|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 10:38 am
This RP is backdated to May 30th
As per Kaatje’s rules, they were a few blocks away from Florence Court before Tallulah flicked her henshin pen into her hand. “This way,” she said, tugging Nick’s hand gently to lead him into the alley. She transformed quickly, as soon as they were out of sight of the main street, her familiar flash of darkness and spray of bubbles encircling her and leaving someone stronger and fiercer in her wake. Europa extended her hand to Nick again, waiting for him to follow suit.
“We don’t have to fight anyone tonight,” she said, in low tones that tried to be soothing. Despite the loss of his powered memories, she knew he probably didn’t want to risk running into an old acquaintance - especially one who might put Avalon back on their trail. Purification had bought them a reprieve from the general’s fury (at least as far as Oenone was concerned - Tallulah was still at as much risk as ever) - it would be foolish to squander that.
“We’re just going to practice all the basics,” she said, waiting for him to transform. “Running. Jumping. The perks of being a superhero. Easy stuff.” He’d done just fine powering up at boot camp, and he’d been frustrated the night she and Kaatje ran off to go fight evil without him - so tonight ought to be a really good run.
Europa wiggled her fingers a little. “Ready when you are.”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:43 pm
He was half-excited, half-terrified at the prospect of transforming into Super Sailor Oenone outside of the friendly and limited environment of Kaatje’s boot camp. In there, the worst thing that could happen would be running into a senshi he had tried to kill (and did not, unfortunately, remember trying to kill). He knew that Europa and Babylon would have backed him up if that had happened. They knew those people, knew what they were up against. Here, they could encounter actual enemies, people whose capabilities Nick had no idea how to measure. Nick had half a desire to call this off, go home, and go to sleep, but…
Next time, he wanted to go with Tallulah to the battle, not stay behind and wait for her to come home. “Oenone asteroid power, make up,” he said under his breath, and the green, sparkling ribbons of his transformation spun out around him. It was still thrilling to feel that indescribable change between human and sailor soldier. Sort of like going over a jump while skiing, that feeling of momentarily escaping gravity.
“Alright,” said Oenone, self-consciously adjusting his tiara, checking his bandolier to make sure all the bells were where he’d left them. “I’m all set. Let’s do this, eh?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:45 pm
Super Sailor Oenone was beautiful, considered Europa, and the pale green cast of his bodice and tights suited him far more than black ever had. He’d had a certain dark elegance as Spinel, but everyone looked better White Moon. (That was her opinion, anyway.) “Alright,” she said, watching him check his tiara and bandolier. “You look dashing.”
Although she did brush her hair behind her ear as a pretense for making sure that her star clip had replaced itself and found that it had - it always did.
She leapt, ice-blue ribbons trailing behind her, luminescent in the moonlight, and when she reached the rooftop she’d been aiming for, Tallulah turned and waited for Oenone. He’d forgotten his powered memories, and boot camp hadn’t involved any particularly physical maneuvers - but this was muscle memory more than conscious recollection. He ought to be fine - right?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:45 pm
Europa was graceful. He never really considered the way Tallulah moved; she was there or she wasn’t, and when she was he was usually too focused on her to think in terms of words. Which maybe sounded bad, but it wasn’t like he never thought about her at all. He thought about her a lot. Just, he wasn’t trying to learn from the way Tallulah navigated space. As Europa, she was teaching him how to be a sailor soldier of love and justice and, he supposed, bells.
Her confidence in him was well-placed. He took a few steps back to give himself room for error, and when he jumped he cleared the wall fairly easily. “Dashing, huh,” he asked rhetorically. “Jumping, natch.” This didn’t seem too terrible. He could live without the tights, but he felt… good. Really good. The uniform felt different and unfamiliar, but he gathered it had changed a lot since he was evil… so that was only to be expected. Also he’d only worn it once that he remembered. Wait, twice.
“What now, darling?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:45 pm
“Well,” said Europa, smiling slyly. She’d consulted with Kaatje, she of the organized training sessions, about what to do with Oenone’s first night back on the town. (Now that he’d been fully vetted and cleared to go.) The answer, of course, had been deceptively simple, the way most of Kaatje’s training exercises were: play tag.
She leaned forward and gave Oenone a playful tap on the bicep. “Tag,” she said, jumping gracefully away. “Now you chase me,” she called, from a fair distance, waiting for him to follow.
Honestly, she wished someone had taught her to use her powers this way - it would have been way more fun than falling off a roof on her seventeenth birthday.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:45 pm
Where was she going? Oenone smothered an instinctive sense of panic, reassuring himself that if he called, she’d come back--Tag. They were playing tag? He was going to smother Kaatje.
He sprang after Europa, booking it along the rooftops and feeling at turns like a juvenile moron and like some kind of graceful ghost. She was faster than he, and he could tell that sometimes when she got just outside his line of vision she was stopping to wait for him to catch up--so it was going to take some clever thinking in order for him to actually tag her back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:45 pm
Fighting back a delighted giggle, Europa took a hiding place on the next roof she came to. She hadn’t explicitly stated the rules of this version of tag, but for one thing she wanted to be able to observe how Oenone was taking to jumping, and for another, she wanted to see how well he caught on to sensing power signatures - would he feel her crouching behind the HVAC unit, or would he assume she’d gotten too far ahead of him?
She glanced carefully in Oenone’s direction, watching him cross the previous roof in springing, easy leaps. So far, so good. Like he’d done this before. (Briefly, she worried if being out on patrol and using those old muscles and magical impulses would bring back some dark memory, some hidden trace of Spinel.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:45 pm
Oenone couldn’t see her anymore. Europa had, somehow, completely vanished from his sight. “This’s real low, you know,” he called, “you cheater.” If he meant it, he wouldn’t say it--hopefully she’d know that. Ugh, s**t, though, where had she gone? The speed differential between an Eternal senshi and a Super senshi could be huge, for all he knew. She could be literally anywhere by now. Oenone slowed to a stop, glanced about hopefully for a sight of Europa’s glowing ribbons. No such luck.
There was this niggling feeling in the back of his head, like if he went to the northeast he’d find something worth seeing. But instinct had led him wrong before, and he was starting to get honestly concerned for Europa. She had been doing much, much better lately, but what if she had fallen and hurt herself? He gritted his teeth against the instinctive shout, because--who knew what he was sensing? It could be literally anything. If it was a Negaverser, like hell was he going to alert them to Europa’s presence.
But he had to know where she had gone. Oenone stopped walking, and. What now?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:45 pm
She waited. And she waited. And she waited a while longer and then decided to throw him a bone, because she could feel Oenone standing just a few yards away but for some reason hadn’t found her. Europa vaulted over the HVAC unit and shot him a cheery wave. “Hey,” she called. “Over here.” Why hadn’t he looked for her? Should she have told him it was going to be a game of hide-and-seek, too?
Europa closed the distance between them with a few long strides. “You could sense me, right?” she asked, taking one of his hands in hers. His aura was as clear and sweet as a ringing bell - Iris’s magic had done its job and done it well. “Here,” she said, holding a hand gently over his eyes. “Do you feel that?”
Feel was maybe not the best word, but she’d never found a better word to compare the sensation to. “That’s me. My aura,” she said. “You have one too. White moon senshi and knights, our auras feel good and pure. Negaversers and Dark mirror senshi feel dark. Twisted. Off. You’ll feel the difference.”
“So, do you want to keep playing?” she asked, looking for some sign that he was okay. Oenone’s ego was still in fragile shape, but she wanted for him to make it through tonight okay. It just felt important to manage that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:46 pm
Oenone stayed in place because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He needed to find her, but any direction he went in ran the risk of being the wrong one, and putting him further away from Europa. What if something happened? Kaatje had indicated that Negaversers of a certain level could teleport, and unless he was gravely mistaken about his own capabilities, senshi couldn’t.
He was about to panic (okay, he was already panicking) when he heard something move. There, walking towards him, was Europa. Relief slammed into him like a tractor trailer, and he felt able to breathe for, perhaps, the first time since she’d vanished. “Sense you,” he asked, taking a deep and calming breath. He closed his eyes and--“That was you?” He was an idiot. But then, no one had told him to expect magical auras. Oenone took her hand in his, squeezed it gently. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he said. Understatement of the century. “I thought you’d… fallen, somewhere. I’ll be fine. Let’s keep playing.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:46 pm
“Sorry,” said Europa sheepishly, glad to see he was okay. “I keep forgetting that things that seem intuitive to me… aren’t.” Truth be told, she couldn’t remember anyone ever sitting her down and explaining how auras worked or how to sense them, but Oenone was even less experienced than a newly awakened senshi, in a lot of ways, because he’d had every memory relating to the war selectively obliterated and a heaping case of what was really, probably PTSD.
“So, yeah,” she said, tugging flirtatiously on his hand. “That was me.”
She hadn’t fallen off a building in a long time, but she’d reassure him about it later. Mentioning that she had ever fallen off a building in the first place seemed like it might be a bad idea. “Okay,” she said, “So I’ll run ahead and hide. Try to find me!”
With a laugh, Europa took off running again. Several buildings ahead, she pressed herself against the side of an elevator shaft and waited.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:46 pm
He knew what he was looking for this time. He knew that she wasn't hurt, only hiding. So he looked for her, following that aura in his head over several rooftops, with an occasional stop to reorient himself. There, beside an elevator shaft, he found his fiancée. "Hey," he said, dropping down beside her and gently tagging her arm. After a moment's consideration, he bent down to kiss her, a hand drifting gently over her hair. "Found you. What now?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:46 pm
She was proud of him and how quickly he was getting the hang of this. Europa smiled and stood, slowly breaking the kiss. “You could try to catch me again,” she said, tugging on Oenone’s hands, trying to get him back to his feet. “Or I could try to catch you? Although.”
Europa thought self-consciously about how she was getting better at flirting. “It kind of looks like you’re already caught. Unless you’re going to prove me wrong?” She held her hands up, wiggling her gloved fingers to show that she had not tagged him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:47 pm
Oenone considered this for a moment, looking at her hands. Did he want to keep practicing? Well, it would be… it would be worthwhile, to practice. It wouldn’t help him to skive off his classes like a teenager.
That did not stop him from catching her hands in his and kissing her, because--this was a second chance, and he didn’t want to waste it on the war. She was why he’d given up the life he’d lived for twenty-five years; and she was entirely worth it. Would always be entirely worth it. “I’m pretty sure we caught each other,” he said. “Would you like to get a coffee, sweetheart?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
