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 Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 11:41 am
The duties of a General didn't actually contain energy collection, Ilmenite thought -- unless, of course, you counted collecting energy from lower-ranking officers, pocket to pocket and taking the credit for their work. Likely he should have been collecting starseeds, instead, or hunting down problem senshi to take them out before they could take out his own teammates. Likely he should have been gathering information about his foes, searching out BMC members to ******** with more than just spray paint and t-shirts, should have been doing something...
But Ilmenite liked energy collection. And more than that, he was good at it. In the clubs, especially some of the weirder ones, his coat and hat didn't stand out too terribly, he could mesh with the punk kids or the fetish crowd or even just military fashion, could get a drink at the bar, and leave a good portion of the club-goers slumped over their tables until bouncers came to clean up.
He left through the back door, tonight, still munching on a handful of bar peanuts, and paused for just a moment to stare down the line of people waiting, fighting with the bouncers, desperate to get in, and at least restrained himself a little. He didn't drain the girls waiting up front in their short skirts and legs bared against the winter night's cold, nor the douchey looking guys with their sunglasses on at night. He just waved and kept going, a bright point of energy moving absently toward the fire escape.
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 2:32 pm
It was a curious place, downtown. It was filled with some of the most peculiar and unstable humans in Destiny City, some of whom were the scum of the night life. Well, other-worldly beings aside, of course. As a human, Kaia Delaney had never understood the appeal of such dark, musty places where the whole point was to get inebriated and grind mindlessly on other lonely bodies.
As an ascendant, it made no sense at all.
What had drawn the general to the scene in the first place was the curiosity over a high-ranking officer inside. She had a number of guesses over who it could be, who might enjoy such a scene, and when Ilmenite finally walked through the door she was utterly unsurprised. Her lips pursed into a satisfied smirk at the site of him bobbing along unnoticed in his uniform. She would never have been able to manage such an easy camouflage among a crowd, no matter the size.
She watched in silence as he turned to the crowd and then left, heading towards the fire escape. She didn't move to greet him, she just waited and listened to each tell-tale twang of boots on metal. When his capped head appeared over the edge of the building she finally turned, cape billowing behind her in the cold, winter wind.
"That's quite clever." One cracked hand waved at the club below on the street and her eyes swiveled back to stare at the milling crowd, entering the door one at a time at spaced intervals. "I bet they never even notice a difference."
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2012 1:27 pm
There was no shock at the sound of her voice, at least; he'd felt her there, certainly, even if he hadn't noticed her watching, if he hadn't caught on to the energy until he'd stepped out into fresh air and left the bass beat behind. Ilmenite blinked once, and his only surprise was who it was, exactly. Any other General would have surprised him less, Wolfy perhaps being at the top of his list.
"...ah." He'd only even seen Alkaid a few times. He didn't think he'd ever spoken to her, had only bumped into her when they were both surrounded by other officers. Now he found himself uncertain if he should take his hat off to greet her -- certainly his father's lingering influence.
Instead he just hopped up onto the roof and rolled out his shoulders, digging up a smile. "How long have you been up here? And watching me? That's a little creepy, General."
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Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 7:44 pm
"Creepy, hm?" She cut her bright eyes sideways and glanced at him with a smirk, the cracks in her face shifting with the expression as if it were simply for emphasis.
Alkaid did few things that weren't creepy by default.
"I haven't been here that long, but then, time feels a little differently when you find yourself with much more of it on your hands." She stepped away from the ledge of the building and turned to face Ilmenite instead, losing interest in the monotonous mill of the crowd below. Her smirk had faded back to a calm, with the tiniest hint of curiosity lingering in her eyes.
"I was just simply interested in your.. methods. Call it a study."
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Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2012 8:32 pm
"I doubt my methods are the best example." She turned, and he immediately shivered in reaction. Ilmenite, wrapped in layers upon layers, turtleneck and heavy coat, high boots and thick pants -- winter was his season. In fact, he dreaded the return of summer and the dry heat, invading all that clothing. In contrast, though, Alkaid barely seemed to be wearing enough to cover herself, and that sheer cloak oddly made it worse, instead of better...
He shoved his hands into his pockets and drew battered leather tighter around himself, flicking a look back over the edges.
"I mean. This is kind of ******** around..." He realized how bad that sounded as soon as it was out of his mouth, but by then it was too late. Oh well, at least Alkaid seemed to have a sense of humor. He flashed a brief smile.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2012 2:54 pm
She brought her arms up slowly over her chest, tapping her fingers lightly against the opposite upper arm upon which they perched. Cold or warm really didn't matter much to the porcelain doll general. She still felt it, but minimally, as her nerve endings were another thing entirely from those of a human. The motion was less about protecting herself from the cold and more about mimicking what a normal person would do against it.
"But it's effective," she insisted, suddenly amused at his language. Her own smile turned up the corners of her lips minimally, though it made her look more mischievous than kind.
"Whether or not you're just.. screwing around," she put a pause for emphasis, to note that she had not, in fact, missed his wording, "it's still more thought than most of the soldiers put into gathering energy. If more of them had half of the forethought you just showed, our supplies would increase dramatically." The smile on her lips faded more and more as she spoke, suggesting that she had to make a conscious effort to keep it in place and it was lost in favor of thought.
She dropped her arms from across her chest and strode to the opposite side of the building from where she had been observing the club crowd, peering out into the endless stretch of buildings and streets visible from the rooftop. Energy gathering was just a duty to most soldiers but Alkaid had come to find new importance in it recently.
"As long as we get the job done, why bother with the specifics of how?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 1:21 pm
"You, uh." He blinked at her, relieved by the smile, relaxing by notches as he caught sight of it. Her expression helped, as did the words: brought importance to something Ilmenite had started to take for granted. It was easier for him than fighting, and easier than teaching, and easier than leading others. It had become hard for him to think about it as anything other than the least he could do.
Never occurred to him that he was actually doing well. He had, after all, just been screwing around.
"You collect energy? It's embarrassing, but I have to admit, I don't actually have a damned clue what you do, other than intimidate most of the officers." Hopefully she'd take that last, offered with another flash of a smile before he looked off the building, as a compliment.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:07 pm
She laughed, very slightly, under her breath at his compliment and let her shoulders roll in a very small shrug.
"To be quite honest, General, I'm still not quite sure what I do. They made a place for me among the ranks but not exactly a place for me otherwise, if that makes sense." She glanced back at him briefly over her shoulder, where she stood facing the edge of the building, and then back out at it again.
"I collect energy because it's the only thing that keeps me alive. If I stopped, or if the Negaverse stopped, I would.. whither." It was a truth that, before that moment, she had only shared aloud with Hematite. Metallia had to know, Tanzanite had to know, and yet it was something she'd had to realize on her own and accept.
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:31 am
It took a moment for that to click into place; 'wither' felt like a strange word, for Ilmenite, unless she needed the energy herself. Unless she ate it or something. His expression was wrinkled as he placed that together, slowly sagging to perch on the lip of the building, coat pulled in close around him.
She'd see it when the light came on: energy sustained her? Well. Fingers dipped into his pockets, fumbling just a little, and his hand emerged with a pearl of energy rolling across his palm, not quite slipping out of his grasp. He tossed it her way somewhat carelessly, with the assumption that she'd catch it. These days, even he could make a catch.
"Well. I'm not about to stop. So have at."
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:43 am
Alkaid's hands reacted before she even had time to process the motion, reaching out to snatch the pearl of energy from the air as it was tossed her way. It was instinct to grab something tossed at one's person - especially something so very, very precious.
She relaxed and rolled the little ball through her fingers, studying it carefully. It had once meant nothing to her, the energy that the Negaverse collected, and she had only known of it in passing. But now it was everything, it meant everything.
"Thank you," she said quietly, a curious look crossing over her normally too-blank face. It wasn't that she couldn't get the energy on her own, because she'd been given that power, but few besides Hematite openly showed her the kindness of giving her the very thing that sustained life. Just before she parted her lips and swallowed the pearl, there was a faint smile at the corners.
Then the energy was flooding through her tortured body, setting fire beneath the cracks of her skin as it melted with the dark current already flowing within her. For a few brief seconds her skin was alight with the energy, glowing through the spiderweb of fissures in her flesh, until it eventually ebbed and faded.
She crossed the rooftop to sink down onto the ledge next to him, hands braced on either side of her body against the rough stone. Her long fingers curled, holding onto lip and she leaned back just enough that she could stare at the stars - or perhaps only one.
"Everything has a price, you know. Sometimes you don't understand what that price is until it's time to pay."
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:40 pm
"Cryptic, but I think I disagree; if you take a minute to think, you can usually figure out, at least to some degree, what the price will be." He tipped his head to raise an eyebrow at her, fingers patting along the front of his coat: this time searching not for energy, but for the battered pack of cigarettes he was sure still had a couple lingering in it, that hadn't gone entirely empty yet.
He found it, not in his coat but in his pants, and pried it out. One of the cigarettes was broken, and he huffed out a sigh, tugging free a whole one instead. He needed to be more careful with his packs.
"It's just a matter of if you take the minute." Ilmenite absently settled the cigarette between his lips, one hand raised dismissively, and spoke around it as he went lighter hunting. "I suck at that."
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Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:16 pm
She laughed, very softly, at his disagreement and watched as he fumbled around in multiple pockets of his uniform. When he finally revealed what he was after, she wasn't even surprised. She remembered the display with the smoke youma in the rift - it had been hard to miss. That was one of the few things that Alkaid knew about Ilmenite at all, simply that he had a very.. unlucky vice.
"I think you could take all the time in the world sometimes, but if the deal you strike is with something beyond your understanding, it won't matter."
She uncurled one hand from the edge of her makeshift seat then and held it out, palm up, so that the tiny cracks could be looked at and inspected. "Never in a million years would I have guessed, never. But perhaps someone else will after my example, the next senshi that she claims." She pursed her lips as she traced her eyes over her own flesh, flexing her fingers and watching as it made the web of cracks dance.
"The cauldron help them if they try to say no, though."
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Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:46 pm
Ilmenite found his lighter, started to bring it up to the cigarette -- and then paused. A bit rude of him, that. Not in that he hadn't asked if she'd minded first, no, because they were outside, and she was only halfway human anymore anyway, but because he hadn't shared. He did that now, not quite lighting up. Instead he held the battered pack out toward her in offering, shaking it so that the very end of one of the remaining cigarettes poked out.
"Can you go human, still?" The words still came out a little crooked, the cigarette in his mouth bobbing absently as he spoke. After a fumbling moment, he snatched it out of his mouth with his free hand, juggling it and the lighter between his fingers. "You know, do human things. Get dinner, or smashed. See a movie..."
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 5:20 pm
She leaned forward a little as he held the pack out to her and shook, mostly out of curiosity, but then simply shook her head at him. It hadn't been a habit she had ever indulged in as a human and as something not quite so anymore, it seemed.. pointless.
"Yes," she shifted on the ledge beside him, though the simple answer had a hesitance that implied it was not as easy as a black and white answer. After a moment of consideration she figured she might as well explain. Everyone had to wonder, on some level, what a broken china doll could do.
"I get a glamour," she waved a hand at herself, "but it feels like.. saran wrap or something, covering my entire body. I feel less, my senses get all muted." She made a face at the idea, pursing her lips a little as she recalled the sensation. "I can eat but there's no necessity to make me want to. My body doesn't want it anymore, if that makes any sense."
Then a small laugh passed her lips and she glanced up at the sky, amused with her own thoughts. "As for getting smashed, I never did. I don't think it would even work now. My body just turns everything into energy."
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:34 am
He thought about that, tucking the pack away and finally lighting the end of his own cigarette. Ilmenite smoked -- smoked too much. Smoked enough that Zink's concern was probably well-founded, enough that these days it was his primary expense. It had gotten worse since he started having spare change, an income, and an increased ability to palm them off of collapsed victims.
He was approaching a pack a day, now. It was probably something he should put more thought into. Instead, though, he drew smoke into his lungs and dropped the lighter into his pocket, looking her over.
"Well, I think we should find out." Decisive. He raised his eyebrows, chin notched upward just a little to watch her down his nose. "If you don't want to wear your saran-wrap, I could go buy a forty and we could drink in the park, though our auras together might attracted unwanted attention."
He hissed out smoke, looking down off the roof, genuinely a bit surprised that no one had showed up on them yet. "I'd rather a bar. You want to?"
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