Quote:
Midnight is a magical time of night; parties, dancing, kisses--there are a number of rituals celebrated in the winter nights. Every night as a midnight, but this one is special. There is an old church with an older bell tower on the quiet outskirts of town near a beautiful forest that has been decorated with lights to celebrate the season. Maybe you are alone, maybe you are with friends, or maybe you’re at a party celebrating one of the many events--whatever the case, small, delicate snowflakes have been falling lightly for the past hour. And then--suddenly--they stop. The clock strikes midnight and the bell echoes a low, metallic chime that feels like it can be heard for miles. By the second chime, you realize that nothing else is moving. Snowflakes are suspended in the air and all living creatures--plants, animals, and people alike--are completely frozen. The clock chimes twelve times and the world is still frozen. Suddenly, there’s no way to tell how much time has passed--but nothing moves. Maybe it feels like a moment, maybe it feels like an hour. You can try to leave the area but you can never go far enough that the church is out of sight. In an instant, time seems to snap back into motion. To everyone else, it feels like no time has passed. To you, you know. The church seems eerie and foreboding and if you return you feel uncomfortable, as though you have broken something and are unwelcome.
Lopezite wasn't exactly a fan of the cold but when he had so many layers to his uniform it wasn't as unpleasant as it could have been. Being powered gave him an extra resistance--or, at least, he felt like it. He needed to gather energy, and tonight was no different.
No warmer or colder than usual, no later than his usual patrolling.
Except, there were less people out than there usually were, forcing him to meander further and further away from his usual zones.
For Lopezite, it was almost like a new adventure; he'd been in town for so long that it was surprising that he was still finding new places--but, then again--Destiny City was large, and he hadn't prowled every corner. In the woods, especially.
He had been passing through one of the parks when there was a strange building in the distance. Though he wasn't particularly aware of the general layout of Destiny City's parks, it didn't occur to him that there might be a building standing alone and away from the city, not here. He could hear the sound of music playing softly and there was a visible glow of light that radiated.
When Lopezite rounded the corner he could easily make out the shape of a church. His first fear was that he'd stumbled across some wedding reception so he stuck to the shadows and attempted to slip out unnoticed, but three steps into it and the music faded. An eerie silence had descended and each crunch of his boot onto the snow seemed almost deafening. He was nearly out of the shadow of the church and, reluctantly, peered around the corner.
No one was moving but, unlike his suspicions, no one was looking at him.
Seconds passed--only, they didn't.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Thoughts trickled through his mind, a waterfall of explanations and questions that just seemed to smother any rational thought.
Without thinking, then, Lopezite stepped into the light.
Again, no one moved.
He stepped closer to the party; there were fifteen, twenty people, all dressed in clothes that screamed 'wealth'. Mouths were open with words half finished clinging to their lips. Some of the women had been dancing and their dresses remained rigid, as though wires twisted the corners of their dress in faux movement. He wanted to reach out and touch them, to test if this was some sort of illusion, but he found himself concerned that if he did that he would destroy the illusion--or worse, wind up in the middle of of a party full of people he'd then have to explain himself to.
He didn't belong here.
A deep dread had settled in the pit of his stomach and he felt like a cornered animal.
...With bait dangling in front of his face.
He counted the group quickly--eighteen people, all in the prime of their health.
...And here he was, looking for someone to drain, and the universe had handed them to him on a silver platter.
He wasn't greedy. He didn't want their starseeds--he didn't want anything they couldn't easily replace. There were glasses of champagne on every table, and it was late enough already that he was certain it would be easy to brush off as fatigue.
He started draining. Only a moment with each person; they weren't moving, so it was hard to read how much he could take without causing some sort of harm. He liked to think he was good at guessing, though.
Maybe it was just to spare him a guilty conscience.
He was on the last person, the eighteenth, though he'd only just begun draining when he heard a tick.
It was loud and echoed, and between one second and the next, the music flared up again, and everyone was moving.
He hadn't been expecting it; he'd been complacent in his thievery. Before he'd finished gathering energy from the last, he'd teleported to the first place he could think of.
...Full of energy.
He was just on the outskirts of the forest, in a largely empty park that he knew well enough to know that even if he'd appeared in front of some hostile Senshi he still could have made it out safely. Probably.
Lopezite's heart was pounding, both with the excitement of his luck and with the thrill of almost being caught. He'd collected more than enough--enough to guarantee that if the next few nights were equally slow, he'd still be able to meet his quota in surplus.
He didn't have a guilty conscience, not when he was so sure that he'd collected a safe amount from the party-goers, but he was cautious, and it took only a moment or two for his thoughts to be nagging.
The Captain should have been more concerned with what dark magic had trapped the party goers for their short spell; he should have wondered what captured not only them, but the snow in the sky an the sound on the wind. He should have, but some nights he was too tired to wonder what secrets Destiny City kept.
All he cared about right now was that he had taken that which could be recovered, but he was left with a fear that something may have gone wrong.
He would never have all the answers he sought, but he knew he could answer the most necessary question of the moment: Were they all right?
To be frozen in time--would they have known? Even if he hadn't drained them. Did time often freeze in the city? Had he ever been frozen?
...Answers he may never have.
But he would know what he needed to, at least.
He teleported back to the church, unwilling to simply believe that he might have gathered energy and sent the party into turmoil. He would have had a guilty conscience for the rest of his days if he didn't have answers for what befell the party-goers after his intrusion. Still, he might have been able to live in ignorance if he hadn't gone--but as long as there was the possibility that something could have gone wrong--that something might have happened and his return could have prevented it...
He wasn't going to make a sacrifice he didn't have to. No amount of energy was worth that, no matter how much the Negaverse meant to him.
When Lopezite arrived again, he heard the music--the laughter. No screams, no silence, no concerned cries.
The party went on.
If they were still celebrating, he could too.
