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 Posted: Mon May 12, 2014 7:19 pm
Back to patrolling, Zia found herself creeping in new territory again.
Well new-old territory.
The side of town where Luxor and Ys frequented had been on the 'no' list for the better part of a year but now that she was back on speaking terms with Chester it was back in her repertoire, and with a vengeance.
She had been prowling all over that half of the city, as if she needed to reclaim that entire corner of Destiny City. But as she radiated out she was spotting new things. Which was expected, as she finally started creeping out of the places where she had plateaued, but she eventually caught sight of a squire that she hadn't seen before and-- in full cat form-- she pursued.
Padding along and stalking without remorse wondering if her prey was alert enough to notice.Silverah I am so sorry both for this lame start and the pun.
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Posted: Mon May 12, 2014 9:16 pm
Since being extended a standing invitation by Luxor, Megiddo had sort of organically incorporated the fairgrounds and the surrounding area into her patrol pattern. Jingleballs and Hot Casino Boy weren't her teammates by any stretch of the imagination, but she liked them well enough and they were good company. Gunn, though. Gunn was her teammate, and she preached situational awareness. Megiddo had noticed the strange signature following her almost immediately. It felt like how she remembered Lesath's signature to feel, but it lacked the acrid bite that Chaos left on signatures. That was interesting enough to stop for, and when she did, she heard the pitter-patter of tiny kitten feet. Well, maybe not tiny. And also probably not kitten, given the size of the cat who came into view, now that Megiddo had stopped in her tracks. "Huh," she said, pursing her lips. "Anyone ever tell you you've got a hell of a weird aura, kitty?" she asked.
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Posted: Mon May 12, 2014 10:22 pm
"I'd hope so, smartypants," The cat cooed with saccharine mock affection and form shifted to her humanoid stature, complete with fancy dress and cat ears, and folded her hands behind her back with a cheeky smile.
"It's usually what brings all the boys to the yard for my index," She said as she let the massive Mauvian aura leak freely into the atmosphere.
And then she leaned forward, head tilted slightly askew and looked at the taller girl like she was a shiny prize. "Speaking of, anyone ever tell you how very popular Saturn is these days? It might actually beat out Earth in my index. Nice stockings."
She glanced around and rolled her shoulders as she stood up straight again. "Wanna help out? It's just a few easy questions, promise." And maybe if they hadn't been so near the fairgrounds she wouldn't have included this notably nonstandard index question. "I uh... You come around this area often?"
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Posted: Mon May 12, 2014 11:33 pm
Megiddo regarded the cat cautiously, especially now that she'd gone and turned herself into a person - no one had ever mentioned to her that cats could do that. But, hey, weird space magic - she was going to do her best to accept it and go with it. "Your index," she repeated, not quite sure she was following. The energy reading was definitely order and definitely cat, but there was still that weird DMC-esque undertone that, although acknowledged, had yet to be explained. "I hadn't been keeping count," she answered, not sure whether she should lean towards the catgirl or step away. What she wound up doing was staying rooted to the spot, so her confusion was a zero-sum game. "I only know Ys." But she glanced at her stockings, as if to confirm that the pattern hadn't gone and changed on her. "Thanks," Megiddo added. "I'd tell you where to pick up a pair of your own, but they came with the outfit." Still, the cat didn't feel corrupt, so she didn't suppose there was any harm in talking to her. "Okay, sure," said Megiddo. "I'll answer your questions if you tell me who you are and why your aura feels like one of those mirror freaks washed in sunshine and rainbows." Which was maybe not the nicest way to put things, but she got points for descriptiveness - right? With regards to the last question, she said, "At least once a week. I've got a standing invite from Fancy Casino - Luxor. He thinks I'm good company."
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Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 8:32 pm
"It's a mystery? Did you not notice the sunshine and rainbows flyin' out of my a**?" Was the sarcastic retort back wrapped up in a cheeky smile. The girl was suspicious of her, and there was a certain flair of territorial nature in return.
And the two reasons why came right out.
"I'm Zirco--.. Wait, who?"
She wasn't that stupid codename to Ys and Luxor and realizing this girl knew them actually managed to get an instant power down from her and instead of the cocky cat girl making jokes and teasing her for her suspicion and confusion, she was a wide eyed twenty-something chewing on her nails in a sweater.
Poof! The spell was broken.
"You know them?" And a quick follow up of, "Fancy Casino?"
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Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 10:56 pm
Megiddo raised her eyebrows at the catgirl-now-girl. No one had ever told her that the talking cats could turn into actual, civilian people. Could all of them do that? Because if they could, why did they spend so much of their time as cats? It just seemed inconvenient. So maybe it was just - maybe it was just this one? Still. Weird. "Luxor. It's a hotel in Las Vegas. The one shaped like a pyramid?" she explained. "So I call him Fancy Casino. It was Fancy Casino Boyfriend, but Ys looked like he was gonna have a coronary. So I had to drop the last part." Which was a pity, because it didn't have quite the same ring. Did she know them? Well, she thought she'd answered that question well enough. The cat-girl-thing, on the other hand, remained a mystery. "So you still haven't answered my question," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "What's your deal? You're a cat? You're a mirror-person? You're a civilian?" Which came first, she wondered - the civilian, or the cat? "You're all three at once?" she hazarded. Which, you know, didn't really make sense, but stranger things had happened.
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Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 11:48 am
"Wait, whose boyfriend? Oh, Y--... Oh. Ha, that's funny," Although Zia's constant shifting and trying refind her footing and a new mask to put on for this conversation was obvious.
And this girl was asking questions. She ended up clearing her throat and pretending her weak spot named Luxor hadn't become a point of discussion, flipping curls over her shoulder with both hands as she slowly got a grip on her composure.
"Kind of. It's complicated. Mirror-people are created when a soul from the Black Moon's universe is brought over. Since bodies can't cross the barrier between universes, they need a host for their soul. I got the stupid guardian cat," She put her hands on her hips and shrugged a little. "But the prototype parallel court is a lot nicer to their hosts. Unlike the dark mirror, the host soul got to live. Dark Mirror Court is just a bunch of half fused zombies. When the original mirror queen died someone tried to take up the soul transfusion bit in her stead and... wasn't... very good at it."
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Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 11:28 pm
Zirconia's (or whoever she was, now that she'd reverted to her civilian form) question - whose boyfriend? - gave Megiddo a moment of gleeful pause. Why did she care? Perhaps - did she want Luxor to be her Fancy Casino Boyfriend? Megiddo didn't exactly see the appeal, but her proclivities admittedly ran in a very different direction. It was something interesting to keep in mind, if nothing else. "Oh," she said, nodding. This filled in with what Gunn had told her about the Blood Moon Court quite well. "Ares, you mean?" she asked. Ares did not scare her anymore. She'd looked the Dark Mirror Queen in the eye and been passed over unharmed - news of her incompetence came as no surprise, even if she was patient zero in a poorly-contained outbreak. Especially then. "So the host soul dies?" she asked, trying to think analytically. That was... a little sad, if only because Lesath had started to loom as something of a tragic figure in her mind, someone who truly hated the court she'd been drafted into. "So they can't - they can never purify? They can only die?" Well, at least she'd been right not to feel sorry for anyone she'd killed so far. ( Lesath, though, she thought despairingly.) "Anyway, you had questions for me," said Megiddo, getting back to business.
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Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 10:20 am
"Well, yeah," Zia said with a flippant little handwave. The impersonal way she had referred to Ares had been a result of meeting several people recently who didn't know her and she felt no need to paint her as anything other than someone who caused damage and vanished.
But if Megiddo knew names, why not use names.
"She's not a real queen, she was trying to do what Nehelenia did and she just ended up breaking her senshi because she can't bring whole souls over."
The Saturn knight's question of the host soul dying just got a little nod. "There's really nothing left to purify."
She powered up again and grabbed one of her collected mirrorseeds from subspace to show her. "See? Their light has completely gone out. They are no more."
She felt she'd paid enough informational dues to her to warrant a few questions, at the very least stating with an important one. "So what's your name, kiddo?"
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Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 6:40 pm
Megiddo stared at the mirror-plated starseed in Zia's hand, and then nodded a bit sadly. "I see," she said, biting her lip. "I have this - she's not really my friend. So I have this acquaintance. She was corrupted against her will and wants to leave the Court, but, I guess." She shrugged, at a loss for words. "That's sad for her. She died a long time ago and she doesn't even know it." The strange cat/girl had told her enough to warrant some replies. "Megiddo Squire of Saturn," she said easily. "Is that all you wanted to know?" Too easy, she thought. "Or have you got more pressing inquiries?" she asked. "For your, uh, index?" Which, Megiddo realized, had never actually been explained to her. "What is your index?" she asked, frowning slightly. "Who sees it? Anyone I wouldn't want to have all up in my business?"
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2014 1:34 pm
“A few were corrupted against their will,” Zia said with a small shrug. “At the Surrounding. I would guess others were tricked or manipulated and didn’t realize they were giving up their souls. I was. There are a few who want out. Orpheus, Lesath, Aurora, but…” She shook her head and shrugged, mostly avoiding direct eye contact and appearing reluctantly passive.
“Not everyone can always be saved. I guess.”
She cleared her throat and tried to perk up, pulling up the spreadsheet on her phone to show off. “It’s a study of knight statistics. It’s mostly for my own personal research, and since the Blood Moon Court scattered I have to throw my lot in somewhere. I like knights!” She said, completely ignoring that Negaversers were recorded in the cells too. Although their name categories were blank, and their rank and mineral names were logged under ‘corrupted alias’. The only two who had the spaces for both categories filled were Kairatos/Realgar and Whisler/Mariposite.
“You see, unlike the DMC, I can remember what the universe is like. The alternate one their magic originated in. And there are no knights there. No Negaverse, nothing. Earth’s soldiers are something called Cavaliers and there’s a lot less of them,” She rambled, not bothering to hide her enthusiasm for the mystery. “But then there were Cavaliers here too. Two at least. Eon for Chronos and one named Kunzite. Since they operate in courts like senshi there were probably more, but they’re probably lost now. Anyway, I’m going off topic.”
She pulled her phone back to herself to type away. “What weapon do you use? Have you gone to your wonder? Do you know if you’re reincarnated or did you inherit your powers?”
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 10:35 am
"Lesath's the one I know," said Megiddo reverently, and wondered what the senshi of moths would do if she knew there was no hope for her to ever escape her court. If she knew that she'd been walking around wearing a dead girl's face for years and had never even realized it. And not that Megiddo was even an advocate of purification, but that all just made her very sad! "Does she know there's no saving her?" Given that Lesath had not killed herself in despair yet and turned into the most powerful witch the universe had ever known, probably not. Oh wait, thought Megiddo. That was an anime, not real life. She took Zia's phone briefly, examining the spreadsheet. "Mariposite purified?" she asked. Apparently, she was a bit behind the times. "Good for him." She still didn't like how he'd insisted on calling her Meg, though. That wasn't her name! "I don't know jackshit about why we don't have Cavaliers and why there's so damn many of us and why we've got all these big dumb paramilitary assholes running around," she said, snapping her fingers. Her pitcher appeared in the air, and she caught it expertly. "But this is my weapon. I call it skullcracker." Magic? Who the ******** needed magic when you had two pounds of silver and a bad attitude. "My wonder's on Saturn. It's a well in a courtyard in a city. The gates are locked and I can't get out." She pursed her lips. "I think I'm reincarnated," she said, having no reason to believe otherwise. The next sentences came slowly - clearly, she'd never tried to recount this before. "I saw a girl. A vision. She threw my signet ring into the well and I pulled it back up. I think she was me."
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 3:48 pm
"When we talked, a few times, I just," Zia fiddled her fingers nervously, "Told her I'd look for... something."
Which, since she felt like all she had done with the mirrorseeds was confirm they were, in fact, very, very zombified, suddenly felt like cruel false hope and she should not have said anything to any of her defecting and non-compliant DMC senshi.
"Oh, yeah, and completely flipped a b***h," Zia said with a huge flourish of her hand when Megiddo recognized the former Mariposite. "It's really had explaining the whole 'you were corrupted and now you're not when they forget the whole stupid war. He ran into my brother's comforting arms complaining I roofied his a**."
The entire story was told with a special, judgmental brand of sarcasm. Stupid Nick. Stupid Noah.
She was brought out of her pouting and derisive muttering by Skullcracker, which managed to get a laugh out of her. The locked gates, or at least the mention of them, got her to start typing on her phone again. Cliffs, a prison, locked gates? Saturn wonders seemed to have a thing for confinement.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 9:24 pm
Megiddo nodded, a smirk briefly crossing her face. "Yeah, that sounds like Mariposite. Whisler now, I guess. I'll have to drop him a line." By which she meant send him like half a dozen excited sticky notes stamped with her signet ring, but who was really counting? "I wouldn't take the reaction personally if I were you." Purification, from what she understood given her very brief encounters with Oenone and Gunn's descriptions of him, was a doozy. "She'll be heartbroken when you tell her," she sighed about Lesath. "Might even go into heroic blue screen of death or something." That was what people did when they found out the horrible price their powers came at, right? Anyway, Megiddo didn't really want Lesath to kill herself, but if she was out of reach of purification then maybe it was the best thing she could do. She frowned. "I was on the surrounding," she said soberly. "Ares corrupted a boy standing right next to me but skipped me. Like, holy s**t. I lucked out. I lucked out a ton. I could've been a zombie and not even known it."
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Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 10:28 am
"Right, when I tell her," She said passively. Zia had no real intention of ever telling Lesath her lacking faith in solution. What she didn't know couldn't hurt her, and if a delusion kept her going, what was the harm? Zirconia would be so disappointed in his dismissal of the truth in favor of ignorance.
A boy on the Surrounding was an awkward subject of thought for Zia.
She had done her best not to think about Orpheus in the days since his identity revelation. It was too big of a thing to cope with, thinking her exboyfriend had been the boy in the library and the dark mirror senshi who was breathing down her neck all this time.
All three people were the same, and her very different relationships with them needing to be reconciled to one singular understanding was something that cracked at an unstable foundation. She had been trying not to think too hard, but every so often the feeling of repulsion and upset hit without warning and overwhelmed her.
"You're not a senshi. She couldn't have awakened you if she tried," Was all she said as she tried not to make it apparent she was triggering back to something shaky and upset.
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