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 Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 9:06 am
Zia had pestered Kairatos about where he planned on patrolling tonight. She hadn't been patrolling in ages. She had been slowly, as appalling as it seemed, losing interest in the magical underground of Destiny City.
With mirrorseed research stalled and the fall semester starting, her project last year of "I am going to try to finish my degree to feel better about myself" had gone surprisingly well. Well enough she decided to go for her MBA, and for the first time in five years her civilian life was actually functioning again. It wasn't that the magic and the war and all encompassing had been boring, but it had been filled with a lot of trauma and a lot of pain and it had basically broken Zia Connolly, the once upon a time prep school student brimming with potential, down to being completely absent in a functional capacity from her civilian life.
Having things going so well seemed to have the opposite effect. Instead of fishing every night for index entries, she had only gone out twice. She hadn't patrolled at all. In these last few months Zia had stopped playing the role of the ancient magical space cat and was a normal girl with high academic ambitions who looked forward to dates with boys and pizza night and responsibly walked the dog. She was not causing trouble, confusing new soldiers, or having any secret and ill advised meetings with thrillingly dangerous dark figures. Since withdrawing after White Phoenix, Zia had just stopped being a troublemaker.
She had become aware of how far she had wrapped herself up in this novel 'normal life' thing about a week ago, which is what led to the proposition of her roommate with "Hey, where are you patrolling tonight? I'll pick up tacos after class and meet up."
Maybe tagging along on patrol would make her feel less complacent and boring.
She got to the corner street a little early and ended up fiddling with her phone, wondering if he was powered up yet and wondering if she would have enough time tonight for homework and a million other mundane thoughts as she flicked through phone screens.
It was this distraction that led to not being quick to realize what was happening when a shadow was cast in front of her, not until a gloved hand was at her throat, which moved to harshly grab her face and force eye contact.
The indigo haired nega that had battered Hypnos and who Camelot had sent her away so he could attempt to talk some purification rhetoric into his head. She'd been cocky about antagonizing him when Camelot was sitting on him and another knight was in the vicinity, but her heart sank suddenly when he grinned.
"I've seen you before," He announced. "The ********' knight groupie. You've got a big mouth whenever we're in a crowd, but it's just the two of us now."
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 9:55 am
"Actually..." He had actually been wandering in civilian mode, hoping to lure out unsuspecting youma, and thinking about tacos... and that was the only reason he'd been able to come up quietly, without setting off personal alarms about his power... until he was moving in fast with long strides, his power rolling over the immediate area like a roll of heat as he powered up, summoning his net to one hand as he raised the other in a fist as he bore down on them. "Let her go, before I hand you something bleeding and important." He preferred not to threaten people right off the bat, not if he had a chance to talk them down, but then most people didn't start the conversation with their hand actually around someone's throat, and not someone he cared about. Granted Zee could probably turn into a cat, which would have given him something to think about, but that was also a lot of information to dump on someone like this. "I'm assuming he's not one of your usual contacts." Knight groupie huh? What a good little Chaos Monkey, dancing right along to the General Kings music box...
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:15 am
Zippeite jumped at the sound of a new voice and the aura of a new presence and Zia made a muffled noise since the startling it gave him caused him to tighten his grip where his fingers were now smooshing her cheeks in an effort to be simultaneously humiliating and subduing.
She had been frantically searching her jean pockets, wondering if she remembered her pocket knife. Something that had been a staple when she used to tag along as a civilian looking to pester the powered denizens of Destiny City.
It had seemed like the longest moment, when she was trying to find something and his free hand was in mid motion to reach for her starseed.
Zippeite turned to look at the knight, seeing him brandishing the net. He tried to respond in turn, shifting his grip on his hostage to bring her in front of him and summon his staff with his free hand. Ha ha, I can brandish too! "We're busy," He said, trying his best to puff up. Well, until a crunch sounded and he yelled.
The issue with holding someone by the face in a schoolyard bully stand by gave Zee ample opportunity in the shift to mercilessly bite his hand. She flounced the short distance away from him and just a step behind Kairatos, turning on her heel and rubbing her aching jaw and face. "No, not really. I've only seen him at a distance. Zippeite, I think."
She was talking in an upset whine, and Zippeite had dropped his staff to hold his hand which had begun visibly bleeding through the glove. His immaturity was showing as his battle stance had been abandoned to mourn over his injury and rattle off screeching and muddled insults and slurs and swears.
Zia exhaled and looked bewildered. "Holy s**t do I owe you one."
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:28 am
Kairatos stepped forward to plant a boot on top of the staff, though it was technically a futile gesture, since he assumed the young man could summon it if he really wanted, it was more about head games than anything else, like the net he gripped tightly in his fist, ready to strike out with it. "Oh he's a charmer." Kairatos quipped. "Vicious little s**t, do you suppose he runs that mouth at the General Kings? Zink'll probably bind him to something without a mouth if he does, General FunSize never did care to hear anything that wasn't about how smart and awesome he is." He raised his eyebrow slightly, examining Zip critically as he talked, as if he were trying to picture the young man bonded with a creature of the Rift.
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:16 am
hard. Hard enough her own thoughts were wondering if she'd chipped a tooth.
"Well in the future maybe you'll learn not to touch a girl without permission," She snarked, fishing out a compact to check the splotchy red marks from getting manhandled around the time Kairatos was being more proactive and stepping on the weapon.
"Shows what you know. I been in Zink's division since it got made up and he hasn't bothered with me. I doubt a GK is going to care if I rip a few civilians apart, especially an obnoxious slut with a knight-kink who ******** up a perfectly legitimate hunt." He ripped the glove off of his bloodied hand and threw it at Zia. Or at least in her general direction; It landed about two feet away on the concrete.
Zia raised an eyebrow. She honestly couldn't remember the event in question he was talking about and it had likely blended with several others. Where Zippeite had held the memory and was bitter over it, for her it was probably some nondescript Tuesday.
Being in Zink's 'division' made her tilt her head to the side towards Kairatos. She didn't really have a clue about how the Negaverse was set up, but it did prompt an, "Old teammate of yours?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 1:57 pm
"Nnno. Nowhen they made those divisions I was on Howlite's squad, SpecOps, this little cussbucket is, apparently, what passes for the Intelligence squad,which apparently has the same sense of unity as Spec Op, which is... well. None." Kairatos was tempted to fold his arms across his chest to complete the look of disapproval, but that would have meant giving Zip an tiny opening he wasn't prepared to surrender. "That's the problem with the General Kings, they really tend not to give a ********, no matter what you're doing, useful or not." He shrugged vaguely at Zia at the mention of the hunt. "You've been ******** up hunts and you didn't invite me? Shame on you." He teased. "Especially the knight kink part. I am clearly missing out."
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 2:35 pm
"Alas for you, my services offered to the knight faction seem to have been greatly exaggerated by this teenage boy," Zia snorted with a sarcastic smile, but she opened the top flap of her messenger bag to pull out a smaller paper fast food back and held it out, "But I did bring tacos."
Tacos which were held out of his grasp when she bounced backwards, catching the movement in her eye just before the angry captain got up, still hunched over and holding his hand, and tried to berserker charge at them.
Poor aim plus an agile target had Zia easily bounce away, but Kairatos' possession of greasy fast food had been delayed by the separation.
"I didn't join because I expected people to give a ******** about me, I joined because it's fun," Zippeite said as he summoned the staff to his hands, although the injured one quickly gave up on trying to grip it which made the overall hold on it unstable. He still made a haphazard attempt to swing the weighted end towards Kairatos' head, cutting the air with an audible sound.
"The ******** you mean you were a spec anyway?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 3:06 pm
"Ooh Tac---Hey!" The protest was, at best, annoyed as Kairatos jerked his head back slightly out of reflex, his arm snapping up to meet the heavy staff with the armored plate on his arm, where it connected with a dull 'klunk', and an unimpressive force against the knights arm. "I mean. I was in SpecOps." Kairatos answered coolly. Fun huh? He could show him fun. It wasn't fun to loose, and right now he thought he could take the kid even if his arm had still been in a sling. "I was also recruited by Zinkenite, who was so dedicated to the family structure of the Negaverse that he didn't even report my absence. Someone else did. How the hell do you count as intelligence if you guys don't even notice when a Captain stops showing up for meetings? No one even bothers to check for a corpse? The hell kind intelligence do you provide? Video game cheat codes?" Stupid kid, he wanted that goddamn taco. "Kid if you don't cool your jets I will be having fun at your expense. More so if I get cold take out. I'm a knight of Mars, boy. We do war well."
It was so, so so very tempting to back up that statement with just a touch of magic, but if he couldn't make the threat stick on this guy without magical back up, he needed to work on his intimidation.
"Even when I was Realgar. How many lieutenants have you met can say they broke even fighting with a Royal?"
He wasn't sure he'd have tried it these days, but then maybe. Now that he knew the Senshi of Hail was back, and perhaps more mad than he'd ever been.
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:35 pm
"Yes, he's quite fierce," Zia said with a sage nod and in a tone that was just a little too proud, a little too gushy, and toed the line of over the top sarcasm. She took a few more steps back to what she felt was a good spectating spot and tired of waiting, reached into the bag to grab a taco and start unwrapping it.
"People drop like flies. If they aren't missed then they're worthless," Zippeite sneered and spit on the sidewalk.
"I'm not close with Zink, I'm just under him. Painite trained me, she'd know if I went missing, and she'd cut my ******** head off if I turned out to be a traitor and a coward like you."
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:43 pm
"If I were a coward..." Kairatos voice took on an angry tone that had notes to it that belonged better to Realgar. "...Do tell me the value to a coward of saying "This is who I was when I was a blind fool boasting of a place in the dark, and daring the dark to come find him." He caught the unwrapping of the taco out of the corner of his eye, but the little brat had attacked Zia, and called him a coward, and he was about done with that. He gave Zippite an aggressive shove with the arm he'd used to block the staff, hoping to sprawl him to the ground, and had every intent to slam an foot down on, or at least... very close to the young man's chest in a show of force and anger. "I am a traitor, and I'm PROUD. But hey, this is fun right? How good will you look if you bring in my star seed?" He dared him, curling a lip at Zippite as he continued. "...Or how bad are you going to look if you're beat by someone as worthless as me?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 1:09 pm
"Jesus ********," Zippeite squawked and jumped back. He was scrambling, trying to figure out if he could get to any of their chests fast enough for a starseed rip.
But getting his a** kicked by Kairatos was not a gamble he wanted to take, mostly because he could at least convince himself he won later.
"Well it's your lucky day," He said, nudging his head down the street corner. "There are other girls out there who aren't all up in knights business that'll be a lot easier to rip up. You two kids have fun." And the captain did his favorite 'I got the last word move' with a teleport out of the area.
Zia's face briefly flashed a more serious expression before the urge to reapply the face mask came back and she smiled and held out the fast food bag with a fully extended arm. "Good job, Sir Knight. Please take this token of my affection."
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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 5:07 pm
"...My Lucky Day." Kairatos snorted, rolling his eyes as he reached to take the bag. He started to comment that things could have gone incredibly differently, had he been even a few seconds later, but he thought maybe she already knew that. She did tend to deflect things with humor. "...You think I should go follow him? He might not be bluffing about going and finding someone else." Though if he did, he'd worry about her getting home instead of following him and getting into more trouble. "I bet I could pick up his trail if I go make some rounds..." He suggested, waiting for a hint of her input. Definitely one to keep an eye out for, that kid.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 5:15 pm
Zia's expression faltered again. Caught between the knowledge that in spite of the way she and Kaiatos had stood over the belligerent officer and snarked their best 'too cool for you' one liners over him, she wasn't ignorant to the amount of damage he was capable of, and what he could have done to her if he wanted.
It was not a good feeling, a combination of weakness and selfishness, and while she resisted articulating she did willingly tip her hand with a longing stare in the direction of home.
"Right," She murmured and nodded, "I guess you could."
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 5:44 pm
"...Or... someone else can pick him up." He reached a hand out to touch her shoulder protectively. "...You ok? You need to sit down?" The reflex to worry sharpened intensely as reality and fear settled over her heavily. "I'll stick around..."
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 9:18 pm
"I'm fine," Zia had her own reflexive reactions and very carefully the mask started piecing back on. Helplessness and powerlessness was such a crippling and nauseating feeling, and being in denial had become her only coping mechanism.
"Walk with me," She said with a flippant smile that was a little too wide and she made a quick spin on her heel to stand at his side and loop her arm around his, and she spent the rest of the night denying anything gravely serious had happened and urging him to eat.
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