|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 4:57 pm
The weapon, a mace made of a heavy wood, had begun to dissolve into a shimmer of glistering dust in his hand. That was when he felt catharsis wash over him, and he could finally release his anger.
It was a rush that he'd found could replace starseeds, and Faustite drew a new breath of algid winter air into his heat-treated lungs, even as he felt the smile break out over his face. He felt good, like he'd just run another successful operation. Like he'd found a new boy, or earned some new accolade that would insulate him from his own sensitivities for a time. Though Faustite was now covered in sweat and panting to restore his oxygen debt, he felt as though he didn't have to pace anymore. At least, not for a few hours.
But the Squire he found wouldn't be pacing, or smiling, or moving anymore. She didn't look like a Squire. She didn't much look like a person, either.
Well — some of her looked like person. She had sensible winter clothing on, like a snow jacket and a long denim skirt over a pair of flocked black tights. She wore those fluffy boots that looked like they were made out of pajamas. And, for what it was worth, her lower half looked as it should — her legs were still leg-shaped, her feet were still feet-shaped.
But her upper half wasn't upper half-shaped. When Faustite was through, it looked like half-cooked ground beef. Then he saw her starseed shimmer and rise —
Faustite snatched out a hand and caught it as it reached a few feet in the air. Lime green, it was, and it reminded him of some of those chewy candies Haru had shared with him. Hi-Chew? He knew the starseed would have a more satisfying crunch, though —
A crunch better saved, he realized, for after this next Knight aura was snuffed out or sent on its way.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 5:45 pm
Another aura, swallowed up. Pendour caught a scent on the air around the same time that she felt it. She smelled smoke, and copper. She smelled blood. She had an idea of who she was going to find, walking the streets these days. She had to swallow, herself, to keep from crying out. She had an idea of why Encke felt the way he did, about Faustite, and about himself. Even as she quickened her pace, the words were already repeating themselves in her head. Too late. Too late. Too late."Stay back," she said to Livie, who had come out with her but who was trying to lay low. She was a traitor to the Negaverse. It probably wasn't best that she started any conversations with this one. She also didn't know how she was going to react at what she might find. "You'll know if I need you," she said. Livie nodded, and stopped. The scene was worse than anything Pendour's imagination had prepared her for. The smell alone was enough to have her gagging. She tasted acid, and had to bite her lower lip for a few long seconds to keep herself from spilling anything from the sidewalk. She didn't look down. Her eye was locked on the starseed in his clawed hand. Too late. Too late. Too late.This was the part where Encke would start calling down his magic. Maybe Nectaris, too. A part of Pendour understood. It was a part of her that people didn't often see, but she wanted to step forwards, and put her hands around his throat, and- No.
If you kill him, there will be another, she reminded herself. She had to focus on the bigger picture. She had to. "What did this one do?" she asked, and her voice at least was smooth. "To, um, what did you call it? Squat in the ashes of the world?" It wasn't working. It was too late. How could she change the course of the war? How-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:00 pm
Oh, that one again. There wasn't anything for Energy Cow to do here but talk to him, so Faustite relaxed his shoulders. Caught his breath. Wiped the sweat from his brow with the hand that held the starseed.
He glanced at his shirt sleeve. Mostly looked damp, but there was some red, too. Must've sprayed his own face on a backswing.
Faustite's attention found the scarred-up, used-up Knight at her question. There had been yelling — first from the Squire, then from him. That one was so terribly pro-human, telling him all the strides people could be making if they weren't so worn down by these energy drains. She called it an excuse when he pointed out that it's always been that way, that it was that way before the Negaverse came into power. That there had always been the haves and the have-nots, with a handful of haves sitting on a mountain of have-nots. Everyone keeps finding ways to burn the world down. So what did it matter if they all slept more?
But that wasn't the crux of the issue, not for him. He didn't care if she believed him. Her opinion didn't matter, not like that.
She called him a monster, but that was nothing new, either.
"She reminded me of someone," he said at last. His attention returned to the remains, sitting squarely in the center of a rooftop that had a large berth where the snow had melted completely, in no small part due to their fight.
"Want to be next?" He asked lightly.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:22 pm
Pendour considered his offer. Life was suffering. She knew that. People liked to remind her of that when they added to her scars, or when they'd slipped their hands into her chest before she transcended. A few of them hated her so much that they'd told her about how they wanted her to keep suffering, how they wanted her to watch others die, or hobble around on cut strings. Here was Faustite, offering the opposite. It was tempting, too, more tempting than he might know. That was another thing that had been on the edge of her mind for a long time, another side of her that she was careful not to let others see. She shook her head, though. She couldn't let Nectaris deal with the aftermath of that, or Encke, or her family, or any of the others. She had her reasons for staying. They weren't crumbling quite that hard just because she'd found herself in the middle of an awful scene. "No," she said out loud, then added, "Why? Do I remind you of that person, too?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:31 pm
"No."
They weren't alike, even in the few minutes he had known Energy Cow. He hadn't asked her name, but he didn't want it, either. Energy Cow suited her fine, even if she was noisier than his liking. She was full of energy though, rather humming with it, so he supposed he could make exceptions for her mouth. She wasn't as awful as his husband, anyway.
Tired of the starseed's insipid pull toward the sky, Faustite banished it. He considered the steam that had just stopped rolling off the body. No, he decided. They weren't alike at all.
Maybe it was worth checking, though. They might know each other. Energy Cow was chatty enough, and the one he had in mind liked to talk and talk and talk when he had the right audience. That one loved the sound of his own words. Loved smearing them in the faces of others and obstinately declaring his superiority. The more he considered him, the more Faustite's blood began to boil again.
His attention snapped back to the scarred-up fish. "But this is the second time you approached me. Sounds like a deathwish, doesn't it?"
In the starseed's place, his shield glove bracelet reappeared. He turned, snow no longer crunching under metal heels, and started toward her.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:50 pm
"This is the second time you've been out here with a trail of smoke to follow," she said with a small, soft shrug. A trail of smoke and bodies, really." If she had a death wish was beside the point, although it certainly helped that she was not afraid of death, especially now that her starseed was protected. The thought of being maimed worse gave her more pause, but she could push past that to try and help people. She watched the starseed vanish into nothingness, which really meant subspace, she knew. He still had it on him. She looked at his bracelet when he summoned that in turn. She stepped back. "If you want to look, give me the starseed," she said. "You can have more energy, too." She knew that was probably the more valuable thing to offer. "Otherwise, no." And if he tried it, she would activate her Aspect and dance away from him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 7:06 pm
Smoke and bodies. Yes, he supposed that would be his legacy, but he'd never put that much thought to it. There was always much to do, whether it was for the team or for future prospects, for settling scores, that he seldom existed in the now. Even with this one, he engaged her with an undercurrent of what's next.
Faustite drew in a deep breath, held it, counted to ten. Then he pursed his lips as if to blow out a candle, and exhaled a long stream of black, sooty smoke into the air.
So she wanted the starseed. It wasn't really a life to save, but it was a life cycle that she thought had some importance. If he let it go, then that someone would become another someone, however many years down the line. Maybe they'd still be fighting this war. Maybe both he and Energy Cow would be dead by then. But, regardless of what became of that life, he didn't want it having a second chance if it inherited the same superiority complex that this one had. If it shut its ears to the world and screamed its own soapbox shitslog to anyone who would listen, then was it worth letting that one live again? Faustite didn't think so.
"Say I do that. This thing gets reborn. Awakens as a fresh knight. Say I find it again. Hunt it down. Give it another bad death. Say we run into each other again. Say the same words. Regift the starseed. Rebirth, reap, repeat. You think that's a deal?
"I don't. And you're not in a position to bargain."
He vanished, appearing behind her, and reached out for her back where he'd take another memory —
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 7:33 pm
Well, it had been worth a try. Life was suffering, sometimes. Rebirth was a gamble, and she didn't put as much faith in it as people like Encke did. Life could be beautiful, too, though, and she didn't think it was her role to snuff someone out of second chances for eternity. She certainly didn't think it was Faustite's role. Maybe she'd cry again, later, but now all she could hope for the dead girl was that she could find peace in whatever came after reincarnation. Her gaze went steely as Faustite vanished, though. She ran her thumb over her ring, and the light that reached her body, the light from the distant streetlights and the light from Faustite's fire, began to ripple and scatter as if it were sunlight on the surface of the sea. She felt his boots land on the concrete of the roof behind her. With unnatural grace, she leaped away from his hand as he reached out. She spun around to face him, her gaze steady. "I said no," she said. She had minutes of this. He'd tire himself out before he could catch her. Strickenized ASPECT OF NEPTUNE: Light dances and ripples off of Neptune Knights as if they were submerged in ocean water. They can handle combat with the elegance of a sea creature in its natural element, able to rebound from knock backs and falls with ease and grace.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 7:58 pm
He felt nothing. Got nothing. There was no memory to the chill on the air, nothing for him to take.
The General frowned when he saw the light about him scatter into a hundred thousand fractals. Could hardly see her through it, if at all — some ghostly figure he thought he saw through the myriad lights until he approached her and found it was just another sloping flash of light, intersecting another flash, then another, then another, until he was drowning in the watery version of the sun. No matter how he blinked, or turned, or tried to outrun his own flame, that obnoxious scattering followed him.
But he kept at it, kept after her, even as his frustration built. He tripped over the remains in the process, nearly sent himself onto the ground. Some part of him warned this was a terrible idea, but that part couldn't match the pace of his frustration.
Once he'd gathered himself by the body, he tried draining the area. He doubted she would stay in his range, but it might get him a scrap. Maybe two.
He'd counted past thirty. Whatever this was, it had begun to outpace senshi magic. But she didn't speak anything, didn't sign at him or even spare him a wrathful glare. His mouth peeled back into a tired grimace. He knew all this skating around would go nowhere as they were, but if what she used was magic, then it would end eventually. His legs weren't on a timer.
Faustite darted at another shifting form, expecting it was her, Sprinted for it, for how it hadn't moved like all the other scattered lights, until his next step found nothing, and he was treading sky —
Feeling lightheaded as adrenaline took him, Faustite looked up, saw that what he'd seen was a light decorating the adjacent building; oh, what a pity, what a shame, and he sucked in a breath without the thought to yelp —
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:04 am
It was interesting, the way that people thought that she was fragile just because she'd been broken once or twice before. They thought, she supposed, that she'd healed up weaker and not stronger. If there was truth to that, she'd worked hard to compensate for it. It was also interesting how many people thought that they could take things from her just because, when she could, she tried to give willingly. The look on Faustite's face was incredulous when she didn't just stand there so that he could take all the things he thought he deserved with no consideration for the things she had asked for. She might have laughed at it, gently, of course, if it wasn't for the fact the the smell of singed human flesh lingering in the air meant that she had to bite her lower lip to keep from gagging. There was also the fact that things might have been a little life-or-death for her. He was on the chase. He wasn't on the chase very well. He never seemed to be able to quite lay eyes on her, and if he did, she was able to quickly sidestep away, but he was trying. The rooftop got hotter and his face twisted more and more as he went on. She was behind him when he charged off the roof. She reached out a hand, tried to save him, but no.
Too late. He was far away from her, and full speed. Then, he was toppling. The aura wasn't squelched. She didn't hear him screaming, and she didn't check on him farther. The corpse was cooling, and there was little more for her to do here, so she leaped onto a rooftop in the other direction, where she found Nectaris waiting for her, but she just shook her head and kept running away.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
