|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 3:33 pm
It had been ages since Zircon had powered up, but after a couple of sleepless nights and a round of thankless grading (seriously, where did these girls learn how to spell) the day-time teacher decided that the best way to blow off some steam would be to suit up and stalk her own hunting grounds in the hopes that it would calm her shaken nerves.
She started at the roof of her complex, focusing her thoughts before calling to Chaos. The crackle of dark energy coursing through her as she donned the guise of Zircon was like the first sip of morning coffee: jarring at first, but invigorating and soothing as her body finally adjusted to the shift. Testing her legs, she leapt to the roof of the complex beside her, landing with a slight stumble that caused her to curse under her breath. The next jump was better, and within minutes she was sprinting from building to building, allowing the adrenaline to get her heart pumping and her hair to get blown about by the brisk winter wind.
When she finally hit ground, it was in a Commercial District a couple of blocks away from the Destiny City Library. She knew better than to actually approach the library itself, but here in the alleys and darkest corners of the night she had learned her place in the Negaverse, crawled up from nothing to...well, she was still a Lieutenant, but so much of her experience as an officer had been on these streets.
It was comforting, to feel at home and on her own turf again. It was good to see that this, at least, still belonged to her.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 8:35 pm
Though she was near to Camelot's territory, it was not a knight that came into the area soon after she arrived. It was a Super Senshi, of the Dark variety, humming as he padded along.
He was in a good mood, after meeting with the knight and realizing that there was a chance he could find one of these magic bottles full of knight power, and he could become a Senshi Knight! Of course, he had made that conclusion, and there was no evidence of any of that being true. In reality, the bottle had been the knight's specific item, but there was no explaining Virtus out of his dreams.
His dreams kept him aiming for the stars.
Feeling another Chaotic aura nearby, Virtus ran for it. He was hoping that they would want to team up and patrol together! That was his new plan: he was a healer, and he could help others by keeping them safe, which meant he might not need to fight.
Which was good, because he was basically a pacifist!
"Hey!" He called, when he saw Zircon.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:49 pm
And here her night was going so smoothly, too.
Zircon's face darkened with a scowl the moment she registered a beacon of chaotic energy, which only grew as the signal began to speed in her direction. It was stronger than her own corruption, certainly, and normally that would be a sign to back down, but as it approached she noticed that it wasn't the same taste of Chaos she was used to. It was other-worldly, and some part of it felt wrong deep within her core.
The Mirror-Walking Senshi. At this realization, her eyes narrowed, and she bit her lip for lack of any particular profanity to yell. No, this was unacceptable: she was not going to allow some brat from outer space walk around on her turf like he owned it, not even if he was a Super. By the time Virtus came into view, Zircon was physically fuming, and out of reflex she reached into subspace to pull out her flimsy weapons. They weren't much of a threat, but it was at least an indication that she meant business.
"Hey?" She spat out the greeting, as if it were the most offensive of insults. "Son, do you know where you are right now?" Never mind that the senshi before her could easily be her age, nothing was condescending quite like making the opponent seem childish. While she waited for an answer, she began to step closer, giving him to the count of three before she attacked. It didn't matter if their leaders called them allies: he was on her turf, probably placed there by one of his higher-ups trying to undermine the power of the Negaverse, and tonight was not the sort of night where Zircon was going to let that slide.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 10:58 pm
Virtus was oblivious to so many things, and he was not sure why anyone would ever be mad at someone else before even meeting them. And there was never anyone that he had ever mad at, even after meeting them.
He certainly did not have the concept of turf. He was open to everyone, and he patrolled all over the place, actually just looking out to find others to patrol with, so the idea that someone would want to chase him off or wouldn't want him there did not enter his head.
He came to a stop and looked honestly confused by her question.
"I'm near the library! I'm sorry, are you lost? I can probably help you get to where ever it is you're going!" Because why else would she ask him where he was? He had a very bad habit of sounding like the cockiest, most sarcastic a** hole on the planet when, in reality, it was just honest concern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:10 pm
Oh hell no. He was not mocking her. There was no way in this senshi-infested universe that he was mocking her. The rhythmic clicks of her heels were now slightly faster as she continued her approach, a crumpled paper airplane in one fist.
"I don't know who sent you here," click, "Or what you think you're going to accomplish," click, "But I swear to God" click "If you don't get off of this street," click "there ain't a single mirror in this town that'll save you from the hurt I can dish."
Now he'd gone and done it. She was so angry the accent was slipping out. Zircon couldn't even remember the last time she'd actually used the word 'ain't'. Either way, she was too busy being driven into a rage over seemingly nothing to analyze her vernacular with any depth.
"As a courtesy I'm going to count to three, because I know you're technically supposed to be one of the good guys. After that, I do to you what the Negaverse used to do to Senshi caught walking after midnight." Somewhere, deep in the rational recesses of her mind, Zircon was trying to remind herself that behind those puppy dog eyes was probably some death-y laser beam or some other strange magic, but unfortunately the voice of reason in her head found itself drowned out by the rest of her, which quivered in excitement.
She hadn't plucked a starseed in almost a year. This would be a treat.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:59 pm
Virtus was all smiles as she stalked toward him, not realizing that he was in danger until the clicking of her heels slowed and she was swearing to God. He stared at her, blinking in wonder and noting that she was very pretty and he wondered why he hadn't seen her before.
He was getting sidetracked, which was often the case.
"Should I... walk in the road?" He offered.
Virtus would be fantastic at sarcasm if he had any inclination of what it was, and what purpose it served. As it stood now, though, he subscribed to the idea of meaning everything he said and trying to do good by people however he could. So she told him to get off the street and he thought the next best place would be the road.
He scooted off the side walk and into the street, looking at her eagerly and hoping it would improve her mood with him.
"I didn't realize that street was yours! I'm really sorry for walking on it!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 11:41 pm
"Ugh! You really don't get it, do you?"
Zircon was typically the patient hunter, one to slowly stalk and intimidate her quarry before she went in for an attack. Her mind was her sharpest weapon, and it had gotten her out of many a scrape where her pride would have preferred her to just go in swinging. But Zircon had found something problematic in her tactics of running and hiding--there was no satisfaction in scraping away scott-free. Fewer bruises, perhaps, but it meant that the enemy had the chance to walk all over her, taunt her, tease her for being weak.
She was not weak, she would not stand for being taunted, and somewhere deep within her something snapped. The lieutenant snarled, chaos in her eyes, and she allowed herself the chance to lose control. Instead of practiced, calculating steps, she leaped forward, hands going for his throat. In all honesty, he had done nothing wrong, save for being ignorant and on the wrong street at night. But there were years of hatred and pain behind the one savage motion, all of her pent-up aggression thrown in one fell swoop. She felt her fingers make contact with his shoulders, a little lower than intended, but she used her momentum to push him back, down to the pavement below. She would figure out the rest as gravity took them down; for now, all that mattered was getting him pinned and helpless.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 1:05 pm
Virtus was not generally known for his intelligence, especially when it came to upsetting people and his words being taken as sarcasm or anything other than their literal intentions. He was completely oblivious to the idea of sarcasm, and had no idea that anything he said or did was construed as such, sometimes.
He always just said exactly what he thought and what he meant, and it was always in an effort to be as nice and accommodating as possible. Somehow, though, that usually got him into fights and arguments he was not expecting, and one day he would try to figure out why being nice often had such terrible results.
Clearly it had something to do with him and something he was doing wrong: he could never blame the other person for such things!
When he was tackled, then, he let out a surprised yelp and felt his back slam into the ground before he could do much about it. His instincts were not to fight back, so he didn't kick at her or struggle, instead lifting his arms to cower behind, protecting his face.
"I'm sorry! I must have done something wrong! If you gave me a second I will go to the other side of the street! I don't mean to walk in your area! You're very good at tackling people!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 2:21 pm
Success.
Zircon had him pinned now, which meant victory was all but hers. Nevertheless, there was still no satisfaction in the woman's expression, no joy in her cold eyes as she stared down at the surprised senshi. The lieutenant shifted her weight so that she had him locked in a straddle, then reared up a curled fist, ready to strike. Maybe hitting him, seeing him bleed, would help to abate the fire behind her eyes. When he apologized again, she faltered, but only because his little facade just made her even angrier.
"Don't apologize!" Zircon roared, and with a snarl of exertion she slammed a right hook into the kind boy's cheek, hissing in pain even as she hit him. She wasn't used to punching people (just their shields, as it so happened), and she'd never gotten far enough in a fight to actually have the advantage. The force alone caused her bones to rattle, feeling the familiar aches where she'd broken them last time. It made her pause, and in that time she realized that, through all of this, the senshi still hadn't fought back. Was he...going easy on her? The thought was inexcusable, and uncurling her fingers, she slapped him. The attack stung, but it didn't cause nearly as much pain to her old injuries, so for now she held her palm open.
"Are you really just going to sit there?" she asked, glaring down at the young man. She slapped him a second time, on the other cheek, just to test the waters. "Fight me," she urged, slapping him a third time. "Fight me back, damnit!" She would have blood, but it wasn't going to be from some sniveling coward who wouldn't even try to hit her back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 3:04 pm
Stars burst in front of Virtus's eyes and he felt his body go a bit slack from that strong hit to his face. He was not sure what he had really done to deserve it but he was terribly sorry to have made her so mad, and he wished now he could take it back or make up for it.
He hated upsetting people: that was his nightmare, if he had such things. He lived in such a rainbow colored world, this strongly converse moments to what he was used to really stuck out in his mind. He should have been getting more and more used to negative things like this.
There had to be a point where the rose colored glasses broke, but at the moment he had not reached it.
"I... I'm sorry!" he yelped, after her words echoed around in his head for a while, and his nose started to bleed from the force to the hit, though she'd smashed his cheek. He was sure he was going to have a black eye for all of this, too. "I don't want to fight you! I don't think we're enemies! We're not supposed to fight are we?! I-if you want me to fight you I can, if that's really what you want, but I am not very good at it and I don't want to upset you more!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 8:23 pm
"Of course you're supposed to fight!"
Zircon slapped him again, harder this time. Still, no retaliation.
"What if I kill you? Don't you want to live?!"
Her eyes burned and her vision went blurry, but perhaps that was on account of the angry tears falling down her face. She hit him again, but it wasn't as spirited.
"Isn't there anything worth surviving for?"
Catching herself before she grossly sobbed in frustration, she glanced down at the pitiful creature beneath her, bruising and bloody and still sputtering about upsetting her. She wanted to hit him again, she really wanted to do it, but she already knew that nothing in her would be soothed by hitting this boy. He had done nothing to her except exist.
"...You're pathetic," she whispered, her lips curling into a look of abject disdain as she lifted herself off of his broken form. As she watched him, scowling, a dark corner of her mind urged her to reach deep into his chest for his starseed, to make a lesson out of his weakness, but she caught herself, eyes widening in surprise. No. Senshi or not, his queen and hers were in a stiff alliance, and it was not her place to break that just because he felt his life was forfeit. She pulled herself away from the battered senshi, sitting on her knees and staring down at her bloody hands.
He deserved it, he should have fought if he wanted to keep from getting injured.
He deserved it, she told herself, examing the specks of blood on her flushed palms.
He deserved it...didn't he?
The pit in her stomach seemed to fall further as the anger slowly ebbed away. What was she even doing? Blankly, the lieutenant continued to stare at her hands in complete shock.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 1:35 am
"I want to live! I would really, really, really appreciate it if you let me live!" He said, with urgency. His head was spinning from fear and pain, and his face was really starting to hurt from the force of her slaps. He was dizzy and feeling nauseous and scared, which he did not really know how to process because he spent so much of his time pretending negative things did not really exist, and everything could be positive if he just looked at it the right way.
It was really hard to see the positive here.
He watched her through one eye, the other one aching a bit too much to open, and blurry anyway, as she stopped hitting him and started to cry. Or she had been crying while hitting him? He wasn't sure, he hadn't been watching as closely as he should have been. When she pulled away he took a breath and then, very slowly, sat up. She looked very upset and he scooted a little closer to her, reaching a shaking hand to touch her shoulder. She looked like she needed a hug, but even he had enough sense to think that might not end well.
"A...are you okay?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 2:57 pm
Zircon's head felt like it was spinning, and she hadn't even been injured. A growing heavy feeling in her gut told her that something was wrong, that what she was doing was so very, very wrong--but had it been? All she was doing was defending her territory, the place she'd hunted for starseeds since she'd been inducted into the Negaverse. There was nothing wrong with that. All she was doing was fighting the opposition, someone who represented everything that could and would be taken from her if she didn't fight. The senshi were dangerous, they had no compunctions about killing, and it was her sworn duty to defend her planet from them.
So why was she increasingly overwhelmed with these feelings of guilt? Why would she hesitate, the one time she could actually do any good?
Zircon flinched away from Virtus's concerned touch, glancing back at him with traces of her savagery in her stare. "I'm fine," she insisted, wiping away at her face as she shook away the angry haze buzzing in her skull. "I just...I don't get it. I don't get how we're allies, when we're so diametrically opposed." She stared at him critically, as if she were sizing him up. "When I first joined the Negaverse, we were trained to kill people like you on sight, and...I just don't know anymore..."
Her shoulders slumped, and she looked back at her hands, shaking her head. "Who are you to us, anyways?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 4:12 pm
"I'm sorry you were trained that way, but you can learn a new way to approach us! We're not all your enemies, and I am sorry if I made you think I was... I don't mean any harm to you..." he watched her with his warm, but stupidly oblivious eyes, his expression hopeful despite the red and angry swelling from where he'd been hit a few times.
He felt dizzy and a bit sick, and just wanted to go home now. He wasn't even sure he remembered what he was out to do, but now it didn't matter. He was very tired and he was no good to anyone in this kind of a state.
"We're friends," he said, shaking his head. "I don't know how else to explain it. I don't know if it will be forever, but I know I don't want to be enemies with anyone on your team. I... I'm sorry."
His head was aching and he sat back a bit, taking a slow breath. He was torn between asking for permission to leave, and staying to comfort her a bit more. It looked like she needed it, for sure.
"My name is Virtus, by the way. Senshi of Kindness."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:20 pm
...Oh. Well, that made perfect sense.
"The senshi of kindness?" Zircon gave him a pursed look, as if saying the word had caused a bitter taste in her mouth. "What kind of power is that, anyway? Do you always just apologize people into submission?"
After a moment's pause, she laughed hopelessly, looking down at her hands. "I guess I shouldn't point fingers, though. The powers-that-be didn't see fit to give me useful abilities, either." To demonstrate, she held out a hand, and in it popped a single paper airplane from Nowhere. She laughed again, if only because it kept her from tears.
"I guess we're not so different, you and I," she murmured after a while, crumpling the paper airplane in her hands and letting it fall to the ground, where it disappeared from view. "I'm...I'm sorry I took my frustrations out on you. I don't know what came over me."
With an awkward fumble, she reached into her coat pockets, procuring several small beads of energy. It was the better part of a night's harvest, but something she probably owed the mirror senshi. After a moment's hesitation, Zircon offered her hand out, watching him expectantly. "I don't know if you can even eat these, but if you can they should heal you." Zircon refused to make eye contact with the bloody bruises on Virtus's face, glancing towards some point in the distance. It was baby steps, but it was a start.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
