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 Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:41 pm
Being out and about in the evenings was weird, not so much because Zia wasn't usually out and about in the evenings, but because it was rarely in this context.
During the day she was milling around in yoga pants trying to 'find herself' and nighttime was mostly for powered things. Especially hunting knights and Negaverse agents as an energy beacon projecting cat lady.
But tonight she was out for a walk, one shopping bag on her arm as she texted. A rare case, but it was simply a matter of losing track of time that led to wandering Destiny City's streets at night with a lacking frame of mind for it's peculiar nightlife.
Which is why someone else strolling the sidewalk across the street didn't register in her mind as peculiar until a sudden halt and reboot sent her skittering across traffic to catapult herself in front of him, wide eyed and frantic.
"Whoa! Hi! Are you a Negaverse officer?" She blurted before extending her arm out to him, "Hi, my name is Zia, can I take your picture?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:29 pm
He hadn't seen his "roommate" in months.
Maybe it was longer than months - probably almost a year, if he thought about it. Not that Magiore really minded, since they were both private people, and to be honest, he wasn't even sure if she'd moved out or if they'd both been just really, really busy. If he'd been smart, he would have checked, but life had been so hectic for Magiore Carpenter that he'd hardly had time to do his own work, let alone check up on absent acquaintances.
Which was why he'd decided that it was time to get rid of some of the present issues preventing him from living his life and spend an evening doing what he should have been doing all along - namely patrolling.
He'd not been out five minutes before it happened.
Aurostibite had thought he was being stealthy, keeping himself confined to dark shadows and alleyways, prowling around like a cat ready to pounce on anything out of the ordinary. And yet he hadn't noticed the human until it was too late, until she was practically right on top of him.
"Excuse me - " he started to say, his voice a low growl - and then his jaw dropped because that was most definitely his not-roommate standing in front of him, looking at him expectantly with eyes he had only seen a few rare times since meeting her.
Aurostibite clamped his mouth shut, completely flummoxed. After a moment of flustered silence, he said, "I'm not one for pictures," which was neither a confirmation or a denial, but a rather pathetic diversion instead.
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 9:06 pm
Once upon a time there had been a month where Zia paid double rent and wrote 'bye' on a post-it note that had lost all of it's sticky backing and probably fell under the fridge somewhere and she had found that to be a suitable good bye. Because even by that point she hadn't been living there for ages, even if her rent was paid up.
It was nothing personal. The few times they had actually interacted and all of the small 'in passing' moments they had were very nice, and if she hadn't been completely ******** by an alien cat and thrown into a war only to be used, exploited, traumatized, and then blamed for unleashing a new breed of unspeakable evil on the world, she liked to think she would have a normal social life and in that normal social life she would have been friends with Magiore.
But after being pinned and threatened and stalked by a particularly violent dark mirror senshi she gave up on inflicting herself on the poor, innocent civilian, and kindly removed herself from his general vicinity. It was only polite.
But this was not Magiore! This was a dashing negaverse officer she had yet to document for her index and she was desperately curious about him.
"It's okay!" She gushed, "It's not really embarrassing, promise. Your other officers have been very cooperative! I am on a mission to index the varieties of officers, see. I love the Negaverse, and I promise the interview is just a few short questions!"
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:20 pm
Magiore hadn't even noticed the sticky note, probably for the same reasons - that it had lost its stickiness and disappeared somewhere beneath his fridge. He didn't mind that he hadn't seen her, or that she had disappeared without a word (since partly it made it easier for him to live life as Aurostibite; less sneaking out), but he had been mildly curious about what had happened to the woman known as Zia Connolly.
Apparently this was what had happened. Aurostibite stared at her, a muscle in his jaw tensing as he clenched his teeth and then unclenched them again a second later.
"...you're a civilian," he said flatly, working to act as normally as possible; he pulled his Negaverse persona back around him, lifting his chin to look resolutely at Zia. "Why are you indexing the officers of the Negaverse in the first place when it does not concern you?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:20 pm
"Aha, astute observation, sir," Zia said with a cheeky snap of her fingers and then rolled her shoulders back into an easy shrug. "Civilians are concerned with the Negaverse. Or did you miss out on Tag Swagger's expose? Not that I needed any such thing, I was doing this before that."
Although being unpowered she couldn't get in to the nitty gritty about her interest in the Negaverse stemming from their anomalous nature and lack of presence in Zirconia's universe.
That didn't mean she couldn't bullshit, though. Hell, someone mistaking her wording for a guardian cat relationship for a romantic one had accidentally given her a great cover ages ago.
"Civilians get dragged through hell because of your little snit with the senshi and those knight-guy-things all the time. You are totally my concern. I'm just curious!" She started circling him and enthusiastically inspecting his uniform. "You look impeccably dashing, by the way. What's your weapon? What rank are you?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:10 pm
Aurostibite opened his mouth - and then promptly shut it again, a look of bemusement crossing his face.
"Tag Swagger's expose?" he repeated, sounding utterly confused. "I've been away for a bit, haven't heard much of anything happening in Destiny City as of late. An expose on what? On the Negaverse?"
The very idea was mindblowing, especially since Aurostibite had little idea as to who exactly this Tag Swagger person was. He stared at Zia with a mixture of suspicion and morbid curiosity, tried to formulate a proper question inside of his head, and came up with nothing but a lot of nothing.
Finally, he said, "Civilians get in the way," but it was less of an accusation and more of a resigned sigh, Aurostibite letting out a long breath. His face flushed a little at the last of her questions, though he tried to maintain some semblance of his dignity.
"Lieutenant," he said, avoiding the weapon question (it was embarrassing). "I'm a Lieutenant."
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:19 pm
"Oh, yeah, it was all about how the senshi terrorists are violent and evil and the Negaverse defends the city and stuff and whatnot."
Bullshit. That was the term for what Zia really thought, but it was a good excuse to be running around as a civilian and know a thing or two without revealing there might be something deeper to the equation.
But his statement about how they get in the way drew a more cautious look as she came back around to face him and she jumped back a step.
"And what do you do with civilians who get in the way?" She asked with a nervous laugh, but the way her hands clutched her phone to her chest, over where her mangled and half fused starseed resided in her chest, was a heavy clue she had a suspicious worry about something more than terrorist gangs.
"I suppose I would hope you're one of those 'saving the earth' types!"
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 9:11 pm
Aurostibite considered this for a long moment.
"Sounds about right," he said, tapping a finger against his chin. A lock of peacock blue hair fell over one shoulder, which he brushed impatiently away. "Though without all of the extraneous frivolities and melodramatic adjectives, those are unnecessarily added."
He caught her startled laugh and glanced sideways at her with a slightly surprised expression, Aurostibite frowning slightly. "Nothing," he said, at long length. "At least, I haven't come across any that have gotten in the way of my plans - unless you count interrupting a quiet patrol."
Aurostibite's frown grew a little, almost a scowl. "I'm hardly an extremist," he said flatly. "But yes, I'd consider myself someone wanting to make the world a better place."
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 9:23 pm
"Ah, well as long as that's not a starseed losing offense, I hope you don't mind if I continue to interrupt," She said with a flippant laugh and an oddly flirtatious wink in his direction for someone implying she suspected he might just outright murder her here on the street.
"Oh I didn't think you were! I find the whole organization very interesting, that's why I have questions! You still haven't shown me your weapon," She stated with a wide smile followed by a beat of silence and then, "Hint.... hint."
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Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 6:26 pm
Aurostibite stared at Zia with an almost accusatory stare, trying to decipher why the wink had been thrown into play and why she was looking so calm and collected when dealing with a member of the Negaverse.
Had she always been so open? Aurostibite clamped his jaw shut again, cheeks flushing a deeper red than they already were.
"There isn't much to show," he said stiffly.
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:33 am
"Why?" Zia was oblivious as ever. As far as she knew she was just trying to remember to stay civilian as possible while still get enough friendly groundwork established with an atypically squirmy negaverse officer.
"Are you embarrassed? It's okay, lieutenants typically have weak weapons and man, you should see some of the weapons the first stage and even second stage knights have, they are hilariously pointless."
She moved her phone in her hands as she stared him down with wide eyes, bright and expectant and incapable of comprehending the deeper confusion in his behavior. "Not much to show? You're not proud of your organization? Why did you join?"
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 12:44 pm
"No," said Aurostibite, a little too forcefully. His weapon was hardly that - a weapon - and to have to show it to a civilian who was also his former roommate (for lack of a better word) was simultaneously embarrassing and pathetic. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, wondering if there was a way he could get around showing her.
Her comment, however, prodded him right where he didn't want to, and the frown on Aurostibite's face turned into a scowl.
"I'm proud to be a member of the Negaverse," he said flatly, clearly affronted by her accusation. "It's the only thing that makes sense in this world. Why I joined is little of your business, but if you must know, I thought that their goals and purposes were in line with my own. And there are good role models to be had within the Negaverse."
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 9:10 pm
His forceful no made her recoil again, remembering she wasn't powered and didn't get any special considerations that came with it. She had become dependent on people finding value in her novelty, but she didn't have that here as a civilian.
Here she was one starseed pull or energy drain to being a shell who fed the Negaverse war machine along with the other faceless piles of victims in Destiny City.
"Okay," She said, looking down as her hands fiddled with her locked phone screen in anxious embarrassment and defeat. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean offense. I don't have anything against your organization. The only super powered faction in Destiny City that's caused me any trouble is a Dark Mirror Court."
There was a pause and an awkward laugh, since explaining that back into plausible mundane civilian territory needed a smidge of over sharing. "One kind of went into creepy stalker mode on me. Senshi are... they're weird. It got to the point where I had to find somewhere else to go so I didn't have to worry about my dog or my roommate or anything being skinned alive when I got home. So I mean, I know there's different kinds of senshi and you were allies with the Dark Mirrors up until recently but I really can't hate an organization that does the city such a service. A Negaverse officer even saved my life once!"
Which didn't balance out the several who tried to kill her, two almost very successful, but she was trying to build bridges here and massaging the truth a little didn't hurt.
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Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:13 pm
He wasn't really interested in taking her energy, half because she was his former roommate, and half because he didn't really have the energy to even try on his first day back on the job. Get used to being in the Negaverse again, re-acclimate himself, and then he could get back to the usual business.
"No offense taken," said Aurostibite a little grudgingly. He tugged absently at a lock of brightly colored hair. "And I'm not really all that familiar with the Dark Mirrors myself; if you really must know, I haven't really been a Lieutenant for all that long. I'm still getting used to things."
That was only half of a lie, since he'd been with the Negaverse for more than two years now, but that was beside the point.
Some of the tension eased from Aurostibite's shoulders. "We do good around Destiny City," he said. "unlike the Senshi. They're focused primarily on themselves and their own goals, whereas we are focused on the greater good of society."
His fingers idly touched the necklace around his neck. "People seem to forget that a great deal around here."
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Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 4:12 pm
"Oooh," Zia said with a nod and expression that she hoped gave the impression she was learning most of this for the first time.
She tilted her head slightly to the side and offered him a sympathetic smile. "I know, but I appreciate your efforts," She said, trying to offer him some comfort. Despite not being corrupted in her powered form, she didn't side with order and its White Moon either, she she far from considered the Negaverse to be her enemy.
At least when it's crazy generals weren't cutting her to pieces.
She offered him a tentative hand, trying her best not to be forceful and instead take a more gentle approach. "You don't have to give an interview for my index if it would make you too uncomfortable."
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