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 Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 2:56 pm
Pandora knew she shouldn't have been out. What if someone gave her a bloody lip? Or a broken arm?
What would Avery Hollister say to her if she showed up to dinner with a cast, or was so badly hospitalized that she couldn't make it at all? She'd purse her full lips, brows furrowed, and give Liberty such a scolding that her wounds wouldn't hurt half as bad as her heart.
But she couldn't sleep, and her mind was on fire. Class was over, she had already run, and there was no homework left to drown an overexcited mind in. It was okay, she'd be careful. She just needed to blow off some steam. Pandora could keep to low level Negaverse officials, weak youma signatures. The worst she could get was a scratch.
Her new power was intense, invigorating. She could toss civilians like candy, hold her own against a strong soldier.
For the first time, she had some real use in this war. She could protect people. The Negaverse would think twice before they touched her, played with her mind.
Fate had smiled on her. Though, perhaps it had been a dark, sinister, twisted sort of smile.
Pandora had spent the last hour tracking a youma. A youma she knew nothing about. She'd found it, draped over the body of an unconscious Senshi. It hissed and spat and wailed. It was that wailing, the reverberating high pitch that quaked the spires of Destiny City which had let her to it.
It had not fought Pandora when she showed, but had turned away on oversized claws, wounds oozing ink which smeared to dust under its paws and drug itself with the haste of a suffering beast. Pandora had taken care of the senshi first, had called one of the many she'd met with her phone to come take care of them.
And then life turned into the back country again. The park was the misted forest after a rain, the buildings red-dust coated mountains, and her hands were the gun that would take a life that wasn't yet ready to end.
So, she tracked it, where it pulled itself into the fountain of City Hall, and the water bubbled black.
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 3:26 pm
Maybe that wail was a threat to Pandora, a reason to hunt, but to Thyone... It was the sound of something hurting. An animal. She could hear its cries, feel the faint pulse of chaos and the stronger burn of order.
The corrupt senshi was cautious as she stepped out from behind a pillar, frowning at the memory of the last time she was near the government buildings in her fuku.
The wariness was lost, however, as she caught sight of a familiar senshi dragging a youma from a fountain whose waters darkened with tainted blood. She felt something, hot and angry, burn in her chest as she stepped forward, raising her voice.
"Let him go!" It was clearly hurting, injured, desperate to hide, to escape back to the Rift when its strength recovered and begin healing. Was this was Pandora did in her spare time? Torture beasts she considered below herself? Did she do it to senshi, too?
How long had she been playing with the poor thing?
Her fists clenched. "Let him go, now!"
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 3:37 pm
The youma had the same idea as its still-whole, chaotic counterpart. It bellowed, and writhed. Its back feet kicked at Pandora, and the Senshi had a carelessly gained gash across a cheek to speak for it.
It stung and boiled, but not as much as they way Thyone's voice sounded.
Him.
Giving the youma a gender wasn't going to make her job any easier. His teeth snapped, and it turned a slitted eye to look at her. Pandora closed her eyes and put a boot on the underside of its jaw. His tail weakly thumped.
"Go away," the redhead snarled back. Maybe it was the cut on her cheek, or the fact that the youma's continued bellows were making her wonder if there was life left in it to save. Pandora didn't know if youma had blood vessels, weak points, if they even really died. They showed pain, but who was to say he wouldn't recover?
Did she even want it to?
"This isn't any of your business, chaos."
What were the alterations to the words?
"Green Eyed Monster," she whispered out. The horrible irony didn't escape her mind as the heat began to flood her fingers. Better get it over-with, then she could face Thyone.
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 3:49 pm
She wasn't listening.
Thyone knew it had been unlikely [her get-up and demeanor weren't incredibly terror-producing, unless you were afraid of sex-appeal], but she'd been hoping that the demand in her voice would get more of a reaction. Instead, Pandora, who radiated with a strength Thyone had never felt before, brushed her aside and summoned her power.
The words were different, but the glow was the same, and Thyone knew how it felt.
"No," It was more of a breath than sound, drowned out by the shriek of the youma the moment Pandora's hands touched its flesh.
How could she?
She was sicker than Thyone had thought. This was what self-righteousness bred. At least they were trained to kill quickly, in the Negaverse.
Senshi and youma had a conveluted relationship. Corrupts and DMC weren't trusted by the creatures, for their past, and one couldn't walk in the Rift without an officer for protection, but... This went beyond that.
Avery couldn't stand that sound. The cry of pain. She couldn't let it continue.
Her hand closed around the bottle - litter from a transient, or group of teens, perhaps, before she'd even thought about what came next.
Thyone swung it hard for Pandora's head, reissuing her command one last time. "I said let him go!"
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 4:04 pm
It wasn't dying quickly. It couldn't move, but it still had a voice box, and by now everyone in Destiny City must have thought Pandora a torturer.
She felt like one.
"Come on. Let go," she told it. But it did not want to die, and even magic wasn't going to bring it down.
When the bottle struck her skull, Pandora was aware of a hollow, glassy sound that rocked about her ears. Her hands pulled from the animal, her hot, green eyes ablaze as they focused on Thyone instead.
She seemed flabbergasted by the idea of the woman standing there. A woman who had her hand in Pandora barely any time ago, screaming at her to let a youma go. Pandora blinked and breathed and got angry all over again.
"What are you doing?" The youma was flailing its legs, trying to roll over on them, drag itself away from both the terrifying, evil things. "What is wrong with you?"
Was Thyone so sick that she wanted it to suffer? "Can't you see it's dying?" Chaos couldn't even be bothered to do the right things by their beasts, so Pandora was going to do it for them. Thyone be damned. Pandora's eyes were searching for something heavier, something physical. Magic wasn't working.
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:13 pm
"No - You're killing him!" Of course she could see it was going to die, if she didn't stop Pandora's twisted little game. What was wrong with her? Pandora had been burning this creature for who knew how long. It wasn't in a position to fight!
Youma had been human once, she was told.
That meant something.
Thyone's step between monster and, well, monster, was nothing short of decisive. Pandora's distracted gaze went searching the small courtyard, and missed the way tan fingers re-situated themselves around a bottle that had yet to break.
She'd recently learned first hand that skulls weren't that hard, and that order senshi were anything but good.
A rapist, a murderer, and a torturer? So far, Thyone was sure she was on the right side of things.
Even if all she wanted was to be home.
She swung again, the start of tears stinging her eyes.
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:32 pm
If not driven to the desperate need to put a dying creature out its misery, and a burning hatred of a corrupted senshi who dared lecture her on killing, Pandora might have stopped to admire Thyone's strength of character.
As it was, she was simply suffering another blow to her skull. A few small dots whizzed over her eyes, and Pandora had no intentions of being hit a third time.
One arm raised to fend off an incoming blow, Pandora reacted with a clenched fist to Thyone's stomach. It might have been a winding blow before, but now it was backed with the force of a sledge.
Pandora had not expected her to crumple, and was even less expecting the tears that were suddenly, blindingly apparent after her angry, defensive blow. The white senshi went down with her, but it was not for cause of injury.
They were sticky with blood, dust, and the owner of both was slowly making its getaway. It was a terrible, chaotic mess.
"Don't you dare cry." The glow on Pandora's hand had faded, where her fingers dug into Thyone's shoulder and she stared at the tears as though they might drip poison onto her skin.
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:44 pm
The strike knocked the wind from her body, and she went down beneath the senshi of jealousy without resistance, struggling to breathe. The pain was mind-clearing, shocking away the urge to cry and making the heat in her face triumphant anger. The youma was getting away, and if that meant she had to deal with Pandora's resulting rage, so be it.
Pandora called out her tears, her cruel fingers bruising deep, short nails biting into the exposed skin of her shoulder.
Thyone spat in her face. <******** you."
Lacking the raw strength to shove Pandora off, the corrupt senshi smacked the bottle onto the cement by her side, breaking it and holding tight to a shard of glass.
It bit into her hand, a mirror of the pain in her shoulder, and she forced herself not to look at the slick, red that she felt welling up in her palm.
"Get off."
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Posted: Sun Apr 28, 2013 5:55 pm
It was vile, it stank, and Pandora's lip curled. Her fingers shoved hard into Thyone's shoulder as she tried to remove the slick on her face with the back of her arm, and hand.
When she could see, when her anger was boiling so high that she wanted to drag Thyone away by the hair and scream at her until her voice was raw, there was a thick, sharp glass pointed at her throat.
It glinted.
Pandora's breath came to an abrupt stop.
The earth smelled damp, of ground powder, raw sweat, the iron of blood, and a stench that must have been three sets of fear.
"Fine." The words were air, pushed out hastily through her constricting throat.
"You take responsibility for it. It's yours. You watch it die, watch it suffer."
Pandora was breathing hard now, scowl deep, fists white. "Or you can let me do my damn job." For once, she meant nothing of the Order of the Moon.
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Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 12:21 pm
The order senshi hadn't moved. No, instead, she continued to lecture. No one wanted to ******** hear it, of that, Thyone was certain.
Head throbbed, a dull ache that had come to represent Pandora's presence. The corrupt's words were pushed through clenched teeth. "If you don't shut up and get the ******** off of me, I swear to god-"
She pressed the glass until it touched, bright eyes glinting with something desperate. There was no need to complete the threat, verbally.
"You have three seconds."
Later, Thyone would be both impressed and horrified by her ability to keep her voice steady.
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Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 12:26 pm
Breath coming in through teeth, Pandora's willpower was kicked, prodded, and strained. It bent and made her skin pulse, head pound, jaw grind.
One, hard, swing to the temple, maybe two, was all she needed.
Three seconds.
Pandora breathed out, slowly, eyes boring into Thyone's despite the overwhelming desire to lock on the weapon pricking into her flesh. The senshi slid a hand back, brought her weight underneath her, and grunted as she pulled to her feet.
Her eyes instantly found the youma; it had traveled 10, excruciating feet.
Then, they traveled back to the heartless, gutless excuse for Chaos on the ground. The Senshi didn't have anymore words. She turned, and forced the lock in her bones to turn, and convince herself that her responsibilities here were done.
And she walked away.
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