|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 9:48 pm
"Ugh," Zia groaned and turned her head as both hands tried to push back the head of a youma with snapping jaws coming a little too close to her face, reflecting on how she kept getting into these situations.
Oh, right, idiot with no powers fighting monsters. That was it.
Either way, Zia was pinned and trying to figure out a way to get unpinned without any more gashes, and especially not without any gashes to her face. There was some tumbling, some struggling, until it threw her down near a refuse pile that included some lovely broken glass. Gripping it hard enough to cut her fingers, she rammed it into it's skull, causing immediate dusting. In her face.
"Oh... gross," She coughed, stumbling to her feet and brushing herself off, no worse for the wear except for a nasty coating of youma dust and a few scratches on her arms, hands and finger tips. And Chris' baseball bat had been dropped somewhere in the chase. Whoops.
Though with the sudden absences of snarling and growling, she did become acutely aware of footsteps. Hurried ones. And while earlier in the night when she thought she might've just been paranoid, she wasn't so sure now. Her eyes narrowed at the entrance to the alleyway and she deliberately called out with an implied threat in her voice. "Are you following me?"
Whoever it was had better hope they had a very useful powerset or weapon, because she was ready to kick their a**.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 5:58 pm
After the night Pascal had to lug the injured Zia home with him after being battered, stabbed and bruised by what he could only imagine was a hoard of angry porcupine youma: He started following her. Yes, creeping in the dark behind her every turn she went. He imagined he was doing it with the best intentions, ready to step in when she needed it but he had still made use to be extra quiet because last time they had met under such circumstances she tried to break his nose.
He messed up. He hadn't expected her to dust the youma when she did and he'd been caught. He considered simply not saying anything and slowly backing away from the alley but he wasn't a coward. He used to be pretty keen on the running away from monsters when he'd been kidnapped to space but the year had hardened him to the idea. He slowly made himself visible, hands up in a very innocent manner. He was trying to make himself look as nonthreatening as a 6'1" DMS could possibly be to Zia.
Maybe he shouldn't admit to actually following her.
"Not necessarily. I was just in the area... I like what you did with that youma there, you do that often I see..." He replied, mentally begging Zia not to throw another punch at him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:33 pm
If it had been most any one else Zia might've bought that 'not following you' s**t. But not this guy. She was out of breath from the tumbling she did with the youma, and was without her coat, or bat, but that didn't mean she wasn't totally weighing the odds of killing him if she moved fast.
Though, that was probably obvious from the narrowed eyes and look of unadulterated hatred.
"What is your ******** deal?" She ended up deciding it might be better to try talking. She talked her way into making him exit their last encounter. Though she doubted going the crying victim route was going to get her very far at this point. She'd just stabbed a youma in the face. With glass. And she was pretty much ignoring the cuts on her fingers because what was a few lacerations when there was your worst enemy looking you right in the face?
Well, worst enemy was giving him too much credit. Ares was her worst enemy, but she saw these senshi as extensions of her. Just barely a step above youma.
That being said, she didn't have punching on her mind, if the way she was twirling the glass shard in her bleeding fingers was any indication. "I've been avoiding you assholes, very successfully, for over a year, and all of the sudden three encounters in a month. Two of them you. What the ******** is going on?" Paranoid? Yes. But in her opinion she had every right to be.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:47 pm
Well, it hadn't been as bad as he'd imagined in his head. He remained cautious, keeping himself at a distance mostly for her comfort than his. It was her problem with him that was the cause of this issue not the other way around. He had no problems having dirty sex right here in his alley but she'd probably not appreciate that very much, especially given she didn't seem to recognize him. It must have been the glamour Ares had spoken about previously. Score 357 for Ares, just another reason for him to be pissed.
"Deal? I am just concerned, truly..." Not that she'd believe something like that, she probably thought he was here as Ares' dog, specially out to eat or retrieve her dear guardian cat. Well, if anyone ever wanted to see Orpheus s**t his pants and have a heart attack all in one then simply tell him that Zia was actually that cat he met in space that one time before Ares came and ruined his life, and then tell him that cat was Ares' cat or something.
Sure, great idea.
His eyes fell on Zia's body, finding the injuries with haste. She was always hurting herself and never even giving herself enough time to heal. He didn't even dare think about how many injuries she had that weren't accounted for. Although, it would have been mighty hard for her to hide injuries on a good day, but Pascal learned quickly in life that people lied and Zia was no different. Not that it was a big deal considering his entire life was a lie.
"What do you mean?" He asked, his tone changing very quickly. "WHO WAS IT?" Okay, very protective tone coming out here. It was becoming very clear that Orpheus wasn't having any of this. "DID THEY HURT YOU?" Mentally Orpheus was running names through his head, thinking about who she could have met. Most of them were weak pieces of s**t but he didn't like the idea of people playing in his sandbox. If someone even dared to use her for energy gathering he was going to ******** kill someone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:08 pm
Zia put the hand that wasn't playing with a potential stabbing tool on one hip, but her eyes never left him for a second, practically daring him to come within arms reach. Then she could personally demonstrate how much she believed he 'cared'.
She quirked an eyebrow at his freak out, though it did go a small ways to assure her there was no 'Ares knows where you are' conspiracy afoot. A small ways, not entirely. Subterfuge was tricky.
"I don't know her name," She scoffed. "Bitchy, though. Like, serious know-it-all for being a total idiot. Red hair, freckles, cowboy boots, yellow fuku accents? Not all that informed on what your little family's up to, are you?" There was a weird accusation in there, somewhere. Maybe it was his incompetency, or maybe the fact he was part of that 'family' in the first place.
Either way, Zia's disgust with his very existence was endless.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:11 pm
The description hit a bell for Orpheus. He knew exactly who it was because she had been one of the civilians who had been kidnapped as well. She had been one of those poor, fortunate people who'd been forced into Ares' clutch and pushed through mirrors like he was. She didn't see it the same way as him though, at least not as far as Orpheus knew. Sailor Navi, right? He was going to remember this, rather spitefully.
"I have no family," he growled. "Ares made sure of that."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:23 pm
Zia tried not to look too interested, trying to keep in mind this could easily all be a trick. "Careful, buddy, Mirror Whore Number One is the source of your power now that she's gone and killed you. Or your connection to you." She tried to needle out her theories and her facts and just ended up in a confusing word circle.
Though after a long, sidelong stare during which her cut fingers started stinging and her bare arms got cold and she grew sick of being so on guard, she turned it down just half a notch. Maybe...
"Okay, fine, buddy, what is your deal? Are you even like, capable of not being all over Ares' a**? Because, no offense, you all seem like creepy dolls after you go through that magic mirror and get your very own parasite." Actually offense was totally intended, but who's nitpicking?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:54 am
To be honest Orpheus didn't understand a lick of what Zia was saying about the whole source of power thing because he really didn't care. It was nice to have more power but the man who was under this facade felt more than confident with his power. Not to say she wouldn't like more and didn't work hard to gain more but if she was the source of this power then he was more than willing to cut her and it. It seemed unlikely it was that easy though, or he'd have done it already.
"My deal?" He groaned. He'd hate to admit that Ares had a nice a** but he was still a man and that a** had never technically wronged him, just her in general. There was no way he'd ever want that a** because it was disgusting but it was a nice a**. Her words left Orpheus with several train of thoughts, leading with Ares' nice and horrid a** and ending with Remarque's puppetry. Neither of them were the point of this though, and he crossed them off rather quickly.
"Try having everything you've ever worked for in your entire life stolen from you, on top of losing your life and even your family. Now imagine how much hate you'd have for the one who did it to you. Now imagine that you've been festering on these emotions for over a year. Now picture the person who did it to you as Ares. Get the picture? I'm not all over her a**, and given the choice I wouldn't even acknowledge her existence." And that was the choice he made. He'd sworn off the DMC, begun starting his life over again and even Orpheus but then Zia had to come into his life and go out and throw herself in front of every ******** youma in the city.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 8:48 pm
Zia quirked one eyebrow and stared him down, wheels clearly turning, but which direction was a total mystery. Civilian Zia and this one were clearly different. Around Pascal, Zia was socially awkward, kind of fumbling through life and not know what the hell she was doing.
Here in the alleyway, surrounded by the remnants of dead monsters and the smell of blood in the air? She looked disturbingly at home, and was staring him down like an animal faced with prey. This was Zia after the trials of her once precious and now hated Blood Moon, and when there was no one from her civilian life to hide it from, she was fine being a savage. Conducting civilian life was a puzzle, but at war, she was in her comfort zone. So much that one corner of her mouth twitched up in in her familiar, amused but crooked smile.
"Oh please. You've only existed for a year. You didn't work for anything. You were put into that body, you stole it's memories, it's power, and you killed the boy that was already occupying it."
This was the conclusion she'd come to. Her own experiences with parallel fusion supported it, though she felt it was impossible to confirm unless she could get a negaverser to rip her a pretty little DMC senshi starseed to experiment on. "Unless, there are two of you in there?" It was clear from her tone she was skeptic it was true.
And with no warning, she closed the distance between them and shoved him into the alleyway wall and leaned into his face with a smirk that was either manic or entirely cruel in the sadism she found in getting to share what he was with him.
"You have no idea what a little piece of decay you are on the side of an empire, do you? What the <********> would you know about loss when you don't even know your own history?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:50 pm
To him, Zia still looked like Zia but it was kind of hard to imagine someone as intimidating when you heard them squeal in bed. She could watch him like a wolf and push him around like a wild cat but in the end all he thought about was some really feisty foreplay. He imagined if he tried anything now he'd really regret it later, even if this was the sort of thing he'd be interested exploring with her.
"You speak as if you know everything but you don't. You don't know half of anything you really want to know, I can see it in your eyes. You say I've only existed for a year, and maybe that's right or maybe that's just your implications on the subject leaking through, but I'll tell you one thing: Everything I believe, everything you claim to have been stolen I remember as if it was real which makes it real to me. This means that regardless of your opinion on this subject I lost my family, I lost my friends, I lost everything I ever worked my entire life for. I know my history, I know what I lost and I know what sort of sick ironic joke the world thinks it is playing by making me a senshi in the first place." He said all of this as if Zia hadn't shoved him against the wall, as if they'd just been sitting there casually. It wasn't very often he got to talk about what had happened to him, but it was sort of nice to get it off his chest.
"You have no idea who I am, what I care about or how I feel about anything so get off your high horse and quit acting like you do. You want to hate me because I am a senshi? Fine, I certainly do. You want to hate me because some b***h pushed me through a mirror and changed my entire life without my permission? Sure, go for it but don't go talking about what I do or what I lost when you know nothing about it." He said this, pushing Zia back to inform her that all along he could have simply left.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 11:58 am
Zia laughed, and let him push her with loose enough body language to convey her total lack of urgency and concern. Then again, she still had that glass shard in her fingers, but even still she had no idea how dangerous his sphere was. It was like a weird chess game trying to calculate moves ahead of time and she looked like she was taking way too much pleasure in it.
"Oh, please, this isn't seriously a 'no one can understand my pain' speech, is it? Christ, kid, you just have no idea, do you." They actually had emotions? Too much. "You're like a living cliche, it's ******** hilarious. It's okay, I am too, but if you're going to cry about your parents and whatever inconsequential accomplishments you managed to build in... Geez, how old are you anyway? Either way. If you had the slightest clue how much you really did lose, everything you 'ever worked for' would be way down the list."
She leaned back and flippantly waved the hand holding her makeshift weapon in a casual tick one might demonstrate with a pen in a boring conversation. "I don't hate you. I just think you're a disgusting abomination of the natural order and should be exterminated. In the interest of universal integrity." And her pride.
"Your 'court'? It's been around for a little over a year. You're just the latest paragraph in a novel And this bullshit goes so much deeper than the both of us."
Something shifted, somewhere, in an impossible to pinpoint place in her speech. The tone of her threat was closer a placated offer of education. But it was still a threat. Hating Ares caught her interest, but full knowledge of how manipulative the mirror b***h could be kept her guard up. She would not be trusting enough to be toyed with, or that was what she was telling herself.
She did fish a carton of cigarettes from her pocket, and went through the deft motions of extracting one one-handed, biting down on the end while she went about getting the lighter. She didn't seem terribly inconvenienced, but it made it clear she had no intention of dropping something she was still debating stabbing him with. And it affected her speech patterns.
"Hate to break it to you, baby, but you're just a dead puppy in a planetary nuclear holocaust. Well. We both are. But it's alright. If history is any indication, we'll all be killed soonish. You, me, and everyone else that b***h touched."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 12:16 pm
"I can't lose something if I don't care I lost it," he said simply.
It was ironic, because as much as Pascal actually despised his parents, losing them without any say in the matter had actually affected him quite deeply. He liked to be in control and not having a say in goodbye was annoying. It was hard to miss them when he never seen them much in the first place but it would have been nice to finally leave them on his own accord. Everything about this situation was annoying though, even Zia. Typically he didn't mind her but when she wouldn't shut up like she was the Queen of the Universe and knew every bloody thing he didn't care jack s**t about... well, do you know how hard it was to resist punching them? VERY HARD.
He knew the situation was different for her though. She didn't see him as Pascal because he was under the blasted veil of Sailor Orpheus and she'd already proven she had no problem punching him in the face.
"Whatever, I'm a dead puppy. I never liked puppies to begin with so I guess it suits how I already feel."
It was getting to the point where he was actually starting to ignore her. Maybe he should just go. The youma was gone, she wasn't in any real danger now so there was no need for him to stand here and put up with this bullshit.
"Well, you're not in any danger now so why don't I just leave and solve a lot of problems right now?" It was formed like a question but it definitely wasn't asking as he began to walking away while she was still talking to him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:58 pm
While Sailor Orpheus' past experience made him perfectly liable to stop caring, Zia's told her something entirely different. Zirconia was an interrogator, a war tactician. The Blood Moon Court did not help the mentality. And when you dangled bait in front of someone in the information game and they were uninterested, to her that screamed he already knew.
And in her paranoia, that confirmed her initial thought. This was a trick. This was Ares' handiwork.
Very little came through on her features, but the wheels were turning again.
And in one deft movement she had her belt around his neck like a garrote. "Actually," She crooned in a low voice and tightened the strangle and pulled, bending him backwards so his head was closer to her level and pressed her nose pressed against the side of his head. "You and I have a big problem."
She kicked the back of his knees to make him buckle and shoved him down, jerking one arm in an l-lock she pinned into his back with a knee while both of her hands gripped the belt like a leash. That would crush his windpipe if he pulled on it too hard. Zia liked control too, especially when she thought Ares was threatening to tear down her life just as she was starting to rebuild it all over again.
"What the ******** is going on? None of you guys haven't taken that bait before," She snarled, hazel eyes darting to keep a bead on his arms. She still didn't know his sphere or his magic. Sure, he was just a basic level senshi, and wasn't as hardened by chaotic power as a captain or even some lieutenants. But she had no strength boosts of her own. Her only hope of keeping this upper hand was keeping him incapacitated. She considered pounding the free hand with her heel, but didn't want to shift her center of weight.
"Stop trying to ******** with me. Does Ares know where I am?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:49 pm
Big problem should have been the hint. It wasn't.
Sailor Orpheus had realized his mistake the second he felt the belt on his neck, a second too late. At this point he didn't squirm or move, allowing her to push him around like a doll to prevent any as much injury to himself. It almost felt like he was a child again being thrown around by his father and that was ironic in a sense considering she insisted he had no father and had just stolen memories. He could almost not recognize Zia like this and because of what he knew of her as Pascal he had alluded himself to the idea that Zia wouldn't attack him, especially not if he was leaving but he had been wrong.
He didn't quite understand why she was so threatened by his appearance but not Pascal but he had a good hint that it was something to do with Ares and her throwing people through mirrors. It was worrisome and he hoped that she wouldn't take it any further but the world was pretty sadistic when it came to him, proven once again when he realized the very l-lock she'd put him in had been one he'd taught her.
"Who am I to question things?" He groaned rather unpleasantly as he gasped under the weight of the belt. "Kidnapped to space, pushed through a mirror that makes my life suck more than it typically should, and monsters everywhere seem to be every day things now. Why not add to the list? Why not make my life suck more? The world sure loves it." He was rambling now but for ******** sakes Zia, if you wanted to be kinky then wait until they were in the bedroom!
Making light of the situation mentally, Sailor Orpheus frowned as he looked down at the ground. It was probably suspicious that he hadn't tried to get away even once, maybe even worrisome because she had no idea just how powerful of a sphere he could have or what his real game plan was but to him he simply didn't care anymore. He was at the end of his rope with this bullshit.
"Why would Ares care where you are, Zia?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 9:12 pm
"Stop it," Zia snarled, leaning down so she was closer to his face, even if he couldn't look at her. "I've killed so many people, people a lot younger and more innocent than your emo a**. You think I won't kill you too? Or is that what you want because all this bitching is practically daring me t--" He asked why Ares would care.
And he said her name.
And she froze, and then smashed his head into the ground as hard as she could punch the back of his skull.
"STOP ******** WITH ME!" She screeched, but she wasn't the cool and calm, if slightly offended by his existence, interrogator who took him down anymore. That hitch in volume was clearly motivated by bone shaking fear. There was a reprieve where she didn't say anything, trying to get the shaking out of her voice, during which the belt tightened and was loosened slightly when she realized she was getting dangerously close to killing him and that wouldn't be smart at this point.
"How long have you been following me?" She asked, a shake still prominent in her voice and she gave his hair a jerk just to remind herself she was still in control, and to get a grip. "What do you know? Who do you know?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
