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 Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2016 8:52 pm
“Oh no,” she heard herself gasp out loud, and quickly flung her hands to her mouth to cover it, as if that would somehow make the words disappear before her presence was felt by the much stronger, darker aura nearby.
It wasn’t too long ago that normal college student and artist, Charlie Durand, found out that she had magical superpower that changed her clothes in the blink of an eye and… not much more than that. At least not that she figured out yet.
A golden dogwood flower had appeared before her when she was being protected by a handsome knight, and in her stupid desperation, she’d grabbed hold of it and found herself being whisked into the world of good guys and bad guys and monsters and it was all wonderful and terrible at the same time, because she had no one to really tell her what was going on or what she needed to be doing or looking out for.
But she knew the sinking feeling of the aura close by was bad. She hadn’t felt it until she’d just powered up, hoping to test out some of her unknown abilities, or maybe protect civilians from the monsters that were apparently crawling around the city, but she definitely miscalculated.
She at least knew enough that if she powered down, she would lose her ability to run as quickly, and she thought being able to jump farther than ever before was awesome, but she was also horribly scared that this arua meant she’d run into the same scary man that had more or less attacked her the night she found out she was a knight.
Maybe if she quietly backed away and out of the alley, she could run. And maybe if she wasn’t stupid enough to make even more of a racket when she accidentally stepped backwards on some discarded bags of trash, that would be even better.
The knight of Chronos, quickly scrambled to get away from the bags she tripped over, and holed herself up next to one of the dumpsters in the alley, her hands clutching desperately to the dogwood charm around her neck, her heart pounding wildly as she prepared herself for the worst. Maybe whoever it was would not be interested and leave and not want to kill an obviously very, very new knight.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2016 9:17 pm
Aluminite did not want to be out, but it was not often that the captain got what he wanted.
There was a tension he held tightly between his shoulder blades as he moved, an uneasiness that trembled down his spine as flickered, broken pieces of memories flashed through his mind. When he was alone, he thought too much of the events inside his general's home, of the woman who lay dead on the floor.
It was his fault, but it wasn't. He was just following order and yet -
Oh, Aluminite had never felt so sick. Not even after he'd risen from the dead with memories he didn't understand knocking at his temples. And then, those memories had been twisted and warped and he no longer knew what was true or false. Being powered didn't help, but staying home locked up in his apartment did him little good. At least when he was Captain Aluminite he could distract himself with his duties.
He had been making his way across the city, taking advantage of the cover rooftops afforded him until he felt a p***k of something too white, too pure tingling on the edges of his consciousness. He misstepped, misjudged and instead of jumping as intended -
Aluminite fell into the pile of garbage that young knight was attempt to hide herself in.
"Ow - s**t - son of a - " he cursed, squirming against the black plastic bags in an attempt to stand back up. It was only once he was on his feet again, wobbling unsteadily that he realized he wasn't alone.
Oh.
"Uh, hi?"guine meet the most awkward captain ever.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2016 9:48 pm
Suddenly, from the sky, a figure fell. The darkness of the aura was very obvious, especially this close, especially since he landed practically on her.
Connie let out a yelp of surprise and pain as she felt her foot get twisted from the rubbish and weight of the man that fell on top, pinning her leg in place so she couldn’t immediately escape. Thankfully, it didn’t seem as though the other had been too injured. In fact he soon stood up, albeit a bit wobbly. A breath of relief escaped her, glad that he wasn’t hurt - wait he was supposed to be the bad guy, right??
“Ah! Hello,” she quickly greeted in a panic, a nervous laugh escaping as one hand clutched to her necklace and the other cradled her aching foot. It didn’t seem to be broken, but she doubted she would be able to run easily now. Aaahhh, what had she gotten herself into??
“D-don’t mind me, I’m nobody important! A waste of time, really! A-and holy s**t you’re tall,” she gaped, eyes wide as she cowered pathetically against the alley wall, another nervous laugh escaping to hide the fact that ridiculously stupid tears of pain and panic had sprung into her eyes.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2016 10:07 pm
He was a lot sturdier now that he was a captain and maybe that was why he hadn't been injured in the fall. Of course, it was probably because the trash bags had broken his fall and -
Oh no. He didn't hurt her did he?
Panic flooded his features, dark brows shooting up as green eyes grew wide and he practically scrambled forward and stopped suddenly. The girl was cradling her ankle, crap. That was his fault, it had to be.
"s**t, are you okay? Did I - damnit." He squeezed the bridge of his nose with his middle finger and thumb. "I'm sorry," he tried, grimacing at her apologetically.
It was only then that he took in the colors of her dress and his expression twisted into something of recognition. It wasn't anything definite but - that pink looked awfully familiar. A strangled noise caught in his throat and he stepped back, swallowed it down and tried to regain his composure.
It helped that she'd drawn his attention to something else, his height.
"Well, I feel like I'm pretty average when you look at the population of the city but you could also be like really short." The sentence came out in a rush, almost incoherent and muddled. "You're hurt," he said quietly, expression softening and well, he looked very guilty. "I - it's my fault."
There he was, always hurting someone.
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:25 am
From her experience with the last Negaverse dude, Connie definitely expected this guy to try and kill her immediately. Her gut was telling her to get the hell out of there, and yet she couldn’t help but stare curiously up at this super tall man who seemed somewhat conflicted that he might have hurt her.
They did say: Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
“I’m okay,” she said with a shallow nod, her own green eyes wide and still a bit wet from the tears of panic that had previously sprung up, but more subdued now, concerned that this man was going to worry himself to death at the rate he was going. “Really. See?” she said, using her hands to brush some of the rubbish from her lap, and lifted her wrist to scrub at her eyes, and then carefully pushed herself up from the ground, keeping her dress tucked over her legs until she was able to get to her feet.
She grimaced slightly as pressure was placed on her ankle… although she did sputter in exasperation when he suggested she was just really short and he wasn’t stupidly tall. And… now that she was standing, it was really obvious that she was at least a foot shorter than he was. How annoying was that?
“Look, buddy. It’s not your fault I decided to hide there and you ended up falling on me,” she pointed out with a tiny frown, her voice still a little shaky as she reached up to tug an ice cream wrapper from sticking to her silvery blond hair. “Just like it’s not my fault I’m short, and not your fault you’re tall, even if you’re really tall. And…” Connie paused, her expression once more adopting something of concern, “Aren’t you… supposed to be a bad guy? I thought you wanted me hurt.”
Maybe it was stupid for her to even mention that, but he was definitely not behaving in any way she would have expected.
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 10:48 am
Aluminite was certainly different than the average Negaverse officer, but he'd long since accepted that and tried to fulfill his quotas and keep his head down.
Don't draw attention to yourself had become his mantra a few years ago. The person he was now seemed like such a sharp contrast to the person he'd been when he'd first been pulled into the mayhem that was chaos.
He didn't know why he accepted in the first place honestly, but he had and now there was no turning back.
Which was probably why he had receded so much, occupied his time with school work and his master's program and trying desperately to keep from thinking about space and space whales and outposts and things that didn't make sense anymore.
"Are you sure? I could - uh, we could wrap it or something?" He offered, hastily looking around their surroundings before huffing a sigh because they were surrounded by trash and he didn't particularly want to use anything found in trash bags to aid her. He did have a really long coat, he could probably tear fabric from that.
"Hey now," he huffed, frowning at her when she called him buddy. God, how old was this girl anyway? Was he not only a giant but also ancient compared to her? Aluminite was perpetually frowning at the fact that children were involved in...whatever the conflict between Chaos and Order was.
He sure as hell didn't know what it was anymore.
"I take personal offense to being called a bad guy. I am not." He insisted, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at the page. "Technically we're both bad guys, it just depends on perspective." His teacher brain was kicking in. "I do what I can to avoid hurting people. It's not - it's not my thing and, look. People do a lot of things they don't want to all the time."
He couldn't believe he was potentially having a debate with a kid in a pile of garbage.
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 8:57 am
This guy was strange. Like really strange. And he didn’t have that weird smell to him like that other guy who was apparently half monster, but he still had that oppressing dark presence to him that had her shivering uncomfortably, even in the heat of the waning summer.
She’d expected to be attacked immediately, to be hurt and killed or at least left for dead, and yet this guy was just… talking to her.
Connie eyed him suspiciously, limping with a wince as she edged along the wall of the alley to at least get herself out of the pile of trash. He was huffing and frowning at her now, arms crossed defensively. And then he was calling them both bad guys, which seemed ridiculous to her. But then again, she didn’t know much about this magical… war… that she suddenly found herself in.
“But,” she said softly, curiosity overtaking caution, “You have hurt people, haven’t you.” It wasn’t a question and she already knew the answer if it was. The way he’d said it, the way he explained how it wasn’t his thing indicated that he’d hurt people before.
People do a lot of things they don’t want to all the time.
She swallowed thickly, her heart pounding as she stepped back, her instinct to run was starting to take over once more, but hissed in pain upon putting pressure to her injured ankle. She nearly crumpled again, her hand pointlessly gripping the brick wall as she tried to remain upright, her leg shaking from the possible sprain.
He didn’t seem as though he wanted to hurt her, but he could just be luring her into a false sense of security. And she was a sitting duck, with how she couldn't run. She'd only just got these magical powers, and she was probably going to be killed that night.
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:16 am
He didn't move towards her, but away because he could see the way she eyed him and how it was obvious that she didn't trust him. He didn't blame her, he wouldn't trust him either, but he did try to pick himself out of the garbage. For the first time in a long while, Aluminite was grateful for his long legs as he stepped over bags of garbage until he was out of the mess and leaning against one of the alleyway walls.
"Technically," he admitted, biting the inside of his cheek and looking at the ground instead. "I don't always have a choice." Most of his skirmishes had been 'training' sessions with his quite terrifying general leaning over his shoulder with unsaid threats clogging the air. Or had been self-defense. In general, he didn't pick a fight if he thought it could be avoided.
"Self defense mostly." He shrugged, pushed his cloak back until he could find his pockets and shoved his hands in them. "Do you - do you want help? I can like, help you get to an instacare or something so you can get your ankle checked out. I'll bail out right after I swear."
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:39 am
There was something strange about the way he explained how he didn’t always have a choice, and she found that it scared her.
But surprisingly, it wasn’t for herself that she was scared, but the idea that this man didn’t always have the choice on whether or not he hurt someone was… well… terrifying.
As someone who tried very hard to keep her own freedom and make her own decisions, the thought of this man not being able to do that was heartbreaking. She didn’t think of herself as too trusting, instead being stupidly reckless on occasion, and while she didn’t trust him, she thought it was strange that someone who was supposed to be trying to hurt her kept asking what he could do to help her.
“Connie,” she suddenly blurted out, her voice a little weak. She could feel herself shaking slightly, her body clearly telling her to run while she could, but she was stubbornly curious about this man who had no choice but to hurt people sometimes.
“Well, Constantinople, but that’s such a mouthful, so Connie for short. I’m… I think it’s called a knight of Chronos…? I’m not… not sure…”
She was making it very obvious how new she was to all this, and knew it could very well have her killed, but she was asked if he could help her, multiple times, so… she finally nodded, swallowing once again.
“I probably just… need some ice…”
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 10:53 am
Learning that he didn't have much say in whether or not he powered up and did what was expected of him hadn't been fun but it was manageable. It could have been worse than it was and he'd had years to get used to the idea. Domeykite was one of the few people he could empathize with. Neither of them were thrilled about their lot, but they also knew that it couldn't be helped.
They'd joined for different reasons and those reasons were no longer applicable but it was a choice they had to live with. Like a very life threatening irremovable tattoo.
He blinked, surprised that she blurted out her name and alignment without prompting but he smiled ruefully at her. "I sorta figured, the Chronos knight thing." He'd only met a handful personally but he couldn't forget the way Bablyon had said, Chronos when he pointed that compass thing at him.
"Captain Aluminite," he offered in exchange, glancing at her wounded ankle and sighing. "Someone once told me that Chronos was my thing too." Flickers of his memories from the surrounding danced around in his head but he pushed them away. It wasn't like he could trust those memories anyway.
"I don't know if he was right or not." He pushed off the wall and skirted the pile of garbage to step a little closer to Connie. "There's a gas station not too far from here, we can get ice from it."
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:33 pm
Connie stared back at the Captain as he smiled at her, but it was a sad sort of smile with no happiness behind it, as if there was something there he couldn’t quite reach and had long since given up. Or maybe she was just imagining things and he didn’t feel that way at all.
She bit at her lip as he explained how he figured she was Chronos, which was surprising, but mostly because she knew very little about her position as a knight. He’d obviously had a lot more experience than her, with a lot more he’d learned about their strange, magical world.
“You know what Chronos is…?” she couldn’t help but ask, since she wasn’t entirely sure, herself. It was as though a voice was quietly speaking into her heart, telling her names that felt familiar for reasons she couldn’t explain. Just as she knew her identity was Constantinople, she knew she was whatever this Chronos was.
Carefully, she edged her way out from the trash, her heart still racing as she took a step closer to the man with the aura that seemed to suck the air from her lungs. It was frightening, but she wanted desperately to believe that he really meant to help her.
“So…” she started, still cautious and knowing very well that he could probably kill her in an instant. “You’re… Chronos, too?” Maybe she misunderstood and might offend him, but her curiosity about everything she’d been thrown into was too strong to ignore. She limped slowly beside him in the direction of the gas station he’d indicated, using the wall of the alley for support while she still had it available, trying not to make too many pained expressions so as not to worry him.
This Captain Aluminite seemed too… kind to be on the supposed bad side.
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:42 pm
"A princess," he replied quietly, the slightest hint of fondness in his voice. He didn't know where the emotion came from, but it was there just like the flashes of memories flickering through his brain. Maybe he didn't remember much about the surrounding, but it was hard to forget green hair, pink eyes, and butterfly wings.
Her colors were everywhere he looked.
"I've only met a handful of knights personally, but the majority seems to be knights of Chronos." He found it a little ironic. The first one he'd met had been the very same girl who'd told him what he remembered was wrong.
It'd sent his entire world spinning the wrong way and out of control.
"Um, yeah," he frowned, looked away as he swallowed and rubbed the back of his head. He watched her curiously, expression a mix of concern and uncertainty. "That looks painful, are you sure I can't like - carry you?" Her injury was his fault after all.
"I...guess? I'm not really sure but there - there was this knight and he had this compass thing that tells you your alignment." He remembered how sick the idea had made him, because of course it would be Chronos. "It pointed to Chronos. I've never - I've always been part of the Negaverse so I don't know for sure but - It feels right." If it didn't then it wouldn't have been so jarring to learn.
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 11:02 pm
”A princess?” she repeated curiously, not really understand what he meant by that, but she was definitely surprised to hear that there were more like her, and apparently a lot more. Or at least the majority that Aluminite had met. That was good to hear, and maybe she would be able to find one or two and learn more about what she was and what they were supposed to be doing.
Because what she thought she was supposed to be doing was fighting people like Captain Aluminite, who had been nothing but kind to her since he first fell on her.
She stared at him curiously, still cautiously, as if trying to decide what might be best to say, or if maybe, probably, she was just too naive and new to everything to really understand.
“If it feels right, then… maybe it is,” she said softly, wary of shifting the somewhat pleasant mood. It was surprising, all things considered, that this Captain of the Negaverse, the supposed bad guys in this magical war, was being more kind to her than almost anyone had in a long time.
Connie swallowed thickly, her throat dry as she weighed his offer, her heart pounding with warning against whatever she was about to do.
“I’m sorry. For thinking you were a bad guy. You’re not bad at all…”
Every fiber of her being was screaming at her that this was dangerous, that he could kill her if he wanted, that it wouldn’t take too much effort with that dark energy of his, but slowly she lifted her hand so that he could help her if he really wanted.
“You don’t have to carry me. It’s really not that bad. I just need… something to hold on to,” she explained, biting the inside of her cheek nervously. “But… maybe that knight with the compass was right… maybe you’re meant to be like me. Chronos, I mean… If you had the choice, would you want to find out…?”
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:21 am
"Yeah," he said quietly, pausing in his gait to lean up against the wall as he waited for Connie. "Um, a royal. I guess...I don't really know how knights work but I think that means she's your princess." Aluminite offered by way of explanation.
And mine, I guess.
Triumphalis had never met Chronos and there was a part of the captain who wondered if the princess was even around any more. Did they come and go, disappear like the various members of the Negaverse? Either way, he couldn't help but hope the green haired woman was doing okay.
"No - It's okay." He replied hurriedly, pushing off and taking a tentative step closer to her now that they were further from those bags of garbage. "A lot of us are bad. Don't - don't use me as an example for your opinion. It'll...It'll get you hurt." Aluminite was incredibly aware that he was atypical. "But there's a lot of bad on both sides." He hadn't been there when they'd rescued the hostages, but he'd been told about it. He'd seen the damage first hand.
Zircon had lost her leg because of it.
"I'm kinda like, way taller than you but if you want, you can still hold on to me." He offered her his arm, the bracer without the blade just in case it slipped. He sighed a her question, picked at the lining of his coat and tried to picture what he might look like if he didn't wear black and green. "I don't know. Probably not. It's - it's complicated. I've got a lot of...bad memories associated with Chronos and her surrounding but, maybe? I'm not sure the cost is worth it."
And he didn't even know what the true cost was.
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Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 10:11 am
She wasn’t entirely sure what to think of a mysterious princess, but thought it was kind of cool. This was the first she’d heard of it, so she would definitely have to learn more about this Chronos princess.
“I told you you were tall!!” she squeaked with a mix of exasperation and amusement as she reached out to take hold of his arm. The hesitation that had been there before was slowly fading away. The voice in the back of her mind kept telling her that this was so very dangerous. She didn’t like to think that she trusted people easily, but so far this man really wasn’t all that bad. Even if he said others were bad, she couldn’t help but think he was actually a good person.
Connie shook her head when Aluminite explained how it probably wasn’t worth the cost of knowing. “Then don’t. You’re a good person and if finding out is going to risk that, then I don’t want you to find out,” she said, knowing it was probably very naive to just leave it at that, but despite everything she hoped she wasn’t the only one he would be there for to help.
“I’ve heard there are so many of us. So… I might not ever see you again,” she said thoughtfully, trying not to sound a little sad at the thought as she allowed him to help her hobble down the alley towards where they could get some ice. “I’m glad I met you, Captain Aluminite, even though I know almost nothing about you.”
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