Prompt 11 (Marshmallow Snow): Fresh-fallen snow coats Destiny City. It’s pristine and crisp, and it crunches as you walk through it. It may be a few inches deep, but it doesn’t seem to go above your calves when walking. At first, it’s easy enough to walk through, but gradually you realize that it’s getting harder to move. Every step you take feels like the snow is pulling you back in, and if you get a good look you might realize that sticky white fluff is clinging to you. The more you walk, the more it pulls, until you’re almost completely stuck. Something about the snow smells oddly sweet, and the tacky, marshmallow-like snow seems like it’s suddenly become a prison. The more you try to break free, the stickier it gets, and you’d better hope you don’t fall down. The more you struggle the harder it is to escape, but if you manage to stay still for a few minutes, the marshmallow will freeze and crystallize. When you move again, the snow will turn into a powdery dust and you can break free easily. The only good thing about this is that you won’t starve if you get trapped–the snow tastes just like marshmallows.
The good news: he didn't have to work overnight. Road work was canceled due to the snowstorms of late, and a few of the backhoes were inexplicably encased in some kind of marshmallow confection. Or that was the claim. Adrian knew better than to ask any questions about that one.
The bad news: because the company wasn't going to make money off of road work just yet, they wanted him to work a twelve on the reno for an office building that was recently trashed by badly dressed terrorists. Adrian knew better than to ask questions about that one, too, but was nonetheless stuck with knocking down the drywall through most of the first floor. It was far more effort than he could've asked for, and by the time he'd plowed through the fifth wall, his arms were aching for a break. Of course, being construction, he didn't get one — his three bosses did, however, as they all gathered around to watch him work.
By the time he'd gotten off, it was six in the evening, and he was due for a meeting with Sylvite, his other boss. He'd only known it by the way his phone chimed that Thursdays were boss o'clock days, so after he excused himself from an impromptu powwow at the time clock, he turned down one of the less parked alleyways and vanished into Adonis's perfectly showered, perfectly prim appearance.
Then he vanished to Negaspace, which could likewise use some reno. Except for Sylvite's office, of course.
From where he'd appeared, it was a short few steps to reach the door to Sylvite's office, and a margin more effort to knock on the door to notify her that she was here. He couldn't tell if she was in — so many Generals layered over top of one another left him feeling like he was inside of one giant General — but he assumed, based on her timetable, that she should be somewhere around here.
Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 7:55 pm
No, Sylvite hadn't been waiting for her subordinates.
She'd tried to! She really had. She'd come down to her office after she got out of class and everything, and she'd tried to keep herself entertained with paperwork, and when that had failed, doodling on the back of the paperwork with her fancy Japanese highlighters.
That hadn't been keeping her attention either, though. Her head had been spinning, she'd bent one of the highlighter nibs from pressing on it too hard, and it had gotten so bad that she'd gone back to town to try some cartwheels or something to deal with the nerves.
Then stuff had started happening really fast.
The Knight, basically. The Knight had happened.
When she teleported out of his reach and landed in the hall outside her office, she was sobbing. Like, ugly crying. She'd been trying to keep it together enough in front of him that she didn't just die, but the moment there were no gross Order auras burning her senses, it was all coming out. She shook out her wrists. She tried to blink away the visions of death and destruction. She cried.
"I hate you," she grumbled between gasps and sobs, tilting her head back against the cool surface of the wall. "I hate you."
Blinking through tears, she saw Adonis standing there, and she might've been embarrassed if she wasn't already feeling so many other things. "Not you," she said quickly. "Just. Gotta cancel."
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Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 9:03 pm
Adonis had waited for a hot minute. Quite literally, a minute. Then he tried the handle, found the office locked, and had been considering bailing and trying again later. That didn't seem like a problem to him, but a feeling told him he should stay put for just a touch longer. And since intuition got him pretty far in the gambling world, Adonis gave it the benefit of the doubt and waited.
Sure enough, he felt a General appear in the hallway with him. He turned around, half-ready to explain himself in case it wasn't Sylvite, and —
Stared at Sylvite for a second, trying to make sense of what he was witnessing. She looked hurt, and not just emotionally. She certainly sounded hurt emotionally, and was upset at — not him, apparently. Which was nice, but also, she could really use some TLC? Her outfit was pretty covering, but he was willing to bet there were red splotches under there where bruises would be forming later.
Right. So. Smoothing this one out.
"It's all good, Sylv," he started, running a hand through his hair. "How 'bout you step into your office, though? Maybe tell me what happened?" He couldn't tell her what to do as a General and his boss, but he was willing to bet it wasn't a good idea to be bleeding out here in this shark tank of a hallway where any stuck-up General could see her and start talking s**t, and that she'd probably like the privacy.
His inclination was to guide her over to it with a hand on her back, but she wasn't standing completely straight. So he stepped next to her, without touching her, and tried to appraise her from there. "You hurt anywhere? Who do I have to kill? She might not be nice, but I know a coroner who can help us cover it up."
stari_maga
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2022 6:41 am
Adonis wasn't leaving. Okay. That was nice of him. That was more than Sylvite was gonna ask of him, honestly.
She wiped at her eyes with one of her puffy sleeves and actually managed to take a breath, which helped the sobs go down to more of a sniffle level. Her office keys were in subspace. She summoned them easily enough, but once she was holding them, her hands shook. The keys and her many charms jingled and rattled as it took her multiple tries to get it into the keyhole.
It didn't help that every time she moved her fingers it shot aches up to her elbows.
"I don't think anything's broken," she said as she messed with the lock some more, "But, like, ow."
The door finally swung open and Sylvite stumbled into her office, hunched a little bit from where he'd hit her in the stomach. The fairy lights were off, and the regular lights were off, and she didn't bother to turn either on. Not yet. She still had her plushies on the shelf. She made a beeline over there and buried her face in a nice squishy unicorn.
"Dude had this clock weapon and was really mad about the whole hilltop thing. Didn't even stop when I stabbed him," she said, kinda muffled.
She wanted to stab him some more. She wanted Adonis to peel his face off and then they could throw his body to the youma, no need to worry about jerkface coroners. She didn't actually want him going after this guy alone, though. They needed a plan.
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Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:05 am
These weren't situations that Adonis knew how to navigate. Maybe if he was actually good with people, instead of parroting people he met who were good with people, he'd know what to do. He didn't, he had to accept that he didn't, and he thought the best thing would be to give his boss a little space.
She didn't make it to General by needing some senshi to hold her keys for her, for instance. Nor did she need him trying to fix what happened. Really, she didn't need anything from him.
When she got her door open, he followed her in. One hand still dug at the back of his head where his rat tails were first bound up. The other hitched into the side of his outfit, as if he could holster his hands.
He frowned when he heard her explanation. Usually injuries were personal, but — "Damn, you'd think we killed his wife and took his kids. That's some John Wick level of s**t."
Sauntering in Adonis took up a seat at her desk. Didn't matter to him that it was dark. "Someone like that's pretty dangerous, huh?" In the dark, she couldn't see him making an exaggerated duck face as he thought about it. "So how you want him taken out of the picture? Should we grab him and toss him into the Hall of Shadows, maybe break his wrists first? Maybe you add a few extra holes?" Couldn't have hurt to focus on what they could do about it.
stari_maga
Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:48 am
Eventually Sylvite stopped being able to breathe easily with the whole having her face stuffed into a plushie thing, and so she switched to hugging the unicorn tight to her chest while she slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting on the office floor. She glanced up as Adonis stole her chair, but didn't say anything about it. That was fine, it wasn't like she was using it.
"He'd have to be dead before we took him into the Hall of Shadows," she said as she scooched over and popped open the bottom drawer of her desk. There was a bottle of Tylenol in there. She fished it out with one hand while the other squeezed the unicorn even tighter, and she even managed to unscrew the cap and grab a couple of pills without totally letting go. "There's rules about that. No Order people in Negaspace, in case they escape and start messing things up."
She swallowed the pills dry, then put the bottle down on the ground, still open. She'd clean up when she felt better.
Adonis was giving her something to think about, though, which did help.
"If you ever wanna use that magic on someone, though, y'know, where you peel people's faces off?"
Sylvite nodded a few times at the floor. "Yeah, that might distract him enough that I can get better aim with the knives."
Maybe it wasn't the most creative strategy, but it was what she had right now.
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Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 10:39 am
"Okay, so we don't do the Negaspace thing." Bummer. He wanted to see those creepy things lining the Hall really take someone apart. Couldn't be helped, though — rules were rules.
The good news was, she was starting to take care of herself. Doing the whole self-soothing thing with the unicorn plushy, taking some whatever that was. Couldn't tell in the dark. He assumed it was ibuprofen or something, but she could've been popping oxycodone for all he knew. Whatever took the edge off, got her back to normal. He couldn't complain.
And better yet, she was thinking about solutions. She was considering putting his magic to good use, too. Now that was progress.
He sat up, tapped a little more into the conversation. "Yeah, got plenty of that magic at my disposal. Wouldn't mind giving it a go on this guy. It's the least I could do, what with him messing with my boss." He hoped she'd land those knives straight in his kidneys or something. It'd be good to see her get some revenge, get even with the guy. Because making her cry like that? Should've been illegal.
"You say the word, and we'll get to looking for him."
stari_maga
Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2022 4:43 am
"Yeah," Sylvite repeated. "Face peeling. Knives. I'll put him in the database, too. Maybe we can get some other people involved who have ideas of how to kill him. It's usually like, the more people, the better, when it comes to those really strong types."
Although on the other hand, if it was just her and Adonis, they could probably sneak up on him a lot better, like, see if they could get him before he started calling for other people of his own. "Next time we go out together, we'll see if we can track him down," she said.
Sylvite leaned heavily against the leg of the desk once she'd finished with the medicine, but her eyes looked a little bit brighter as she looked up at her subordinate. Her arms still hurt, and her stomach where he'd whacked her, but the magic seemed to be wearing off. It didn't seem like everything was crumbling or about to die anymore.
She was even distracted enough from the whole thing that she blinked, and sucked in a deep breath, and then asked, "Oh, you're, uh, here for your check in, right?"
Obviously. That was what time it was. "Um. Is everything okay?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2022 5:08 pm
Adonis gave her a double thumbs up, his face framed with a slight grin. Tears weren't so much his wheelhouse, but revenge? He could work with that. He could go miles with that. Face peeling and knives made for a great solution to Sylvite's problem. And if they could get a few more in on the fun? That'd give them all the help they needed to ensure this dude wasn't getting up again.
The question caught him a touch off guard, as if he'd forgotten why he was there. "Oh, right, yeah. Thought I'd stop by for the old routine.
"Everything's good, though. No problems here." Nothing Negaverse-related, regardless. Most of his patrols had gone smoothly, and he was managing his quota without qualms. "I got a few hours' extra sleep, too. Who knew that, if you drain your super, you get the rest of the night off?" He cracked her a smile, hoping the joke would do her some good.
She looked like she was perking up a bit, even if she was using her desk to stay upright. She looked the type to bounce back quickly enough.
"You know, Sylv, if you need anything from me, just ask. I know it's your job to watch our backs, but there's no rule saying it can't go both ways."
stari_maga
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 6:34 am
"Draining your supervisor?"
Sylvite quirked an eyebrow at that, although not in the way that made it look like she was judging him. She was smiling, too. With the way that Adonis went on about his gross construction bosses, it sounded like they deserved it.
"Just don't drain me, 'kay?" she said, and did the I'm watching you thing where she pointed at her eyes with two fingers, and then at his. "I'll know. Then I won't give you any candy for like, a month." There were probably worse things that she could do, too, but she didn't want any of the people she was watching out for to think that she was, like, scary.
"I'm glad you're okay, though. I dunno if I'm gonna be up for all my office hours tonight. Now that I'm here it doesn't look like anything's broken, so I think I'm just gonna go home and sleep."
That was probably the quickest way other than medicine to get all her bruises to stop hurting so much.
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Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2022 6:42 pm
"Aaaabsolutely," as if he'd pass that up. Dude had plenty of money, so what was a little energy? He'd sleep it off. He'd been saying he started sleeping better.
"I would never." Adonis straightened, placed a hand over his heart, and held the other one up. The gesture didn't last long before he slouched back in the chair. "Seriously, though — call it a night. Everyone'll understand. Besides, you can just tell people you were on an urgent mission if they get pissy about it and start asking questions. Or put an extra hole in their left kidney, whatever seems more appropriate."
It was probably a good thing that Adonis wasn't an agent. If he had knives, or really any bladed object, he'd have aerated a good number of people's organs by now.
"If you're good with that, and you wanna go home and sleep, I can see myself out." It seemed cruel to keep her here and expect her to do her job when she got roughed up. Anybody in that position could do with a nap.
Hell, Adonis could do with a nap.
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Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 4:53 pm
She wasn't quite sure how much she trusted Adonis, no matter how much he crossed his heart or pinky promised not to be sleazy to her, but at least it was a nice gesture, and she nodded.
"Yeah, I'm gonna go then," she said, at least remembering to close up the medicine bottle and to put the her plushie up on the desk where it wouldn't get as dirty overnight.
"There's still some candy in the one drawer, you can have as much as you want. Just, lock the door when you leave, okay?"
If he decided to really get into snooping, there were some basic notes on him in the paperwork on her desk among all of the other notes on literally everybody else, but that wasn't embarrassing enough for Sylvite to stick around and herd him out.
