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 Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 7:42 pm
There were very few places in Destiny City where any group of Negaverse individuals could gather without raising a small cadre of senshi to follow, especially when joined by a Captain and their special little power signature. Certainly they group could have left town in a fairly easy manner, except for the fact that transportation out of town was not easy to explain for two Hillworth students.
So it was on a Saturday night that instead of living up their lives like normal teenagers, Linarite and her motley crew that had until lately been purely testosterone were walking through the decrepit gates where Barren Pines College had once thrived and students had flown in and out of its gates like a babbling brook of liveliness. Nothing now lived inside its ironically barren grounds save a few of the hardier squirrels, but all life avoided this mass grave where so many had died. For the blue-haired young captain, however, there was a punch of exhilaration in her blood as she stepped back again onto the familiar grounds. Save for one mishap with Khaldun Cilentani, the school had held nothing but heady joy for her and she longed to relive those days of power and control again.
There was something, however, that stopped her dead inside the gates and an arm shot out to prevent Paragonite and the boys from going any further. A deep power that she could clearly sense. "Careful, there's someone here. Stay behind me." They were hers to protect. She could teleport, they could not. If whatever was here was as dangerous as she felt, it might be necessary. What she discovered, however, was something entirely unexpected. Some of the power she'd been feeling was easily identifiable as the small gathering of star seeds the man was idly playing with in some strange arrangement. The cape was theatrically draped and she would have been baffled but for the glowing blue eyes that eerily cast their own light around his face and brought a light shudder to the girl's spine.
"So, you're the one who's trespassing around here." Though she'd pulled out her weapon before advancing towards the source of the power, she lowered it now and all but leaned on the staff. "You're the one we were warned about? Wise Guy?" Though obviously uncomfortable with the man's presence when she'd expected a silent graveyard, Linarite tried to affect a stance of careless curiosity. Hopefully, it showed.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 8:45 pm
In a manner of speaking, Barren Pines was still a graveyard. Silent, it was not. The man was sitting in what looked to be a rotting armchair with an ottoman. Beyond the ottoman was a pile of corpses. Beyond those were a shabby TV stand, upon which sat an old black radio. It was playing staticky music.
He had his feet, in lacquered-looking cowboy boots, kicked up on the ottoman. An array of starseeds was floating in front of him: as they watched they became a grid, a pyramid, a -- Triforce (?), and then finally a circle which spun in the air like the Wheel of Fortune as he took his glowing blue eyes off them and they settled on Linarite and her group of Lieutenants. He raised a hand, idly -- but all it appeared to do was change the radio station, like he had an invisible remote control. The thready notes of "Shake, Rattle 'N Roll" started up and he smiled in what appeared to be faint approval before transferring his full and undivided attention to the Negaversers.
Wiseman sighed. He was a handsome individual somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, but for the radioactive color of his eyes: otherwise, he looked a bit less like a wizard and a bit more like the host of a game show than Charonite had described to them. There was an opaque crystal ball on his lap.
"This always happens," he said. "You hear about some cozy little undiscovered getaway from Travel magazine," he gestured with his hand, "but it turns out so did a billion other tourists, and by the time you get there it's been trampled over so many times it might as well be Gettysburg Field. Ah, well. That's what I get for reading Travel. So," he smiled at them, which had a bit of an unearthly Cheshire effect at just this moment, "since there ain't any Star Trek conventions in town just this month, I'm guessing you're Neggies?"
They stared at him.
"Negamen?"
More staring.
"Negatrons?"
The wizard shrugged and the wheel of starseeds came to an abrupt halt in the air, twinkling. "Carcharodon Negalodon," he said. "That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell just as sweet, kids. That's Shakespeare. That means it's correct. So." He snapped both his fingers and the starseeds dropped out of the air and pattered into his hands. "What can I do for you?"
The corpses looked to be female, mostly -- joggers, mostly, one with an empty stroller crumpled next to her. There were about six of them. Wiseman looked disinterested.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:01 pm
He'd drawn back slightly to stand with Scheelite when she told them to get back. He was -not- an offensive fighter and the whole team had to be well aware of that by now.
But in the name of being polite, of keeping the uneasy truce with this man, who quiet honestly raised the hairs on the back of Zink's neck...
He took a step back forward. He did not step in front of Linarite, that would have looked he thought, too much like saying he were in charge. Instead he moved closer to her right shoulder, and bowed slightly.
Be very nice to the man or he'll obliterate you, hard to forget -those- instructions to be sure.
"Pardon our intrusion, we were just on the way to Train..." He said in polite but not overly chatty tones.
Hopefully without too much 'please do not add us to your pile' in his voice either. But looking at those rather unearthly eyes, and the clear display of power was more than enough to add to his unease.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:36 pm
Oh god he was a poetic type. It was bad enough that once a day, sparing blessed weekends, she had to listen to Ray Gordon spout that meaningless drivel but now in her nightlife too? Fantastic. Linarite had been mulling what to say to this strange, jovial man reclining over a pile of dead bodies when, to her surprise, Zinkenite stepped up to her side and took his own verbal initiative. Her head only turned slightly to acknowledge him and she smiled on the tail-end of his polite little statement. There was a reason she played favorites!
"Number One's correct, there's not really a whole lot of places to party in the city, too many pesky kids in frilly skirts and hot pants interrupting you, demanding you cease and desist. Worse than the cops that way." Her voice was fairly bland but she smiled at the idea of 'Negatrons'. Her dad had been a fairly big fan of the Transformers franchise in his childhood and had imparted some of this knowledge onto his only child. Eyes drifted to the pile of bodies and while she was momentarily struck with the horrific idea that he might have taken a seed from an innocent child, it was quickly smothered by more pressing matters. "You know how it is. Brought the kids up here for a little lesson and seem to have run into a perfect one."
Normally, Linarite would have attacked after such a dramatic statement, it wasn't really her style. She could banter well, as the queen could well attest to, but it took a bit more brain power than she was willing to admit to continue it. Especially when her heart was thudding in her chest and she was positive that this man is what was meant when someone talked about a wolf in sheep's clothing. What did you do when you were unsure about something? Could you do anything? Okay, you had to do something. In her mind, Linarite was berating herself, she was a goddamn Captain, she had to up her game!
"Though tch, manners first?" Bowing lightly, a hand over her heart in salute, the bluenette smiled. "Linarite, Captain of the Negaverse. This adorable guy here," an arm draped itself around her equally-polite cohort, "is Lieutenant Zinkenite." Arm still around the tiny young man, she waved the other three to fan out around her and indicated that they should perhaps introduce themselves. "What do you guys think? Worth hanging around?" Of course it was, but this was a test. Tests were, obviously, very important to any teacher.
[Feel free to post introductions and reactions, Yin/Demy/MK~]
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:41 pm
Wolframite was still getting use to being on a team, and was still getting use to starseeds and death. He did not, however, believe that it would become easier for him. Taking a life was taking a life, and the only consolation was that every person that dropped to the dirt before him would not die in vain but used to improve the future. He also didn’t like being in places that he was warned not to go, but being with others also helped quell down any worry. There was protection in numbers, and he was glad to be with a group when walking in the place that he had often seen on the news and in the papers. Up close, it looked more like an abandoned lot with junk and trash about the place. It had a haunted feeling, and he brought himself a bit closer to his teammates.
Aside from wondering about ghosts, it was a mild night out, and he looked about, enjoying the simple walk. It was nice to be someplace no one else went. Out of the way and hopefully without senshi. When he was told that they had company, he expected a senshi, and moved in even closer behind the captain, peeking over when he saw the man lounging in the chair. He noticed the bundle of starseeds he was playing with, knowing it had to be recently since he killed, and so many! He had a hard time dealing with killing one person at a time. Worse yet, he noticed the bodies close by which always made him feel sick. The first thing he always wanted to do when taking a starseed was not see what he had done, but this man had no problem with taking his time. To him, it seemed, these bodies were just another piece of discarded trash.
Wolframite did not like this man, and he already wanted to start stepping back slowly, to grab hold to his Captain’s sleeve and pull them away with him. He instead watched, silent, obedient, and listening. This was the Wise Man they were told about? He seemed bizarre, strangely dressed, but with all the getups they had, he should be use to it. Zac, always confident, spoke after the Captain, excusing their presence. Wolframite was more concentrating on the bodies. Women…he hated men who picked on women. Joggers. As a fellow runner, he felt a sense of loyalty to them. How could he? What use did he have for starseeds?
Regardless of how he felt, he was here to train and under the orders of his Captain. She didn't seem bothered by this Wise Man, the starseeds, or the bodies, which only bothered him more. Still, he was being prompted to introduce himself, and stiffly, he emerged from behind his captain to stand firm. "Lieutenant Wolframite." He had few words to say to this man, and felt unsure of what else he could add. He knew he could not make any speech about whose life to take when he was doing the same thing. Instead, he remained polite through saying very little. If he left one thing go, he might say too much. "If it's okay with all of you, I don't mind staying." In short, he'd follow his team if they had no problem with the fact there were bodies about. He didn't even bury them. At least the Negaverse did that.
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Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 9:48 pm
Scheelite really -wasn't- interested. Horray, taking a trip up to an abandoned old school ground and...well do whatever they -were- going to do. Perhaps he should have paid more attention, but he always figured Zink could fill him in on anything important later. At least he had showed up on time, which was always the first test with the young blonde.
Despite ignoring just about everything up to this point, there was one thing he couldn't ignore, and that definitely wasn't the strange guy in the room they found themselves in. While this was of some interest, the majority of his attention lay on the fact that -someone- had their arm around Zink.
A girl, had her arm, around his boyfriend.
Clearing his throat in a rather noticeable way, Scheelite stepped up to Zink's other side and lay his own arm across the shorter boy's shoulders. His boyfriend. HIS.
"Lieutenant Scheelite, sup?"
His free hand moved to give a mock salute to the starseed holding gentleman. Scheelite was not polite, he wasn't suave, hell half the time he didn't even make sense. It was perhaps a very good thing he had managed to shut himself up and not continue on rambling. This was, after all, someone their general king had told them to avoid, and he wasn't looking forward to another meeting with Charonite to discuss his failures. Despite all this, there were still more pressing matters.
Such as why was their captain's arm STILL around his boyfriend.
"Sticking around sounds like a blast, so long as you're up for it cap! Zink-man too, cause where he goes I go."
Get your god damn hands off my boyfriend was the unspoken end to that statement.
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Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 9:43 am
When Linarite had instructed Paragonite of the plans for the evening, there was no argument, no second guessing what was going to happen. She had been handed instructions and she was to follow them. As the group had formed up to head out, she was more understanding of why Audrey had seemed excited to have another female on the team.
Prior to her arrival, Linarite had been the only girl.
As they'd walked down the way, she was not unlike a woman in the military, head on and with purpose. Though she silently was eying up her fellow Lieutenants. The most noticeable, of course, being the brightly coloured, and rather bored looking, Scheelite. Tall, lanky, and rather disinterested. Then there was Wolframite. He looked like a preteen, at least, which had shocked the young woman at first. He looked timid and reminded her of a scared wolf pup. Perhaps then, his name was more appropriate than not.
Then there was Zinkenite. She couldn't make much of the dark haired boy. He seemed the most level headed of the men, based on her brief observations.
The girl's thoughts were harshly interrupted when the rag-tag group came across the strange man. Captain Linarite seemed familiar with him, and Paragonite did not like the reference to Negatron. She'd never been a fan of Transformers on any level. Though, she was fond of Shakespeare on any other day.
Her eyes fell to the bodies scattered haphazardly about his feet. The woman's brow furrowed for a moment, contemplating what had occurred. Death, for the most part, did not bother the woman, she was more familiar with it than she would have ever really cared to be, even before this stage of her life. That was neither here nor there, however, and she looked towards her Captain, and listened as Zink and the others spoke in turn.
"Lieutenant Paragonite," she gave half of a curtsy, her eyes never parting from the strange man's direction. She'd wait on Linarite before doing anything brash.
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Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 10:19 am
One of the joggers looked to be a college student with long black hair pulled up in a tight ponytail. That ponytail was slapped haphazardly across the face of another dead body, a woman in her twenties, maybe the young mother. It was hard to say. Behind them the radio played on: well, you wear low dresses, the sun comes shinin' through.
The man gathered the starseeds into his lap. "Charmed," he said, and doffed an imaginary hat and cut a sharp military salute without looking up. "Gentlemen -- Oz the Mighty. Oz the Magnificent. Oz the Phenomenal. Have you heard of the wonderful wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz? And he is a wonderful wizard," the starseeds rose into the air again, "if ever a wizard there was."
Barren Pines was washed in stillness. There was forgotten yellow police tape lying in the mud, but the people of Destiny City didn't need the warning not to go there, all but for a few brave college kids on dares and urb-ex enthusiasts looking for a morbid adventure. By the looks of it a few of them had found their adventure. It had ended in a heap with other bodies. There was a red-haired boy of maybe nineteen in an Urban Outfitters tee splattered with mud; unlike the others, his throat had been slashed.
Shake, rattle and roll, growled Big Joe Turner. Shake, rattle and roll. "So now we're all familiar," said the man, "what I'm thinking is you can go on your drills like the good little G.I. Joes you are and I can keep on sitting here listening to the radio like the good old lazy son of a b***h I am. Toodle-doo. Don't let me keep you. Just watching the sunset here, chaps."
The sun had long since gone down. Wiseman arranged the starseeds into a diamond-shape array with his hands like he was manipulating the display on a futuristic battleship. "Unless there's some kind of problem," he said.
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Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 8:54 pm
Pop culture references were painful. This was an ironic thought, coming from the princess of Warcraft jargon, who could spout an unintelligible sentence in perfect English. Apparently, Wiseman had the same gift. Thankfully, she'd understood this one, but the future didn't look so very promising. Also not promising was the fact that her arm was still around Zinkenite, though she was unaware of this danger at her back.
Eventually, her arm dropped and she considered his final words in the darkness. It wasn't likely he could see through the earth to the sun on the other side, but Linarite was slowly learning that you didn't discount anything. Especially insanity. Stepping up closer, she swung her weapon around to be held behind her back in both hands, a clear gesture of 'Hey now, we're all friends!'. "Not a problem, more of a curiosity. You say lazy, but you've got more seeds than I can pull in a night and I certainly can't do that. How d'you manage?" That was the captain for you, unable to walk away from an interesting situation where she might actually learn something.
Of course, she was still able to get out if he suddenly decided he wanted what was left of her seed, but close enough to converse in a friendly manner. Training could wait, this was far more interesting!
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Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2010 11:54 pm
Oh great, now he had the Wizard of Oz stuck in his head, and now wasn’t the time to be going ‘Because, because, because, because, beeccaaauuseee’, especially when he was trying to be serious. It seemed very few people around him were, and while he might be a downer, he wasn’t the reason for it. There were a great pile of bodies laying a few feet from them and everyone was just shooting the breeze like they were old friends who had crossed paths and were catching up. From what he heard, Wise Man wasn’t a friend. He was a something that hadn’t been clearly explained but had been said that he was not to be messed with, along with a Black Lady that he didn’t see. He wondered if Wise Man grew bored and one of the ladies lying at his feet was the Lady that had been mentioned.
Wise Man. What a name. Who just flat out stated they were wise? Sounded full of himself, that’s what Wolframite thought.
Standing still, he watched his Captain easily show she meant no harm, and start asking for tips on how to collect starseeds. Tips? Their captain, the woman who was training them and they were aspiring to be, was asking tips of some guy who was just grabbing people at random to kill? That didn’t seem right. Didn’t the Negaverse have a better image than that? He thought so. They had a General-King, a Queen, and they were working for a better Kingdom. Getting advice from a wizard, as far as he had learned, was never a good idea.
While just being around this man caused him to break in gooseflesh, making him glad he had long sleeves, he still fought through the pull to step away and moved forward. The closer he got, the more he felt he was nearing a red zone, a place you did not cross unless you valued your neck. He’d have to phrase his words carefully. “Yes, you seem to be rather busy.” He glanced at the bodies to make a point. “Since I haven’t heard much talk on the news about piles of bodies just showing up, I’m guessing you clean up after yourself rather well.” He hoped. If this man intended to just leave these corpses here to bring around a lot of attention and create a bigger mess of things than something had to be done about it. Worse yet, Wolframite could swear he saw a stroller, and he nearly felt like storming away.
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Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 8:35 am
"I have, no issues what so ever with staying to train..." Zinkenite answered shifting with some unease of his own, though it was more due to feeling as though he were about to be the rope in a game of tug-o-war than the bodies. Not that he didn't look at them, the stroller being a particularly obvious eye catcher, though he wondered if it was meant to be one, intended to disturb.
He made a small thoughtful humm about it before he caught himself and cleared his throat re-diverting his attention to Wiseman.
"Though I have no objection either to learning to increase our efficiency either, Sir..."
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Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 9:52 am
"The sunset...?"
True to his civilian form, there were times Scheelite just couldn't make himself shut up. Even if it was a situation in which fewer words would lead to a better scenario.
"You're a bit late on that...don't ya think? Sun's been gone for hours."
He shrugged, the answer not really important. But his point had been made, and that was enough for him.
Scheelite stepped away from Zinkenite, venturing only just enough to glance at the corpses. Unlike the others, Schee hardly seemed bothered by the included stroller. Perhaps he thought it was just a prop, or perhaps it was because he too had stolen a child's starseed. At the very least, his victim hadn't been young enough to require a stroller, but it was still pretty far up there on the scale of wrong.
No matter.
Feeling a bit uneasy, he quickly made his way back to Zinkenite and took up position beside him. Zink was his, and while it was Lina's responsibility to protect the entire team, Schee considered it his responsibility to protect Zink. Even though at the moment he really didn't know just what he should protect him from.
Unfortunately for Zink, Scheelite had also taken up humming tunes from The Wizard of Oz. The shorter lieutenant could thank the mysterious wizard for that.
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Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 10:18 am
Clearly, this man was not altogether of sound mind, Paragonite mused to herself. His ramblings were reminiscent of listening to a man plagued by voices. What was that called? Schiz... schizo... oh whatever. It didn't really matter. He wasn't terribly interested in them, and to quite frank, she wasn't terribly interested in him either.
With Linarite's gracious gesture of (at least a) temporary alliance, there was little room to argue the desire to leave the area and let the crazy man be. As Zink made motion for the continuation of training, she almost spoke to second his thought, but abruptly kept her tongue bit as he spoke of increasing efficiency. Paragonite, like Wolframite, had no interest in continued conversations with this man, albeit for very different reasons.
Unlike Wolframite, she simply had no desire to listen to the ravings of a lunatic. As the blond boy started to hum, Paragonite simply pulled out her baton and twirled it idly at her side. It was a non threatening motion, simply a means to entertain herself briefly while the future of this evenings events were debated.
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Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 1:54 pm
Wiseman crossed his legs, interlaced his fingers behind his head and leaned back more like he was in a lawnchair by the side of a pool. The starseeds in his lap shifted. A couple spilled onto the armchair. His eyes fixed on Wolframite, then Linarite and Zinkenite, then the sky -- though he'd taken up smiling since Scheelite had started to hum. "Could do, could do," he said. "Good things come to to those who wait, compadres. Let's take this in order, shall we?"
With the glow gone from his eyes, he looked much more like a normal man, of average stature and no visible weaponry. Whatever Charonite had warned them about, it only fanned out in the bodies at his feet and the starseeds dripping all over his lap like Mardi Gras beads. God only knew how the General-King would take this report.
The wizard frowned and tapped one of his feet on the ottoman. "Seems to me like you kids want to play Q&A," he said. "You're presently doing it by trying to flatter me about how many starseeds I've taken at once, which sure is sweet and sure does make a girl feel special, let me tell you, but isn't really the subtlest tack to take, skipper. If you're still here, and not teleporting a**-over-teakettle the hell away from here, I reckon you want to learn more about what I can do and what I'm after. And if that's what you want," he gave a lazy nod, "I reckon you're better off just straight-up asking me than trying to be clever, which, let's be frank," another feline grin, "ain't really you boys' strong suit, is it?"
In the silence after that set of remarks he yawned and fanned the air with one of his hands. They were both wrapped up in bandages. "Am I right, Lieutenant Wolframite?"
Apparently he had been listening.
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Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:56 pm
For someone with the name of Wise Man, stroking his ego seemed to be the best way to go about getting answers. It seemed they were wrong, and the wizard wasn’t having it. While he seemed to enjoy the fact they were all being very polite to him, he just turned about and decided that he wasn’t very happy with having them dance around the subject. Fine then. While the Lieutenant was still very aware of the bodies, and the prickling chill that came at having been directly addressed, he still wasn’t going to prance around when he was being offered a chance to be blunt.
While most would give a cocky grin, he could only give a small frown. If Wise Man wanted to be serious and to the point, he'd be serious and to the point. “I was looking at it as being more polite than clever.” If he had said yes, he more or less said that his group wasn’t clever, and calling his team dumb wasn’t about to get him any friends. Then again, if he said anything to upset Wise Man that might put the entire group in danger, he was sure no one would want to talk to them, if they were still alive.
“Alright, to the point. You have a lot of dead bodies about and a lot of starseeds. You must have gotten them all in one go or rather recently, and judging by the people at your feet…” A child. He murdered a child. How could he?! “….you really don’t care who you go after. What would you want with starseeds in the first place? I don’t know about the rest of my group, who might know more than I do, but I thought we were the only ones going after them. Seeing as we’re after the same source of energy, I hope you are at least cleaning up after yourself. I don’t think we all need to have the sort of attention from the cops that comes from finding a huge pile of bodies out in the open killed by mysterious conditions. Well…mostly mysterious…” He looked at the dead man with the slit throat.
He crossed his arms about his chest, both to keep himself from shivering and to show he didn’t really approve of the lounging wizard. He might be a Lieutenant and still not as informed as most people, but that didn’t mean he was going to be impressed by a man who had a lot of starseeds when most of them were probably from helpless victims like babies or toddlers. If he wanted a starseed, he wasn’t about to go raid a nursery for them.
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