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 Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:23 am
Persephone was still getting used to the feeling of Chaos under her skin. It was difficult to explain, but she knew that far more had changed than her outfit and her hair when Zinkenite’s hand sank into her chest and she was brought into the Negaverse. Or maybe the girl she used to be died with Biela, in a pool of blood in an anonymous warehouse. Either way, she was no longer quite so concerned about the moral niceties of being a magical girl. She rather relished the thought of terrorizing a civilian or two, since she couldn’t sense any Order auras in a close enough vicinity to make tracking them down worthwhile.
She used rooftops to move as she so often had before, finding that they made a much better mode of transportation than wandering the streets. Never mind that they provided excellent views, giving her a chance to scope out a lone dark-haired civilian. Foolish, foolish, foolish - it amazed her that people walked alone in Destiny City at night. Certainly he might not know about the secret war under his very nose, but it was impossible to live in the city and not be aware of the disappearances and murders and other delightfully fun events. Ah well, if he had a death wish, she would oblige, because she intended to pull her first starseed tonight.
She opted to teleport from her position to directly behind him, making for a silent approach, and took a moment to delight in the sheer power that being a Corrupt gave her. Like officers, she could traverse distances in a single breath, and at her level it was absolutely no trouble to do so.
He was almost a foot taller than her, but that was no obstacle. She wouldn’t be fighting him, she would be executing him in quick succession.
A hand went up to grip his shoulder. “Lovely evening to die, isn’t it?” She said, the cheeriness of the question dissonant with the threat in her words. As soon as he turned towards her, her hand would snap out and remove his starseed from his chest.
Simple, quick, efficient.
Persephone loved being a Senshi of the Negaverse.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:49 am
Dwindling curiosity brought him to the ruins of young lives, strewn across the streets in the form of discarded coffee cups and cheap lipstick spilled from purses twice snatched. This was a realm of needles and gangrene, dirty fingernails and designer nose rings and pedicures worn to cracked traces of color from overuse. Would such a destination serve as a niche for him? Maybe it amounted to some meager comfort to surround himself with like trash while he indulged in overwrought addictions.
He knew it started eating away his weight earlier in the month.
136, 134, 129...
Down,
Down,Down,
Down,Down,Down it goes.
Bischofite felt like a dream. No - a delusion, but not of glee or gore or grandeur. Just a distant, lost delusion. A petal half-seen on the center of the lake, swirling in a pool of moonlight. A spot on the sun, too drowned out by its brilliance to truly register to the naked eye. Just a figment, really. A figment of Alois' imagination. A figment which assured him that yes, you can change the world around you and yes, you can execute your strange fantasies with gruesome precision if you set your mind to it.
And with all that effort, all those carefully laid plans and meticulously placed traps and curiously composed kills, what came of it? Nothing. Dust from dust. So why not waste all that effort and precision on the needle? Why not mainline a little dose of happiness now and again, as he hadn't ingested enough of it over twenty years of bleak bullshit?
So Alois searched the alley. He scanned the steps, the hidden wedges behind the trash cans, the modicum of space between a commercial dumpster and the wall. He looked down the corners within the alley, whether a dead end or a beeline to a different and equally dismal scene, and checked for steps below ground for even the faintest chance at an underpass, where he might shoot up in silence for once. He didn't want to be bothered by it all anymore, so what was stopping him?
Katarin? Erik? Alexandre? Krishna? Richard?
They didn't care.
Having finally spotted a prime location to weather the cold and indulge dark habits, Alois reached into his pockets for the paraphernalia necessary to administer distilled euphoria. And at that moment, he heard a voice - familiar, cheerful. Lilting in its easy pronunciation of a death sentence. Maybe if this were an earlier point in his life, he would've commended it, but he sought his switchblade rather than compliments. And when he spun around to face the presence which appeared so readily behind him, he had hardly a beat to begin her name before the world melted into nothingness.
The knife clattered uselessly toward her feet, blade deployed and gleaming beneath the sickly sight of street lights.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:53 am
Without thinking, really, Persephone reached out to catch the falling civilian's body. Perhaps she would pose it somewhere public - if she was going to be committing murders, she'd do it with some goddamn panache. Then again, it might not be considered a good plan to leave starseedless bodies in public.
Alas.
She opened her palm to examine the starseed she'd taken, and she was struck, immediately, by how familiar it was.
"Oops," She said, something of a tone of horror in her voice, slowly sinking down to the ground and carrying the civilian with her. She was glad she'd caught him, now, because there was no denying who this belonged to. It was the only starseed she'd laid eyes on besides her own (there was something fun and fascinating about being able to take hers out, examine it, and remain conscious) - namely, Bischofite's. There was no mistaking it.
She carefully replaced it, holding him against her chest with a surprising gentleness given what she had just done. At the first sign of life she smiled ironically. "We really have to quit running into each other like this, Bischofite," she said. "Sorry, by the by, if I'd known it was you..." She wouldn't have been the reason his starseed got removed again. She remembered all too well how much it had hurt when he did it to her - which reminded her. She went fishing with her free hand for the strange crystal flower. It worked now, she had ferreted that out, she would actually get to use it to help someone!
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:01 am
Consciousness flooded back with a great unease - the plainclothes lieutenant groaned softly and furrowed his brow with the discomfort pulsating through his chest. Reeling pain, clamoring for a quick death. A morphine death. A god of broken needles who meted out relief as a form of slow demise. But at least it was soft here. Warm here.
And then it came to his attention that someone was holding him.
Still readjusting to the sudden reboot to reality, Alois focused on the dark clothing in his immediate vicinity. A deep red shawl draped across her thin shoulders, accentuating the pallor of her skin. Cold marble white, like a corpse. Like he would've been moments ago. And beneath that rested a shirt of some kind, maybe a dress, a black one, that extended beyond his vision. He hadn't felt much like sitting up since his chest started throbbing either, so he relied on his ears to recall the familiar voice that spoke to him. But she spoke with the same soft demeanor she had when they'd met some time ago, and the successive meetings thereafter. Thus, he identified her with ease once his mind stopped reeling from the atrocious systemic shutdown suffered from a starseed extrication. "Persephone," he murmured, almost a whisper.
Finally he drew away from her and sat up of his own accord, still-broken ribs eliciting a soft groan from the man, though he took in the detail of her new and ultimately striking form while he had the chance. He remembered her outfit as something of a greek goddess, though short and rather unassuming. Exposed legs, sandals modeled as a skeleton of boots, and unruly hair that framed her slight face. That same red shawl draped about her as well, but there ended the similarities between her current and previous appearances. Now she sported a floor-length dress with a generous slit up the side, stockings that cut off at mid-thigh, and boots that nearly matched that length. not only that, but her hair... It practically engulfed her in its untamed wilderness. Amongst the tied off corners were small beads, like little reminders that she once was a meek girl before she donned the visage of a killer.
Overall, it was a welcome change.
"Was it your choice?" Carefully he coiled his arms around his broken side, as if to stave off additional damage. "What changed your mind? And why did you remind me of what it feels like to haf' my starseed torn out?" Though his surprise was apparent, he hadn't forgotten about her earlier transgression. Were he of the motivation to do so, he could've easily powered up and struck her with a chakram, but... Those powers were beyond him now. Sealed away by the powers that be, if only for him to toil beneath one who would rather see him dead.
And if she would just give him a little privacy, he could manage the throbbing pain in his ribs on his own. However, he suspected she had more than a little time to waste this evening, and such a chance would pass by without his say in it.
As a corrupted eternal senshi, she certainly had more power than he could match.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:05 am
Persephone was rather glad he recognized her, at least, because there was no denying that her appearance had changed quite a lot. She looked less a lost young girl and more a woman, which was ironic given that she felt like she knew less than most children. God bless memory wipes.
At least she still had all the memories of being Persephone - which was a blessing and a curse. She could still remember her friends, her team, and she burned with the desire to open their eyes as hers had been opened, to bring them to Chaos if she could. She wanted them to be as powerful as she was, to have the comfort and security that was Chaos. From the very first moments after her corruption, Natron - Gabriel - had ensured she was taken care of, that she had a place to stay, and that if she desired it she had someone to patrol with. Not that she needed it anymore. While she hadn't had an opportunity to test her new magic, she had a feeling that when she had changed, it had too.
"Yes, it was my choice," she said. "It was Biela's death, in the end. The girl that died when the Negaverse attacked my team. I was so helpless. We all were. I couldn't stand it anymore." It still haunted her, a young girl of barely fourteen bleeding out as she tried desperately to save her. That had been all she could take of being useless and helpless and fragile. Certainly Chaos hadn't given her any extra height, but it had given her plenty to make up for it. The black bat wings resting at her hips, for one, and all the blessings and powers that officers had.
"I did apologize for that," she said, "but why are you out powered down? You know how dangerous it is." She huffed a little. "I thought you were a civilian. If I hadn't recognized your starseed, you'd be dead, so it's for the best in the end that you showed it to me." She exhaled. "Come back over, I finally figured out how to make this stupid flower work and it will make it hurt less." She began to breathe slowly, almost meditatively. After about a minute, the flower began to emit a pink smoke smelling faintly of pomegranates.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:05 am
Alois wouldn't have recognized the name had Persephone not indicated the context by which she meant it. Yes, he remembered the ordeal that took place, as he attended personally. it took significant recollection for him to actually place the name to a face, though that face was half-submerged in a pool of blood. She hadn't meant much to the misanthrope, as would be expected - he simply stepped over her body and continued the assault alongside his peers.
It was a little disappointing to hear that the death of some simple girl forced her into the arms of the Negaverse. No agent talked her into it, no forced corruption occurred, no ultimatum to pin her to Chaos. Some White Moon wench dies and she resigned herself to the Negaverse just to buy a little more power. It was infuriating to suffer continued reminders that his efforts could not sway a soul either way, but some trite failure of a child weighed more than any machination that he could possibly conceive? Insulting at best, spiteful at most.
"Curious zat a little girl solidified your decision for you." Alois bristled, an automatic reaction, when he sensed his inherent lack of worth. The misanthrope shifted his gaze away from her and immediately spotted his switchblade lying a few feet away, so he busied himself with its retrieval if only to avoid looking at her a little longer. It cost him a measure of pain, but the distraction proved worthwhile.
After blowing some of the dust off the blade, he depressed the spring and returned it to his pocket, where a recognizable impression on his pants mapped out how many years he'd owned the knife. "Zat's exactly why I'm out like zis. It's dangerous. Zat's what makes it fun. I no longer haf' control over my fate like zis, zough I don't have much choice when I am Bischofite, eizer." Pronouncing his powered name felt oily and revolting, almost - like expelling a slug rather than reciting a word. "Haf' you ever watched ze war from zis angle, as a civilian wis' potent knowledge of bos' sides? It's wors' trying at least once." It wasn't the real reason, but she didn't need to know it. Looking for a place to die wasn't a noble feat, it was a private and necessary one - and Persephone didn't need to help either.
At the mention of the flower he'd seen only once before, Alois turned his regrettably unpainted face toward her once more. "No need, I haf' my own means of quelling-..." With an exasperated sigh, he watched in disappointment as she assumed more of a meditative pose, complete with closed eyes and deep breaths.
Smoke rose out of the flower, pale pink and heady in scent. His chest still throbbed deeply, far below the skin's surface, so he had little means of assuaging it except through narcotics. And that smoke? As far as he could tell, it looked like alien freebasing. Alois hadn't considered freebasing before, but her strange and almost forceful offering presented the opportunity well enough.
After a measure of discretion, Alois approached the plume and crouched in front of Persephone, knees parallel and arms crossed over the top as a makeshift chin rest. No matter how he studied her, she looked strange and fractured in some places, but more... settled. Relaxed maybe, in a strange way, as if she shirked a large burden not long ago. And given the fact that she meditated so readily in the middle of an open alley meant she must've gained significant confidence in herself, with the addition of Negaverse abilities. And why shouldn't she? With the boons of becoming a top senshi along with the techniques inherent to Chaos, all she would need was a well-played teleport and a quick hand to the chest to end any enemy that threatened to strike her.
Somewhere toward the end of his musings, he realized his ribs hadn't hurt with the same intensity as before. It was forgettable now, somewhat easily neglected. Compartmentalized. Just like his life with Krishna at the reins. Even his throat lacked the soreness stemming from the man's vicegrip from before.
"You'f changed a lot in a short span." And he envied her for it.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:17 am
"Biela's death was the moment I was done," Persphone confessed, "the moment my last tie to the White Moon shattered. But I think if I hadn't had plans for that team, I might have gone over after that night in the forest, speaking to you. I hadn't realized how much I wanted what Chaos offered and how utterly out of faith in Order I was until I spoke to you." Until she'd put those thoughts into words for someone that she trusted but shouldn't have.
"You are a colossal ******** moron," she said, though there was a surprising amount of affection in her tone. "Interesting or not, it's incredibly foolish. Up there with pulling your own starseed in front of an enemy, so I suppose Ican't be too surprised." She hummed a little, softly. It was calming to focus on a tune she knew, even if she couldn't remember where she'd learned it. Perhaps she'd played an instrument in her previous life - she couldn't remember, and she hadn't pressed Gabriel for details about who she'd been. It was too painful and confusing.
A lot of things were painful and confusing since her corruption, really, but this was, oddly, not one of them. Certainly she'd mistakenly nearly killed someone she very much would prefer to have alive, but she had the flower working in her lap and she was managing to maintain a conversation and keep it going.
She was certain that a few weeks ago, she wouldn't have been able to.
"I have," she agreed, because there was no denying it. Corruption had changed quite a bit inside her, and she knew it. "I suffered, and I changed for it. Grew. I am no longer a lost little girl, desperately clinging to Order line a security blanket." She hummed a few more bars of that familiar-but-not tune. "I could almost say this is all thanks to you, really. If it weren't for that night in the forest, I suspect that I would have succumbed to despair in a very different way. I might have broken my pen into pieces and never powered up again, or gone seeking what I would call revenge but was ultimately my own death."
Better a witch than a corpse.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:27 am
Colossal ******** moron or plainly suicidal - neither one sounded particularly endearing. And given the way in which she said it, her alien freebasing either affected her as well or she was too deep in meditative considerations to offer much venom to her words. However, he agreed with her fully. He was a colossal ******** moron, but not for the reasons she mentioned previously. Not for walking the allies at night, looking for another fight to witness between Order and Chaos. Not for ripping his own starseed out for Persephone's horror (read: enjoyment). Not for staying his iniquitous tendencies long enough to talk to her, rather than operate under more vindictive motives.
But her coming explanation was possibly too shocking for him to process, even in the several moments following its closure. Bischofite watched her with both brows furrowed, as if straining to see some modicum of sense in her speech through bleary eyes. Finally he blinked, and lowered his chin to his arms while he fought to mull over her claims that she owed her corruption to him. To claim that his words, not his actions, adequately prepared her for Chaos and sold her on the concept of corruption to finally shirk the last of her weaknesses... And the memories of those who possibly pained her the most.
"... You're bullshitting me," he shot back flatly.
Alois wanted to believe it - desperately so - but given all his tasks and trials and tribulations ceaselessly executed and drowned out in failures, he could not stymie his disbelief. Persephone expressed a great deal of concerns the last night they met in peaceful guise, but never once had she indicated to him that she considered defecting all the more due to his unusual method of thinking. Persephone probably just played nice, sweet words from a sweet disposition, as she was wont to do while still with the White Moon Court. "I wonder if it's easier for you to lie, wis' ze addition of Chaos running srough your veins." Alois frowned softly.
"How much do you remember?" Maybe changing the subject might amount to something. Perhaps it was best to avoid focusing on the stellar successes brought to Persephone and the dismal failures brought to Bischofite, courtesy of chaos. He hadn't confronted someone who shirked the garb of the White Moon before, and now he had a chance to pick her brain for the inherent changes. What trauma occurred to her starseed? What memories had she retained? What estranged pieces lay awaiting her discovery? She now held half a mystery in her palms, which only encouraged him toward the act of purification - if only to have something to search for. Something more than the next hit.
So much for changing subjects.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:32 am
"What reason do I have to lie?" She asked, eyebrows going up. She wondered what it said about his perception of her that he assumed she would tell him something false. "I've never lied to you before, even when it might be bad for my health. Why would I start now, over this?" Concealed information, perhaps, but never a direct lie. Falsehoods had never been her forte, at least as far as she could remember.
And of course he asked about her memory - she frowned, briefly, but enough of her mind was occupied with staying as calm and centered as she could that the twist of expression was only present for a brief moment. Her memory was a sore spot, or as much of one as she had about the whole thing.
"As Persephone? I remember everything but a few moments with crystal clarity, and what I've forgotten I suspect is some strange facet of the glamour that hides all our identities, since the blurry moments are the kind I'd suspect would surround the revelation of who someone was under the fuku." It was interesting, at least, that of all the things to forget, it would be the one thing that would be potentially most useful to her new faction. Damn it all, she wished she still knew those names she once had.
"On the flip side, I remember literally nothing of the girl I was before. Everything I know, someone else told me, because I was fortunate enough to confess my civilian name to an officer who actually knew me in that identity." She knew he felt guilty, there was no missing it in the way he treated her, the way he acted. "I've taken a different name, bullshitted up some distant family connections, and generally tried to avoid dealing with anyone who doesn't already know that I'm missing the vast majority of eighteen years of my life." She shrugged her shoulders, as of brushing it off as a burden. Adjusting to everything she didn't know - and the things she did know without remembering the source of that knowledge - had been, so far, the most difficult part of her transition, but complaining about what a pain in the a** it was certainly wasn't going to make it less of one.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:35 am
Come to think of it, his usual kneejerk suspicions didn't hold with Persephone. She always broke the mold, and that was perhaps why he liked her enough to leave her alive, despite the chances he had to end her easily enough. And despite his demotion, she still treated him with some modicum of respect that even his subordinates lacked. She and the blonde senshi encased in vines... They were possibly the first and only two to exhibit some sort of basic human kindness toward him. It was strange - disconcerting, most of all, that the enemies to his cause would show such valiant empathy.
Empathy that worked, for Alois had long locked himself away in his ivory tower, overlooking the ocean and its rolling dissonance as it crashed against the waves. But even buildings crumbled away given time and adverse weather.
But while Alois constructed his ivory tower, Bischofite dug the pit of Babel. And in fell Persephone, like the morning star to Cocytus itself.
In a rare moment of redaction, Alois admitted his mistake. "You're right - you don't haf' much of a reason to lie. You never held back before, which is why you're still alif'e." She now sat before him as an eternal senshi, sporting all the trimmings and grandeur allotted to those of such lofty rank, though they leaked with the taint of Chaos that he'd grown so accustomed to. All in all, she wore the look of corruption well, though he wondered whether her hair trawled leaves from the ground in the autumn months, or if it froze repeatedly during the algid temperatures of winter. She looked a little more at ease with herself, maybe - a mark that Chaos found its home within her.
If only he could say the same about himself.
"Zen you remember when I spoke of ze necessity for mystery in life. You're fortunate, Persephone - for now you haf' many years of mystery sprawling behind you like an unending train. Don't look at it wis' such derision." He offered a smile - tired and light. His exhaustion still showed, as he hadn't quite caught up on the plethora of hours lost to the fear of asphyxiation in his sleep. Even now his ribs ached terribly with the memory of what happened - and sometimes he still found himself starved for breath. But it changed him, didn't it? He survived, and now that senshi whose name he never knew had altered him fundamentally.
Alois envied her, in a way - though he wouldn't wish to forget either life he lived, he would've liked to have a taste of such vast memory loss. He wondered how disjointed, how surreal it would feel to look back on his talents and wonder where they came from. How could she regard her luck with such distaste? She possessed a veritable treasure trove of mysteries simply beckoning her curiosity. Didn't she have one modicum of interest in it?
The misanthrope rested his cheek against his wrist and half-buried his chin in the bend of his arm. He closed his eyes; the strange smoke felt relaxing enough, barring the fruity fragrance. "I admit - I had no intention of powering up anymore. After a senshi nearly killed me, my participation in ze war seemed less zan inconsequential. I lost track of how many people died at my hands, and what came of it? I'd constantly question myself, but to no avail. But if my words truly had an impact on your decision, zen maybe my usefulness isn't in how many murders I can taunt ze enemy wis', but srough covert subterfuge." Maybe he needn't kill relentlessly to make a difference. Maybe all his prior attempts were just trifles.
Maybe he needed to step up his game.
And Persephone offered him a hand to help him out of his pit.
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 11:38 am
Persephone let out a quiet laugh. "At least my candor is good for something, then," more than getting her in trouble, at least. That seemed to be the usual outcome of her running her mouth, though she hadn't had much opportunity to do that lately. She hadn't spoken much since her corruption, and certainly not a lengthy sit-down chat like she was having with Bischofite.
It was comfortingly familiar, even if his civilian form wasn't the one she was used to and there was no second Chaos aura.
She laughed again, but this time more bitterly. "Mystery in life is one thing, eighteen years of blank is another - and the only person who I know can help me even start on the puzzle that was my life gets all uncomfortable when I ask." She made a small huffing noise, perhaps the most annoyance she had expressed with her situation. "Sometimes it feels like I have something - a familiar feeling, a place I know - but as soon as I grasp it it's gone." The memory loss that came with corruption was the most irritating, ridiculous thing she had ever encountered. Never mind that it was inconvenient as all hell.
"In the end, though, it's a price I knew I'd have to pay, and frankly? Corruption is completely worth it." She dared not admit that she had almost wanted to forget being Persephone - to get the image of Biela's brutal death out of her mind, to never again have to remember how weak and useless she'd been. But then she would also have forgotten things she treasured - people she treasured.
Even with her eyes closed, she reached one hand away from the small flower and grabbed his, a form of physical assurance. "No, your body count isn't the only influence you can have, certainly. It's a piece - it's having the actions to back up your words - but words are just as valuable." Words were the only weapon she had as a White Moon senshi, and they had served her well then - she expected they would do just as well now, but bent to a very different purpose. "When we were on opposite sides, you terrified me. There were very few times I felt quite as helpless as I always did around you. And it was that helplessness that drove me to seek Chaos. That helplessness, and your reassurance that if I chose corruption, I wouldn't be signing myself away." Not entirely, anyway - she was still the same person at the core, right? Just far more comfortable in her own skin.
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Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 10:39 am
"You're missing ze opportunities latent in zat lack of memory, Persephone. Maybe when you can swallow your bitterness toward it, you will see ze boon in such a loss. But until you reach zat point, perhaps it's prudent to change ze topic of discussion." Alois eyed her with a scrutiny he couldn't afford previously; never did he find the green-haired senshi with her eyes closed for such a significant amount of time. Now he managed to discern how her swaths of hair framed her face, how her chin showed minute disturbances in its skin to denote her concentration, how her brows furrowed just slightly enough while retaining some semblance of flawlessness to her forehead. For how much she must've been concentrating, her countenance was surprisingly bereft of disturbance.
The misanthrope coiled his fingers about the senshi's hand, more of a seizure than a reciprocation. He stood soon after, her sole effort toward connection still held captive, and he tugged on that hand to urge her to her feet. "Put zat damnable little device away; I'd razzer see you for how you were before ze touch of ze uniform. You'f already stolen away zat chance wis' me, so it's only fair, you see." His emphasis eked out a small grin as a sign that he'd reclaimed some of his mirth from weeks prior. Such days felt too terribly distant; a shame that demotion took as great a toll as it did.
But he would learn from it, as always - he had said time and again, suffering is the key to change. And for once, for once in a desperately long time, he looked forward to what changes it may bring.
With any luck, he'd surmount the tribulations brought by life and reclaim his rank without Serpentine's constant, if oppressive, guidance.
"I'd like to see you as somesing aside from a ghost from ze past, an echo of a goddess once worshipped and now trivialized in books and movies. Stand up, Persephone, and show me who you are." When considered in a different light, corruption afforded them opportunities in a social spectrum as well - were it not for their collective efforts, other Negaverse agents would have far fewer friendships than they would as typical civilians. Meager bonds over meager years. But with the presence of adversity and a unifying goal, officers found each other absent uniform as far more agreeable than previously.
"Wis' any luck, we'll haf' a little fun." And Alois hadn't quite developed a taste for fun until he became Bischofite.
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Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 11:39 am
She shook her head, a small denial, though perhaps she was, in the end, being thoroughly short-sighted. Right now having no memory and very little to call her own was endlessly frustrating, though she supposed she could look at it as a new start with a new family. She would still rather have at least something, though.
Persephone finally opened her eyes when he pulled her up, and the smoke stopped as she let go of her concentration. The green-haired senshi frowned slightly. He was right, it was only fair. Even if she had only learned his identity by accident sharing hers, her new one, was simply proper reciprocation. Still...
"Alright, but you'd do well to lower your expectations," she said, her tone dry. She knew that there was no way the girl underneath could match the Senshi; there was simply no comparison. "I'm not nearly as pretty out of uniform."
Her form melted away, and she was at least glad that she actually had clothes of her own, instead of Gabriel's hand-me-downs. Losing two inches of height, several feet of hair, and going from sultry seductive senshi to small teenage girl in a sweater and jeans was bad enough, having ill-fitting clothes would just be humiliating.
She gave him a small smile. "Clarisse Stark," she said, by way of introduction, "or, well, I am now."
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 10:48 pm
"Hmm." Her introduction went largely ignored in favor of Alois' wholly undisguised scrutiny. As he leaned over the unconscionably short and slight teen, he examined everything from scattered pockmarks to split ends framing her face. Strangely she looked highly similar to the senshi, though he guessed the glamour would've obscured such a blatant realization to him were it not for his observation of her powering down. Still, he circled about her easily enough, while he tugged on errant strands to measure the body of her hair or ran dextrous fingers across a knitted, cream sweater.
When he completed his examination of the teen, he passed judgement through a quick, clipped introduction. "Alois Scholz." He offered neither hand nor smile, but he usurped her wrist in a quick motion that hinted toward a sudden idea. Her wrist fit easily enough into his hands, delicate as though it might snap with enough feverish drive. Inwardly he wondered, with no small measure of mirth, how she could possibly withstand more rigorous extracurricular activities.
"I haf' somesing to show you, now zat you're not lording over me wis' ze power I once possessed." He was loathe to admit it, but Alois desperately missed his rightful rank with each growing day of grueling tasks and abject failure. Such festering thoughts lead to the rise of his newer addictions, ones he kept hidden away meticulously, though they burned a hole in his pocket in the form of a slight wooden box. But Persephone, or Clarisse, needn't know of its contents. Not now, and likely not ever. "It's ein bisschen out of ze way, but I sink you will appreciate it for its significance."
Though his intended destination wasn't far, Alois only reached the street corner before he had to halt his progress in favor of panting desperately from slow asphyxiation. Even now he couldn't manage a brisk jog alongside talking, but he found it necessary to overtax himself, if only to learn his limits. "Hold on," he urged breathlessly while he leaned against an ancient brick building, which towered over the street with its expertly crafted stone detailing denoting its age. A sign above the entrance, stricken with graffiti, identified it as an office building for some pretentious company. Alois paid it little mind, for the graffiti was the true target of the evening.
Once he recovered enough for his nails to return to their normal pink hue, Alois gestured toward the admittedly haphazard symbol atop the sign, rendered in white spraypaint. A crescent moon perhaps, or maybe an orange slice. "Do you recognize zat symbol?" He smiled as he spoke. Fond memories, despite their impending failures.
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Posted: Sun Dec 29, 2013 11:50 pm
She stood perfectly still under his scrutiny, eyes narrowed slightly and expression turned to a frown. It was a little disconcerting to be examined so closely, never mind that she was fairly sure this was the most physical contact she'd had with anyone since her corruption. And god, it was obvious how much taller he was than her like this - she made a mental note to find time to get some heeled shoes so that she could at least be a little closer to average height. Not that it would help with anything but height; she was doomed to be tiny and delicate-looking every other way.
At least she got his name out of the whole thing, and she supposed it was only appropriate that his was the first civilian name she could connect with an officer, besides the one that had taken her in.
She made a tiny huffing noise. "Excuse me for finally getting my buttwings," she said, though she clearly wasn't annoyed enough to not follow him, which meant a quicker pace than his just to keep up. Certainly she wasn't annoyed enough to not be concerned at seeing him out of breath - going a block shouldn't,t wind anyone, not unless there was something else wrong.
"Are you alright?" she asked, catching up to stand next to him. It was a stupid question, really, but an automatic one. She waited for him to catch his breath and then followed the gesture with her eyes, staring at the graffiti for a moment before recognition clicked into place and an oddly fond smile appeared on her face. Of course, the events were nothing to smile about, not really - but it was all in the context.
"Yes. You left that here, or one of your accomplices, I assume? To guide Order to you, because the game you,d set up wouldn't have been fun without some dumb Seenshi to play it." The first time they had met - and also the first steps on her path to corruption. She had been scared and helpless, even with a Knight on her side, and peoples' lives had been in her hands. In theory, she and that Knight - Valhalla? - had won, and none of the civilians had died by Bischofite's hand or that of the Corrupt Senshi that had accompanied him. "Was the one I participated in the only one? It can't have been."
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