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 Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 12:00 am
They'd separated all the prisoners into their own rooms or areas, far enough they couldn't easily communicate, and certainly couldn't see. No sense in giving them any more information about what was going on, where they were or who was there than they had to. At least, Cinnabar assumed that's how things were.
The uncertainty, the lack of knowledge, scared a lot of people, and people who were on edge could theoretically be easier to get information from. She'd done it before herself, but that had always been by the brute force method... either persuasion ala fist, or the silver side of her tongue. Those people, though, had a lot less to lose than these did... and Cin knew she lacked the subtlety needed for this operation. That was better left in Schörl's hands along with her dragon-topped cane.
As she approached the door way to the room of fun mirrors, Cin wondered how many of the prisoners would feel the flesh-peeling effects of that cane. Schörl had such a delicate touch, backed with delicious force... she knew from experience some of the things the blonde could do if she wished.
Inside the room, another blonde was chained to the wall, fists apart so he couldn't reach anything for leverage towards escape. He looked... so pathetic, sitting there, beaten and dirty from his struggles with Schörl. Cinnabar might have almost felt bad for him, if most men didn't instinctively make her skin crawl. Bad memories... a bad past she had worked very hard to bury.
"Wakey wakey, Eggs and Bakey!" The captain caroled as she paced inside, her boots rapping against the floor. "Time to take your medicine, handsome. I'm afraid its a little bitter today."
Some quick research after the ball had refreshed her to the various planets the knights claimed they served. This one's red and male symbols set him as Mars. Ironic how greek/roman/whatever his outfit looked, having a planet named for the greek god of war. It was only marginally better than what some of the senshi war and at least he had some small bit of armor.
There was a pressure behind her eyes, a growing seed of pain, but Cin ignored it, her smile still plastered across her face as she came to a halt outside of reach, thumbs hooked in the belt around her waist.
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 2:11 pm
"And you're what? Marry Poppins?" Kairatos' voice was rough around the edges, with notes that sounded like it was painful to talk after his go round with Schörl. He was weary, clearly, and in pain, all of which fed into making his words challenging, angry, and bitter. Had she met him, they might have sounded much like he had before he had purified. He opened his eyes, just enough to point his stare at her like a knife, and twisted the corners of his mouth into a smirk as he looked her over. "Oh no even better." He snorted. "Interesting color combo you've got goin there. Lemme guess. You've got a motorcycle to go with that road rash?" He stopped to try and clear his throat and swallow, which did nothing for his discomfort, but he forced a raw, painful chuckle anyway. "Oh sorry. It's Scales isn't it? Bet they don't make an ointment for that." He wished she'd come closer, just a little. He would -relish- the chance, but he was sure she already knew that. .
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:43 pm
The rasp of his voice made her smile as Cinnabar sank down to crouch, her tail flicking. All these prisoners, so defiant... like this was just some little hiccup in their life journey. Like they weren't in very real, very mortal danger. It was hard not to find it cute, if misguided. She wasn't the one who was going to be trying to get the information out of them, so she had the luxury of not caring how defiant they were. If anything, she liked it, because prey that snarled back was way more fun than some broken, sobbing mess.
"Naw, Mary Poppins gives spoonfuls of sugar and I hate sweet things. I hate kids too, so you can guarantee I'd be a horrible nanny." She chuckled. The glare he gave her... it gave her a delicious little thrill and her grin widened, one elbow propped on her knee so she could set her chin in her hand.
"The little snark thing you've got going on... its cute. You bring that out to impress all the girls, don't you?" She traced a circle with one finger lazily, taking in all of him. "The bull motif... little bit of wishful thinking, isn't it? Over compensation? Maybe after I'm done with you here, I'll go visit the little glow bug and see if she knows how well you perform. Useful information for when the General-Queen brings you back into the fold... though I'd rather have a go at her than you."
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Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 4:26 pm
"You'd definitely make a damn terrible Mary Poppins." He agreed, still watching her with fury in his eyes. "But I don't have to impress you. Nothing to impress. Look at you. You could barely handle your own against one knight of Cosmos." He flashed a narrow, pained grin as he tossed out a barb she might or might not understand, but so many people had seen it, it was worth the gamble. " Tanais could have at least held her own with me. But you? You're a sad little knock off of Me." Another pause, because it hurt too much to keep talking. "Same colors pretty much and everything. How long did they wait after I was gone before they hauled you on? How long before they 'upgraded' you with your new parts?" Pull no punches. If she got angry she might make a mistake... or he might have already made one.
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 11:51 am
Cinnabar smiled lazily as she watched the downed knight posture at her, searching for buttons to push and failing to hit the mark.
"I seem to remember that Cosmos knight crumpling like a rag doll after one kick to the head... that she didn't even dodge. She gave me a bit of a sting with that magic of hers, but really, I've had worse." She chuckled.
The pain behind her eyes seemed to surge when he mentioned someone named Tanais and the half-youma squinted as her headache ramped up a few degrees.
"Tanais? Is that one of your little knight friends? Is she hot?" Cinnabar laughed, resisting the urge to rub her temples as her head began to pound. She didn't want to give him any fodder, but ********... at this rate she might actually have to beg off the rest of her shift because of her very first migraine.
"You were one of us once, weren't you? No wonder Schörl showed such an interest... she takes her SpecOps job rather seriously. You'll be quite a feather in her cap. Sad to say though, if you were anything special, it doesn't show... No one ever talks about 'that guy who purified' and if I take after you at all, I can assure you I'm a significant improvement. I mean, think about it... if you were so great, they'd have come after you rather than bring me in, right? I don't see you as any great loss, considering you're sitting here chained to the wall, Sweetcheeks." Fingers moved towards her head and she turned the motion into running them through her hair, the corners of her eyes and mouth pinched. "In fact, just to illustrate my point... all this is actually because I made a mistake and tried to take a youma before I was captain."
Cinnabar waved her hand down her body, her tail making a rasping sound as it slid across the floor.
"Now, see, by rights I should have died, because that's what happens to stupid lieutenants, right? But I didn't... General-Queen Laurelite found me so valuable, she upgraded me instead, and I came out on top in the merge. Do you think you can claim the same would have happened if it had been you?" She purred, blinking through sudden dryness in her eyes.
Then, suddenly...
She was in pitched battle and he was there... but he stood at her side, rather than in front of her. His magic gave her a boost and she fought with joy, her gauntleted fists her only weapons. Around them there were others... brothers, sisters, who fought with them, stood beside them against agents of the Negaverse... She remembered laughing, an arm slung around the shoulders of another woman. Eating in a mess tent, drinking with comrades, tumbling into her tent with some pretty thing...
Memories of... something else, some other place, flooded her and Cinnabar found herself panicing. Tanais... that wasn't her name... That wasn't her... but it was.
The half-youma snarled, the sound thick and feral as her hand shot out and she grabbed the knight by the throat. She pulled him forward and slammed him back into the glass, sending fine cracks spider-webbing across its surface as she held him pressed to it.
"WHO ARE YOU?" Cinnabar roared, more anger in the noise than the panic she was suddenly feeling. She bristled all over, her shoulders hunched as lips pulled back from gleaming white fangs.
He wasn't supposed to be here... not in their hands. They had fought too hard to let him go back...
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 1:43 pm
That had taken a sudden shift from zero to 'I have made a terrible mistake' in speeds that were record breaking, even for him, and Kairatos gave an strangled cry as his head smacked against the glass. For a moment, the only thing he could see or hear was the roaring of his own thoughts, and the black and stars that flashed in his vision. He was fairly sure he'd lost consciousness, if only briefly, and wasn't sure if it was a second, a minute... but he didn't think longer than that. tried to take a youma before she was a captain Who are you?! "K-kairatos. Of. Mars." He answered her, through gritted teeth with her hand still around his throat. Was their glass in his scalp? He was pretty sure he was bleeding, but he'd hit a nerve and dug his thumbs into the wound apparently. Bad composure, bad mistakes. But in this case bad mistakes could mean killing the prisoner you weren't supposed to. Which under the circumstances, he supposed might be getting off easy. "Hot headed mistake." He rasped, letting his eyes drift over her... additions... when his hands couldn't point, though they strained against the chains holding him. "Typical Mars knight." At some point he was actually going to shut up around the point when he realized he'd made an unwise choice, but apparently today was not that day. Maybe he could blame it on getting his head banged into the mirror.
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 3:51 pm
Kairatos of Mars. The Bull of Mars.
Why did she know that name? It was right there as he said it, at the forefront of other names that stayed tantalizingly out of reach. Names of people she felt deep down were hers... Or that she was theirs. Did it matter in the end which? And a river... there was a river that called to her seductively, called as though to a lost child...
The beast inside stirred with what felt like a growl of warning and she could almost see the pale eyes gleaming, waiting... prepared to take advantage of any weakness she showed it. She was a Negaverse agent... a Captain. She had allies here and none of them shared a face with the ones that teased at her. Cinnabar ground her teeth together and another snarl broke free as he spoke. Her hand tightened compulsively around his throat with a punishing grip and then relaxed just as suddenly, as though afraid to hurt him.
"SHUT UP. I'm NOT a Mars Knight." She hissed through her teeth, adamant and uncertain at the same time. "My name is Captain Cinnabar. I am NOT Tanais..."
Red eyes trained on his and she stared unblinking, her own fury bald to ******** idiot... why are you here? You shouldn't be here... they are going to corrupt you again. Can't corrupt you... not again." Her speech more to herself than to him... despite her wide eyes, she seemed not to see him and rather, something else entirely, something only in her mind.
God, she was losing it... half of her pulled one way and half pulled the other, leaving her almost in literal pain. All she knew was that this man was not her enemy and he desperately needed to not be here. And she was not whoever he called her, whoever she saw in her mind. Jerking her hand back, Cinnabar released him as though his skin burned and she sprang to her feet, starting to pace the mirrored room like a real lion in a cage. Her boots thunked heavily, her clawed hands fisting and relaxing over and over again.
She had to do something, but she had no idea what. She lived by her instincts and this... this was more internal conflict than she had ever felt before. Part of her wanted to take it to Schörl, lay it out before a more logical mind than her own... but there was a new voice that whispered danger at that thought. Schörl hunted traitors... what were these thoughts but traitorous? She couldn't tell anyone about this... she didn't want to lose what she had worked so hard for here, sacrificed so much for.
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:05 pm
"I'm here because apparently it was too much to hope I could have one pleasant evening." He rasped, though it hurt like hell. Tiny fireworks were still going off in his head. "But maybe the universe just has a sense of humor." He chuckled weakly, the sort of laugh you laughed when things weren't even a little funny, and you had no idea why you would laugh, but the sound bubbles up anyway, in spite of the pain. Of course they'd corrupt him again. Zinkenite might have let him slip away as a broken toy, but it was a risk he'd taken by deciding that the purified needed a voice, a loud one, shouting that they were strong, that they need not fall back. Not fall maybe, but it didn't mean they wouldn't destroy him anyway.
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:45 pm
Cinnabar blew air harshly through her nose as she spun and stalked back. Her steps were even sharper this time, but they had purpose to them. They carried her straight to him and her hand snapped out to grab him by his chin. Leaning over, she bared her fangs at him.
"If you tell anyone about... Tanais, I swear to god I will break both of your legs, kill your little cosmos knight girl and then I'll kill you, do you hear me?" She growled, threat in every line of her.
He couldn't stay here... that much she was certain of. Cinnabar didn't know how, but she couldn't let him fall prey to the General-Sovereigns. There had to be a way to get him out, but she had to be careful about it. She was far more used to catching people that releasing them and she did not want to ******** over her place in the Negaverse.
Releasing his chin with a hiss, she headed for the door with a rapid step, stalking around the corner and was gone.
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:53 pm
Well that had gone...
... Differently.
He shut his eyes, leaned his bead back gingerly and let out a long, uncomfortable sigh when she shut the door behind her.
"Well." He noted to no one in particular.
"That went well."
[Fin]
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