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 Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2017 11:10 pm
Ember was just as a small cafe, having been fed bits from a parton's turkey sandwich, despite management's disapproval. She had a way of charming people that was put to good use to stay fed and mostly content. When she was done she thanked her patron by rolling over and letting him rub her belly for a moment or two before getting up and trotting away. There was something nice about not having to be tied to any one person or place. Downtown was a large place full of interesting sights and smells. She had no other plans to distract her from simply existing in the moment.
She felt another Mauvian, a small nagging tug in the back of her head. She didn't know many other Mauvians and instinctively headed in that direction. After all, there was nothing to distract her until it was time to go to Themisto's for bed. She'd grown quite comfortable there, sleeping on his chest each night with a purr. It was a good life, actually.
"Hello."
She hopped lightly down from ledge to ledge from the rooftops she'd been skimming along to where the other aura was. She landed primly, though the jingling of the chimes on her bracelets gave away her approach: stealthy, she was not. Still, she sat up proudly in front of her fellow Guardian Cat, looking at him with quietly appraising eyes. He was the second she'd met and looked quite different from the first, and even from herself. She was the only cat she knew to be so heavily clothed, but she liked to think it added to her charm.
"I'm Ember. Who might you be?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:55 am
Hell no, ********> The cat zipped through the narrow alleyway, claws scraping wildly on pavement, while a liberal cut of salmon hung from his mouth. After him, a fishmonger threw a knife in his direction. Dodging to the left, Faust slowed smugly while the knife clattered to the ground uselessly. He wasted no time in hiking up one of the chain link fences, then dropped down to the other side where he trotted along on regular sidewalk, where only a few bystanders shot him some odd looks.
Overall, though, the streets looked quiet. Faust found no qualms in retiring his slab of fish to the ground right where he stood, but when another voice accosted him, he looked for who he might have to kill.
But rather than a Negaverse agent, or a wayward White Moon, or some idiotic bystander, he found himself looking at another cat. And, real talk, she was pretty damn cute. But Faust wasn't about to give into that s**t. Nope, he had fish in front of him and damn if he wasn't going to eat it. No lady cat was going to swipe his hard-earned fish from under his nose.
"Name's Faust," the large cat grunted, and he seated himself in front of his food. "And this' my fish." The choice between chatting and eating proved a hard one, but he wasn't certain he could take his eyes off a potential thief just yet.
"You new 'round here? Ain't seen you before."
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Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:39 am
It was mildly offensive what he assumed, but he had no way of knowing that Ember rarely went without and had just been fed hand carved turkey from one of the best rotisseries in Destiny City. She was intrigued by his presence, not by his meal, and tried to hide a small upturn at the corner of her mouth. She wasn't very good at it, eyes sparkling as she watched him being protective over his fish.
"Heaven forbid," she teased, her voice low and obviously expressing the smirk she was so desperate to hide.
Though, she couldn't deny that she was new around here and she was curious about her temporary companion. He seemed so delightfully...rough. Not that she was without her own peccadilloes, but still. Her pride dictated that she present herself in the best possible light, first impressions and all that, so she straightened her posture as she sat, after inching a little closer just to "********" with him.
"I 'ain't' been around here before." Her voice never lost it's velvet purr or the playful edge. "In all seriousness I've never met another like myself so it is nice to meet you. Don't worry, your fish is safe."
To prove it she jumped onto somewhere flat and moderately less filthy than the normal contents of the alley and laid down. If that was what it took to be able to talk to him, she was willing to take one for the team, so to speak.
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 8:56 pm
"Damn right, heaven forbid." Faust and sarcasm mixed to questionable effect; he still watched the newcomer with deep skepticism in his eyes. The cat stood tall and proud over his fish, and he would yield to no one - not even Thraen. Of course, Thraen knew better than to stand as a threat to his acquisitions.
She inched closer, and Faust chose the time to strike. A warning attack it was, with claws still retracted as he pawed at her face. Any cat knew better than to encroach on a meal - that was simple cat law, and even the Mauvians remembered as much. Or, Faust expected them to; if they failed to recall at least that much decency, then they damn well deserved a paw to the face. Maybe a kick to the a**, too. "You git'cho a** up outta my lunch, babe. I ain't got time for you to be playin' mooch off my food." With a snort, Faust leaned down to start on his meal.
And start he did, until he heard her comment that his fish remained in no real danger. If cats had brows, he'd have cocked his in a hot second. Did she really think he'd buy that s**t?
She made a smart enough point when she retreated, and Faust finished chewing the mouthful he gnawed off. "You never seen another Mauvian before? The hell you been? Livin' outta the sewer or some s**t? You hang around topside long enough, you run into other Guardians like they're a goddamn fad. I met a few myself jus' by goin' around lookin' for senshi to awaken. And half the time, they need a smack upside the head for all their pissin' and moanin'. Like they forgot how to be a cat when they remembered all their tech. The hell with those mangy furbags." Faust snorted.
"So, Ember. Next time you meet a guardian cat, you got a pretty good chance of bein' justified if you kick its a** straight outta the gate."
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 11:03 pm
Ember backed up when he smacked her, shaking her head and wiggling her nose. She wasn't hurt, of course, but she also hadn't been expecting that kind of a response. Honestly, she didn't mean any threat to his fish but on instinct she moved to pounce him in return, rolling with him on the concrete before rolling over and continuing to glare. Like him, she had not moved to try to hurt him, only warn him against trying to smack her again. She didn't take kindly to the gesture.
"How rude!" She glared at him. "I'm well take care of, thank you. I don't need your scraps."
But her anger didn't last long, more intrigued by him than upset by his lack of manners. Besides, she knew something about possessive qualities. She had a possessive streak in herself and that was how she had adopted Themisto as her own, someone she would keep for herself from now on. Though he was gruff, she realized, he was actually pretty cute. His manners could use a bit of softening, but at least he was interesting.
"I'll keep that in mind. Does that mean you want to kick my a**?"
For some reason she seemed to enjoy goading him. This time it was with a smile on her lips, looking a little wolfish as she watched him.
"I'm not sure where I've been, honestly. I enjoy places with lots of trees. Tall trees, ready to climb. There aren't a great deal of humans out there, though I did awaken a senshi the other day. Cinnamon."
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Posted: Sun Mar 12, 2017 12:21 pm
Sheeit, don't you got no taste? Fresh fish was meant for eating, not snubbing. The hell kind of guardian cat goes around hating on fish? Her loss, Faust figured.
Faust found no time to dodge the hit taken, and instead was rolled atop the concrete like a ragdoll, further increasing his annoyance. Huffing, he returned to his meal. "It means you gonna get your a** kicked if you keep on with this s**t. You think I got time to play games wit' yo' haughty a**? Hell no. I got lunch to eat, senshi to awaken, and Nega a** to kick. So unless you gonna man up and help out with one o' the three, I ain't got time for you." Faust found no qualm in turning his back on the guardian; she already made plain that she was obnoxious, and continued to show it by trying to talk to him.
Faust sat through most of her conversation by eating, and chewed a significant hole in his lunch by the time she finished talking about trees and a new senshi. He couldn't give a damn about the trees, but the senshi was an interesting point of discussion. Cinnamon as a sphere sounded like sneeze fodder more than anything.
"Cinnamon? They gonna get out there and patrol? Cuz s**t, we ain't gonna win this war 'less these kids get up outta their houses and fight. Been a while since I found one to awaken." A long while - Faust was well aware of his lack of progress on that front. At least other Guardians still did their jobs, even if he ran across them so seldom now.
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Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 10:52 pm
"You got aggressive with me first, over that stupid fish!" She complained, loudly, and turned her nose up at him.
Obediently, she left him and his salmon alone after that, sitting on the pavement near him watching him make a bit of a pig of himself. At some point he might have learned to share, even if she would have said no to the offer. Still, at least while he was eating he wasn't nearly so obnoxious and could be almost tolerable while she watched him. And, if she was honest, kind of pretty.
"Doesn't anyone take care of you?"
Zach took care of her, at least for now, and she enjoyed being his guest. Once he expressed a distaste at calling her his pet that was what she had settled upon, if only to make him more comfortable. As Faust continued she looked a little indignant. She certainly wasn't as militant as he was, that was for sure. Sure, she wanted to do her job but she wasn't going to "kick" anyone's a** to make them do it. It was more a matter of choice and guidance and only one did she have to give.
"Anyway, I do the best I can. I can't make him patrol, but I certainly encourage it and provide guidance where I can. I've counseled a few senshi who were questioning their role in this."
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Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 7:44 am
Faust grunted at the sound of the question. "I live with the best dude a cat could ask for, but Blondie likes givin' me chicken, an' sometimes a man wants fish, you get me? An' sometimes he can't keep his damn hands to hisself. But I got my own pillow, my own balcony, and I'm lord of a Cat Cafe. Ain't gettin' much sweeter than that." As far as Faust was concerned, no one topped his digs. Faust sat tall in his pride, his shoulders set majestically. Really, he was just sitting like a cat.
Analyzing his personal life wasn't his favorite subject, so the swap to this cat's new senshi was a better choice of topic to him. Between bites of seafood, Faust offered his own opinion. "If they ain't patrollin' they need to pry their heads outta their asses. This world ain't gonna keep itself safe. The Negaverse gonna see those namby-pamby excuses and take that opportunity to crush us. They keep sayin' 'but I got homework' or 'it's too cold out', well tough titties, the Negaverse ain't takin' a snow day anytime soon. Back a while ago there were dreams goin' 'round about the Negaverse finally takin' this last city and puttin' a stop to all the senshi. Big a** battle, out in the mud. Out at our last camp where we were trying to regroup. General-Sovereigns everywhere. Corrupted friends everywhere. An' it was only a few years from now. Four? Three? We's countin' down.
"So if your senshi decides to cop a fit about goin' out in a weird jumpsuit kinda thing and fightin' crime with sparkles, you pass that s**t along. You tell 'im we're headed for hell in a ********' handbasket and every day he passes on his a** is another hand helpin' that basket along." They needed less guidance and more drill sargeants by Faust's opinion, and he and his fellow guardians were failing at motivating the herd.
Maybe the problem wasn't the number of senshi awakened, but the number of senshi actively trying to do something about their lives. Faust didn't know how the hell to fix that, so he'd have to rely on Blondie for ideas.
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Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 1:08 pm
"Yes, I 'get' you."
So far Zach had given her a variety to eat; she was never bored by it. He was sweet to her and gave her warm baskets of laundry to sleep in and even tolerated her sleeping on his chest, She was content with him and the comforts he provided. It was nice to be able to have her freedom in the day and a nice place to sleep at night.
She liked how he looked, the pride with which he carried himself, not unlike her own. She nodded softly. She felt the same about her own home.
"You don't enjoy being pet?"
She was about to press him when he changed the subject. Yes, she was well aware of the importance of having the new senshi patrol and of making sure that their side was both organized and active. She was also aware of the dangers the Negaverse posed to her and people she cared about, like Themisto. She couldn't imagine anything happening to him.
"I'm aware," she replied softly. "But some people don't respond to threats. They need guidance and someone with a gentle touch."
Of course, there were always going to be people that responded to his tough love approach but there were also those that did not respond to it and, in fact, that approach would be detrimental to their goal. She was certainly not the tough love sort so it was good that he was. But it was also good she was not.
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2017 8:38 am
"Those people who don't ain't under my guidance. But everyone responds to gettin' their a** kicked. When the Negaverse reaches in and makes a grab at their starseed, they damn well hope they ain't gettin their asses corrupted that night. And if that starseed don't come out, and no one corrupts 'em, then they got a lotta thinkin' to do about how they're gonna deal with that s**t. I'm no fan of softies, s'why I stick with Thraen, but even softies gotta get a clue when the Negaverse comes lookin' for new recruits." Faust saw no benefit in coddling, nor did he think much of those who preferred it over hard training and self-discipline. He heard the phrase that the world takes all kinds, but Faust figured the 'all kinds' part was why they were stuck in a stalemate with the Negaverse in the first place. If they got nothing but fighter types, they'd have won this s**t by now.
But no, half the White Moon was full of namby-pamby assholes who preached love and tolerance over breaking the Negaverse over their knee. Everyone else was just dragging down the real fighters in this war.
Having finished his snack, Faust batted the remains into a nearby storm drain. There they would fester and rot and stink to high heavens, but the cat wouldn't be around for it. He had better things to do, as did this other Guardian Cat. "I like bein' a pet, but I'll like it a helluva lot more when the Negaverse is straight up gone and these Dark Mirror assholes pack their bags and get the hell out. Ain't nobody gonna ******** up my life. S'why it's so important to stay on top of these senshi. Gotta keep their heads in the game, remind 'em of what's important. 'Oh, you like your family? Maybe you oughta get out there and fight for it, then.' You'd think some o' these senshi would get that through their heads."
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2017 1:01 pm
It was clear she and Faust had vastly differing philosophies. That was fine, the world didn't run on one ideology alone, but they were not going to come to an agreement about this any time soon. She could only imagine what it must feel like to be thrust into a war you didn't start and were ill prepared for at the behest of a talking cat which, as far as you knew to that point, shouldn't exist. Confusion ran rampant through the ranks of the White Moon. Sometimes chaos didn't seem that bad, except for in the heart of the user. She knew better, but senshi and knights didn't always. So for them she existed to help guide and strengthen their hearts to do what needed to be done.
Not that she was against a** kicking, hard work, and discipline. On the contrary, she enjoyed and believed in those things, too. But not everyone responded to them.
Still, it was true that the Negaverse was gaining power at a pace that was both alarming and dangerous. She was doing what she could, but the main problem was that the White Moon was still made up of individuals, not a collective whole. They could say what they liked about the opposite side, but at least they appeared mostly collected, regimented, and that would overwhelm their side every time. They needed to come together more and try to be a functioning whole, not just individual cogs.
She sighed. "Yes, that is a great motivator, I'll agree, but we keep getting our collective rear ends handed to us because we lack any basic organization. There's no one to answer to. There's no structure to cling to."
It was hard to climb a tree without any branches and, if you did, you still needed to cling to it for dear life, lest you fall from lack of a perch.
"Sometimes I wonder if it's our job to organize them, lead them. It seems we communicate amongst ourselves more than they seem to."
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Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 8:24 am
"Thraen tried to make some structure outta it. Tried to do up this buncha morons into an actual group of organized people. Put a lotta effort into it, too. Called it the Blackwatch, held a meeting for it on the Moon, handed out a buncha ideas about how to help each other and help the cause. Ain't no one did a damn thing with it so far as I know. It's still just him and I on weird candlelight vigils while we wait for damaged senshi to come our way. The people we awaken, they're too proud to be led by anybody but the people they think are 'qualified'. In the Negaverse, they ain't got a choice." Faust huffed.
"Hell, I can lead senshi into battle all damn day but they ain't gonna look to me like some kinda leader type. All that organization s**t? It ain't my style. To me, we jus' give senshi the tools to succeed, and the motivation to keep succeeding. If they wanna splinter off like douchebags, that s**t's outta my hands." He wanted to see some kind of organized effort come out of the White Moon, but so often they proved incapable of doing so. Faust followed Quenton for ages now, witnessed the terrible dreams of a blackened future, and attended the failed meetings of the Blackwatch only to witness continued failed efforts to organize and counterstrike. Small teams tried, but that was it.
He didn't want to relive those memories. He didn't want to get strangled by a senshi that was once their own. The lot of them wound up broken and defeated due, in part, to their lack of organization. That was hard to take.
Faust straightened up, worked his jaw a little. "You should meet 'im sometime. Thraen, I mean. Dude's got a thing for cats. If you can put up with his dumbass antics, he's a nice guy."
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Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2017 11:43 am
"That's a common story."
Ember sighed. That sounded about right from her recent experience in the fray. From what she'd heard there were some princesses on Earth, even a Royal Knight, but she hadn't seen them uniting anyone and the Mauvian wasn't sure how she felt about awakening people just to go out and die.
Also, she wasn't very sure about her ability in battle. She'd never been in one before. Guidance, cuddles, and purrs were her expertise. That didn't make him wrong, though. Eventually she'd need to get off her a** and try dipping her paw in the deep end of the pool.
She'd been called cute plenty of time to know that the senshi wouldn't follow them, even if they had a good plan. Hell, they couldn't even manage to follow each other.
The mention of Thraen made her perk up a bit, nodding her head at his suggestion.
"I'd like that, but I don't want to get in the way of your territory, so to speak."
He didn't seem like the type to abide that. Still, she was curious about what would be called 'dumbass antics' and couldn't deny that she wanted to meet more senshi, to immerse herself in this war just a little more. She took the title of Guardian very seriously.
Slyly, she asked. "Does this mean I'll see you again?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:55 am
"I dunno, does it?" Faust cocked a brow at her. "Hell if I know what the future holds, beyond blood and bullshit." Faust wasn't sure what excited her so, but he definitively didn't care enough to ask. The cat pounced on him earlier, and the bobtail wasn't so quick to forgive.
"Look, you ain't movin' in on my s**t, but tellin' you about which senshi to meet is only gonna do good for the war, you know? Not like I'm sayin' for you to go puttin' your paws all up in my business at the Cat Cafe." He wondered if she couldn't tell the difference between a work invite and a personal invite. Faust decided in short order that he didn't give a damn; he much preferred action over rumination anyway.
After executing a stretch of first front, then back legs, Faust shook himself out. "All Imma say is, we got work to do, and it ain't gettin' done if we just stand around chattin' like this. Good meetin' you, Ember, but we both gotta go. The good fight don't sleep, yanno?" Faust sized up his surroundings, then picked an easy set of ledges up which he could bound. Rooftops were seldom a challenge to reach, but the recent weight gain from Quenton's frequent feedings and his own laziness left the bobtail rather breathless if he tried to cross an entire city block of rooftops at once.
As was cat custom, he bade Ember no formal goodbye; he simply leapt to the first ledge and started the climb.
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