system! You were so right, we totally need that! I've been, like...this is crazy, doing this thing, and we're all like totally on our own right away? It's--there's got to be some organization in here somewhere, right? There should be like, support systems and mentors and everything! And I'm like, the least organized person in the world, but even I think this can't be right."

Blarney paused to take a breath, his brain catching up with his excitement, which forced him to slow down, at least a little.

"Sorry, I--I rambled, I got excited." Blarney paused, giving him a sheepish smile. "Can I ask another question? What's..." he paused, sounding the words out, "Lysithea? Is that--an asteroid?" Maybe it was just Earth, the moon, and a bunch of asteroids who got Knights? Blarney had no idea.

"Right, the planet-eating sn--wait what," Blarney deadpanned. "Did. Did you just say of unicorns?" Blarney blinked, a slow grin rising to his face as he finally clocked - was that a shield Halle was holding? It was something unicorn-shaped, at any rate, and Madeline was going to flip out when he told her there was a Senshi of Unicorns. That had been like her fourth question when she finally started really believing him - engaging with him - about all this magic stuff. Are unicorns real? He'd told her no, but maybe he'd been too hasty...

"That's absolutely spectacular," Blarney said, grin still wide on his face as he shook his head. He'd met a Knight of Jupiter itself the other day - he was about to ask if that meant that Halle was in some way subservient or lower-ranked or something than Valhalla because Halle was a moon of Jupiter proper, but then he thought of Howick, the Knight of the Moon (his moon, Earth's moon, hey why didn't their moon have a name if all the other moons got a name and theirs was just 'the moon') and the idea of her being in any way lesser than he himself almost made him laugh aloud, so he kept the thought to himself and figured if that was the case, someone would tell him sooner or later. Or would have already, for all the people he'd asked about the non-existent hierarchy of this thing they were all involved in.

Which, speaking of... "That makes sense--about the gatherings being dangerous," Blarney said, though he hadn't known that Mauvians could offset that in any way; he tucked that into his ever-expanding mental filing cabinet, for later investigation. "Can they not track us in space?" It was amazing what sort of sentences had become normal to him.

"Can you tell me about that bigger effort, also?" Blarney asked, deciding that - of his many things to ask - was probably the most important, because that was the thing he'd been desperately seeking ever since he awoke. "Like, what was the goal, pre-snake-monster?"

Blarney could have kissed Halle - who knew that the exact person he'd been praying for was wandering around with a uni-shield-thing! He would have followed Halle off the edge of a cliff with that kind of information on the other end, but fortunately, he just led him to a bench, and Blarney got comfortable, his eyes absolutely alight as Halle spoke.

"God, yes! That's absolutely been what I've been--I've literally been like, asking, begging everyone to explain to me the infrastructure of this whole thing, and they keep being like 'there is none, lol good luck' and I'm like...okay even if that's true, which if so, how wild is that, but even if so, then like, if nobody likes how it's currently set up - and it doesn't seem like anybody is thrilled with it! - then let's, I dunno, change it? Make it better? Actually do something, maybe? If--if they can't get to us on our turf, then all we need is--is turf big enough! And like, a much more interactive connections app, like a chat or something. I--I don't know enough about how computers work to know, but there's...there's got to be a way to make a secure something-or-other for online communications, right?" Blarney paused, mind flicking to Joy and her social media witchery that had tracked him down so fast, and snapped his fingers. "I might know someone who could help with that part, maybe... if I can convince her it's worth her time and effort, maybe." Blarney's energy slagged slightly, letting his hand flop back.

"There's always going to be reasons not to do this sorta thing," Blarney continued, alarming himself with how much he was starting to sound like his sister, "but we have to do it or else it'll keep being what it is, and what it is is sucky. I'm new to this whole thing, but like - I don't want the even-newer kids to have to learn all this upside down and backwards like I did, right? And maybe that's part of the problem, that the people who've been doing this a while have been...y'know, doing this a while, so they don't remember, or they think that because they survived all those terrible things we should survive all this terrible stuff, but like - that thinking woulda kept us in the caves, right?"

Blarney paused, a blush flooding his cheeks. "I'm sorry. I ramble when...well, actually, not just when I'm excited, but like, all the time, probably. Sorry," Blarney grinned sheepishly. "What can I do to help? And who else is 'we'?"

A wave of relief washed through him as Halle wrote down a list of names and jobs. It was a short list, and somewhat sketchy with more question-marks than Blarney would have liked, but it was a list. It was multiple people who were committed to the same general idea he was, and to Blarney, that felt a lot like hope. It also felt - it felt good, that people kept saying he was doing good. It warmed some part of him, filled him up. It felt - right.

He glanced over the list, his nose wrinkling slightly over two lines - Hy-Brasil and Grieve - but he nodded. Sometimes being on a team meant playing with people you didn't necessarily like, but...well, at least he knew that if nothing else, those two were firmly anti-Chaos, and that was something. He hadn't heard of any of the others, but now that he had their names, maybe he could reach out to them, get their butts in gear and eliminate some of these question-marks.

"I know they're just - doing their best," Blarney said, after he'd tucked the note away into his own subspace; he'd already decided that in his own time, he'd memorize it and then burn it. "And I am grateful for what they've done, and that I don't have to like worry about paying rent on top of youma-squashing," he added, though college loomed large in his mental horizon as he considered just how much time he was going to be able to keep committing to this whole good-vs-evil thing.

"Have you met Valhalla? From Jupiter?" As he said the name, he gestured toward his own head, tracing out Valhalla's Very Cool Helmet. "He's got a real cool helmet, and dresses all dark green and stuff. I thought he was one of mine at first, an Earth Knight, but it didn't feel the same, 'cause it's not, turns out," he added with a faint chuckle. "He's really cool. Really smart. Seems to know a lot about this, been doing it forever, I guess." He was about to say more, but caught himself from revealing too much - he decided against mentioning that Valhalla's family was also involved in this whole business, just because Valhalla had taken so much care and caution in telling Blarney. If Blarney ever betrayed his trust, even accidentally, Blarney thought he might expire on the spot.

"I ask 'cause...that list, there's nobody in charge of education," he said. "Like, communication is too broad a category, maybe, but I figure that would be stuff like - like the forums, or communicating about new threats or getting the word out if people need help. And Mr. V - he knows a lot. Like a lot a lot. And he said he knows someone, another Knight, who's a teacher in his real life but thinks that this," he gestured between himself and Halle, "can't be taught. And I think that's just - that's just nuts, right? I guess people have like - tried, before, but something always got in the way or the bad guys found out or someone got spooked or something, and I think..." Blarney hesitated a moment, then let out a soft sigh.

"I think after you've tried something a bunch of times and it doesn't work or people die, even, because of or seemingly because of the thing you did, it can really...like, take the wind out of someone's sails, right? Mr. V just seemed so..." Blarney trailed off a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was soft, sympathetic. "Sad. Defeated, almost. Tired, like you said. I think--shouldn't we be trying to give these oldtimers a break? Like, let them worry about the...I dunno, administrative side of things, the--the--history of our side, since they were there for it? But we can't exactly be reinforcements if we don't even know what we're reinforcing, right? Otherwise it's just gonna be, like, generations of new magical kids waking up and not knowing what's going on forever and ever until a space-snake eats all of our faces or whatever comes our way next." Blarney finished with a snort.

"My sister - she's not...like me," he said, the usual tornado of conflicting feelings rising as he made this statement. He meant, on the one hand, that she wasn't magical - but she was also so much better at so many things than he was. It should've been her, he thought - not for the first time, much as he hated the thought - that awoke. Maybe not as Blarney; that, at least, felt like him through and through. But she should be the magic one, if only one of them got to be magical. She was so smart, so organized, so - competent, and in many ways, Blarney himself was...not. Or at least he didn't feel like it, most of the time.

"She's not like us," he clarified, refocusing, "but she's like. Crazy smart and organized, and she knows all about like--like, organizing people? She's--I mean, it's mean to say she's bossy, but she is, but like, she's also right, like, so much of the time it's ridiculous. She's good at this stuff. Really good at it. I'm better at...y'know, the people stuff," he said with a one-shouldered shrug. "So I guess if that means contacting those people and seeing what I can encourage other people to do, if I can't do it myself?"

"No, i meant--the teacher guy thinks that it can't be taught, so Mr. V also thinks that it can't be taught 'cause this teacher guy--Mr. V said he looks up to him." He hesitated another moment, then continued, "I think...I hope that he's less tired than he seems, or that he'll get more--you know, perked up, when he sees that maybe...maybe this can work. Maybe the timing is right, maybe the people are right."

But the people - included Hy-Brasil and Grieve. He'd never met either of them, but - he wasn't sure he wanted to. At least...not yet. Not until he knew more.

"Have you met all those people? On this list you gave me?" Blarney asked as he took the second note, glanced at it approvingly and started to tuck it into his subspace, but then did a double take. "Wait. What's the handbook? There's a handbook?" Blarney stared at the list, then at Halle. "Like a handbook-handbook? Even if it's--written for Senshi---where--how? We gotta--there's gotta be something there that we can pull from, right? Take the good stuff and make it better and modernize it? Build it up or whatever?" Blarney shook his head.

"Anyway, no, yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say - long term reference points. This is perfect, this is exactly what I mean - organization and archiving. 'Cause they keep talking about how they've tried all this stuff, seen so much, but it's like, how are we supposed to know that, or care about it, if we don't--" Blarney ended in a frustrated noise and leaned back in his seat. "You know what i mean? And like--with mentoring, right? One of my friends, she's a Senshi, and like - she talks about how she had a bunch of powerful friends when she first awoke, right? And that kind of kept her safe, because those friends like, knew people on the other side. The bad guys. So like, what if we had that for everybody? It might--you know, like, obviously, nobody forcing anybody into anything or whatever, but like--it might maybe could be really good for some of the older people. To see...you know, what they've been fighting for this entire time. Might be good for everybody, maybe, if you can do it right."

Blarney blinked at his own ring, making an appreciative face as the text file pinged into his ring. "I'll read it later," he promised, giving him a grateful smile. "Thank you, for this, and the other stuff and--just, you know, knowing all this stuff? Telling me all this stuff?" Being the coolest person in the world, maybe? Well, second-coolest, given the fact that he had a hat but not a helmet.

Blarney paused, something Halle had said registering beltedly that caused his smile to fade slightly, replaced with a slight frown of consternation. "What do you mean, Negaverse bases in the city?" Blarney asked. "We like--I guess first, they have bases? Why can't we have bases? We know where their bases are? I thought they were like - like they're called the Negaverse, I thought they were in...well okay now it sounds stupid to say out loud, but I thought they were in their own separate universe or dimension or something when they're not here bothering people. Why aren't we, like, firebombing them or something? I mean, not literally, that's...I dunno, probably illegal or something, but like. You know what I mean. Howcome they can gather and we can't, and if we can't gather because they'll come fight us, why don't we go and fight them when they gather?"