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 Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:32 pm
Alec wasn't buying it. "Riiiiight, because people in control lose their tempers and b***h and scream on a regular basis." Alec stood up from the bleacher and walked towards Ialo slowly. "Look, I applaud your efforts to try and bring Danni back. I really do. I was considering doing something to help her out as well. But I thought about it long and hard, and I came to the conclusion that I simply don't have the power to do anything. I can do a lot of things, but I don't think I could find her extremely well hidden soul, battle a group of Ancients to get it back, and get home in once piece, all in one night. I'm not superman." Alec looked off to the side and looked out the window. The stars were out tonight, and Alec could clearly see Draco outlined in the black sky. Alec's tone was calm as he continued. "Now the real question is whether or not you can do anything either. If you seriously can't control whatever's in you right now, then I doubt you can do much." Alec looked Ialo square in the eye as sent a direct verbal blow to him. "You need to make a conscious effort to try and get whatever is going on in there under control." Alec stopped for a moment and stepped back a step, thinking about the situation as a whole. "You know what, for starters what IS going on in your head? What the heck is giving you that kind of reckless power?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:39 pm
Ialo took a long deep breath before he answered Alec as calmly as he could. He so badly wanted to rebut, to prove that he COULD bring Danni back... after all, the Mystic Fountain still existed, as did several items derived from the Fountain's power.
"I made a pact," he finally said, struggling. To say it aloud would make it seem real, and impossible to push away, no matter how badly he wanted to. "With Riser. Five years ago."
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:42 pm
Alec raised an eyebrow at this, staring at Ialo in shock for a good few seconds. Once the few seconds were up Alec closed his eyes and shook his head a bit. Alec sat down on the floor, rubbing his temples for the umpteenth time in the past two days. Alec didn't even look up at Ialo as he spoke again. "Alright, what exactly happened? Did you ask for it, or was it kinda pushed on you? And believe me, this is important. This is a much a contract as anything a lawyer can write out. If there's a loophole anywhere we have to exploit it."
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:02 pm
"He lied to me," Ialo said softly. He began to rub his knee, massaging away some some sort of pain that was only in memory now. "He kept calling me a monster. I'm not," he added, mostly to assure himself. "But he told me that he could force me to kill people - he threatened to make me kill Luna if I didn't run him through with his sword."
The words were sort of tumbling out, a memory that just had to be told to someone, begging to be released from the confines of a single mind.
"And the whole time he kept calling me Serpent, like he thought I was Ophiuchus..."
((I had to read back in the old thread to remember that. And, well... Riser used to be a TOTAL badass, not just an a*****e.))
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:06 pm
It was when Ialo mentioned Riser making Ialo do something when Alec's eyes snapped open. Alec was on full alert now, and slowly but surely a cocky smiled creeped up on his face. Alec stood up and looked Ialo in the eye with a confidence that he hadn't felt in a long time. Alec looked Ialo square in the eye as he spoke to him calmly, but firmly. Not hatefully or angrily, but surely, as if Alec knew that he was right. "Then you have the upper hand here. Whatever he put in you, you didn't ask for. YOU have the power now. YOU have the ability to kick whatever's in you now the hell out of your body. You can make it succumb to you, make it leave, do whatever you want with it. You just have to find it, and then make it do what YOU want."
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:15 pm
He looked up at Alec a bit bleary-eyed, unaffected by Alec's strong words. "I CAN'T." He held his hands palm up in his lap, and the black sword appeared, but longer and thinner than the more dagger-like version Ialo used earlier. "It's called Living Obsidian. And it's soulbound. I'm stuck with it until Riser decides to remove if IF he can remove it. Plus I signed the contract twice," he said weakly. His eyes were wavering slightly, looking away from Alec more and more. "I've been trying for five years, and I..."
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:27 pm
Alright, NOW Alec was getting pissed. Ialo seemed to be at the end of his rope, and as usual Riser had to go sticking his nose into everyone's business for his own ******** up reasons. Alec grabbed Ialo's jaw in his hand and forced him to look at him. "Look at me. I don't care WHAT kind of power Riser used on you. I'm telling you right now that you can remove whatever he put in you. You still have a choice. Your ability to choose is far more powerful than you give it credit for." Alec let go of Ialo's jaw and stepped back a bit to help demonstrate what he was talking about. "I could easily choose that tomorrow I'll wake up at 5 am, go around in public places wearing a tutu and breathing fire while playing a ukulele, eat monkey brains for dinner and sleep hanging upside down from the Grand Canyon. I won't, but I have the choice to do that." Alec now pointed at himself as he continued. "I could choose to kill someone tomorrow. I could choose to ignore any feelings of guilt and get into a shoot out with the cops. I could choose to take the bullets and force myself to believe that I don't feel any pain. I could choose to keep walking after they break my kneecaps and start beating me with nightsticks. Or I could choose to forgo all that and sit at home watching Jerry Springer."
Alec walked back to Ialo and stared him square in the eye. "I've seen people do amazing things. Normal, everyday people. They do these amazing things because they choose to do them. They believe they can do them, they act on that, and make a conscious choice to do the things they do. It's YOUR body Ialo, YOUR brain, YOUR soul. Not a person in existence can do anything to them if you don't allow them to." Alec leaned back a bit to give Ialo some space as he went off on his last little tangent. "And before you go thinking 'Oh, but he's too powerful,' I'm calling bull s**t on that. I can tell you right now that there are powers out there that make him seem like an ant. In my experience, there's ALWAYS someone better than you out there. That's why I think that all power, all magic, all energy, all life, stems from one single source. You don't have to think that, but that's what makes sense to me. But what I know for a fact is that you have a choice. You either MAKE whatever's in you leave, or you puss out and allow it fester inside you and turn you into something you hate. It's your choice Ialo."
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:48 pm
Ialo was stunned into silence for almost a full five minutes. He just honestly couldn't quite wrap his head around what Alec was telling him. Choice? What choice? Ialo made his choice five years ago, he chose to play along with Riser, because he was 17 then and a fool, and believed the b*****d when he told him that the boy was a monster, and had no way of stopping himself from being control. And Ialo believed it. He ******** believed Riser.
He slowly stood up, staring at Alec, and finally whispered. "Do you know what else I saw in that mirror? Do you have any idea what happened in the courtyard yesterday evening? I have an ugly soul, Alec. I can fill a room with magic in an instant, but I've never been able to say no to power. I make choices all the time - I make bad ones, that only ever cause trouble in the long run. Riser sets his watch to the stupid things I do."
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:54 pm
Alec sighed softly and put his hand on Ialo's shoulder. He held onto him at shoulder length and looked him in the eye. "And yet you still have a choice Ialo. Either you succumb to the feeling that you're this horrible person that can't say no, or step up and change yourself for the better. You ALWAYS have a choice. Don't ever doubt it for a second."
Alec let Ialo go and stood back, smiling softly at his boss. Then after a few seconds passed Alec stumbled to the side slightly. The fight with Ialo earlier had taken more out of him than he realized. Alec regained his balance and began to chuckle. "Heh, looks like you're better than you give yourself credit for man." Alec began to walk slowly towards the gym doors, looking over his shoulder and shouting back at Ialo as he reached them. "I'm going to bed. I'd suggest you do the same." And that's exactly what Alec did. He walked right out the gym doors, through the hallways, up the stairs, and into his private dorm, where he promptly collapsed on his bed and fell asleep. Alec's head wasn't exactly clear now, but at least he could sleep after the workout Ialo had put him through.
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Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:05 pm
Ialo stared after Alec, and at the doors long after they swung back shut. Then he looked down at his right hand, and clenched his fist a few times. The black sword appeared a third time, and Ialo tossed it into the air, spinning. The sword splintered into several daggers, which Ialo caught one at a time. He was... playing. He forced the daggers to fuse together, not back into the sword, but just into an amorphous blob of dark magic and liquid obsidian.
That was something Ialo had worked around. The Living Obsidian formed any sort of bladed weapon. The dragon smirked. Riser must have been lying again, because Ialo had teased so much more out of it. Deep down, that's what Ialo had been trying to say. He liked this power. He would be very sad to see it go.
He suddenly gasped, and doubled over. Oh yeah, that. He had forgotten. The Ouroboros never liked having to fight for control.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:25 pm
Sitting alone atop the roof, Riser stared across the courtyard as the students began to retire to their rooms. This school was a testament to his failures, proof of humanity's infuriating and stubborn nature; these people were like roaches, no matter how many times he smashed his foot into them, they kept scrambling around the kitchen floor.
He sighed, his breath slightly visible in the cool air as he slowly placed his right hand on his face. Ever since he had lost that gem five years ago he had relied on his strange masks as a way of focusing his otherworldly energy. And, although nobody else was aware, the gem itself was a god-killer from an alternate reality; it had allowed him to tear incomprehensibly vast openings into other realms, other universes, alternate realities. With that gem augmenting his already godly powers, he thought himself invincible.
But this was why he failed, and he knew this. The gem brought with it not only power, but arrogance. A fatal arrogance that had him sealed away and stripped of many of his abilities, left as a mass of ectoplasmic energy to float through the voids for eternity.
He stood up slowly, his body creaking. He had broken out and reclaimed his former glory, and he knew for a fact that he would once more. This was more of an inconvenience than anything.
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:22 pm
Adolf, feeling only slightly guilty, had listened to... oh, about the first quarter of Alec and Ialo's talk. Just enough to know that Ialo firmly believed exactly what Athena believed: Danni was not dead. But, unlike Athena, Ialo knew what had happened and he was going to make an effort to find Danni, to do something about it.
Now, though Adolf would normally condone such reckless behavior in his goddaughter, he found that he no longer cared. Athena wasn't the little girl with cute ears he'd known just a few years ago. She had finished her transformation--she had ears, tail, claws, canines, the whole nine yards. She was a full-fledged yokai. Technically, yes, she was also some part human, but he figured she wasn't quite a hanyou. She was too smart, too powerful, from what he'd seen. He didn't know if it was simply her, or if all her siblings displayed such power, but hanyous were not that powerful. This is why he believed he could trust her to take care of herself. This is why he believed he could trust her to make her own decisions.
And she wanted to save Danni.
He ran for her, sniffing her out; he knew, just knew, that she would not have stayed in her dorm. Not the Athena he knew. She was too restless right now, too worried, too determined. And, as he suspected, she was not in her room. He almost literally ran into her when walking into the building--she was about to come out.
"Athena."
"Wha--have you seen Ialo?"
"Come with me. Ialo knows something you don't, and I know where he is."
Athena nodded, and Adolf led her quickly back the way he'd come, hoping that Ialo had not moved, that he had not left. Alec was already gone when they made it.
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:08 pm
Indeed, Ialo was still in the combat gym when Adolf arrived, with Athena in tow. The Headmaster, inspired by his spar with Alec, had forgone Riser's dark magic for a while, and put himself through a series of small exercises. He was unmerciful with his dragon magic to the room. By the time he noticed Adolf, the gym had all sorts of strange spells warping it, many of them affecting time-space.
"Adolf! Athena! Is something up?" Ialo said quickly when he turned around and saw them in the doorway. His eyes were back to hazel, and his skin was pale again. He was however, startled, and was embarrass when he realized that behind him, there was all the commotion that his spells caused. "Er, please, don't mind the flying squid!"
And deep within his mind, the crystal throbbed as the Darkness quietly retreated in pain. This body was not ready, it would not be able to handle its powerful magic for some time yet.
Ialo waved his hand, and the crazy spells began to evaporate. In about five minutes, the room would be back to normal.
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 5:42 pm
Athena decided that it was too late at night to beat around the bush--and besides, that's rather boring and takes too long anyway.
"What can I do for Danni?"
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Eloquent Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:05 pm
Ialo was thrown off for a moment, but quickly recovered. "Nothing. You're not allowed to. You're not getting hurt."
Meanwhile, the flying squid escaped, and phased upward through the ceiling.
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