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 Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:02 pm
Monoceros prowled on patrol again (and snickered to himself in self-delight at his phrasing), trying his best to keep people safe from the threat of Chaos. With great power comes great responsibility, after all. He never really understood how much work it was until he was taking hours-long walks every night, bored out of his skull most of the time, but unable to play on his phone lest he miss something important. He wanted to do a good job, but damn, this kinda sucked sometimes. Then he heard the monstrous sound of what he—correctly—assumed was a youma and he turned heel and ran towards it, leaping up to try and get a better idea of where to go— there! ********. He was too late to save the person already being crushed in its mouth, and his stomach churned. But he powered through it. He had to get there. He had to stop it from attacking anyone else. Panting, he came upon the scene, and desperately trying to ignore the body, he hollered for his Quill Flash, embedding quills in the beast. Hopefully that would be enough to chase it off, but he doubted it. Quote: Sailor Scout Attack: Quill Flash A burst of porcupine quills flies from Sailor Monoceros's hand, which can cause shallow scratches and/or minor puncture wounds. Any attempt to remove the quills before they vanish will cause sharp, pinpointed pain in the area; however, they don't sink in much deeper than skin-level. A user can choose to have this attack cause permanent damage or the injury will fade when the magic expires. This attack will last 20 seconds and can be used three times per battle.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 1:21 am
Observation and study were important parts of the scientific inquiry process. Amazonite did love some scientific inquiry, and recently, her interests had landed firmly in the realm of "youma research." Sometimes, that meant fieldwork--be it going into the Rift to speak to those who were intelligent enough to talk to her, or work like tonight's, where she brought one to the surface and unleashed it on some poor, innocent civilian.
She was tucked away, observing--and she could feel a Senshi approaching, but she paid it little heed. Yes, it would likely be a problem, but she could figure something out later.
That was, until she peeked around, after hearing that attack call, and saw who the Senshi was. She frowned, darkly, hearing the youma howl as it dropped its prey. With a quiet growl, she moved out of her hiding place and into view, calling her weapons to hand.
"You, again," she said. "I remember you. The one who was fighting that sweet Lieutenant."
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 1:24 am
Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no. Not her. No. s**t. He backed up a step, planting his feet a little more, ready to fight. "Right, the one who was trying to kill my friend," he said flatly, "And you, with your monster, killing other people. I'm going to stop you, you know." He kept an eye on the youma, waiting for it to pounce back up and come after him. He wasn't sure about fighting in a two on one, but he'd have to try.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 1:35 am
Amazonite tilted her head to the side. She strode forward, idly twirling one of her deer horn knives around a finger.
"Oh, you will, will you? With what? Those silly little quills?" As she said it, the youma whimpered, but shook itself, turning around to face the Senshi. "I don't see your firebug friend anywhere, either, so it looks like you're outnumbered and outgunned." She tilted her head to the side. "So how about this." She turned ott he youma. "Heel," she ordered, and it came, sitting at her feet.
"I'll let you turn around and run away, and we'll forget this ever happened. But if you want to stay here and fight me....well." She twirled the knife again. "I won't be so friendly."
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 1:45 am
Monoceros scoffed. "What kind of person would I be if I left? Not one I'd be proud of," he said, crouching just a bit lower. He got the feeling she wasn't as up for the fun banter he'd had with Marialite. "Come on and be unfriendly with me then," he said anyway, because Spiderman was his favorite superhero and there was no way he could just not be a snarky a*****e.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:16 am
Amazonoite laughed at the Senshi's bravado. It was cute, actually, seeing him puff up to stand up to her. "If you must," she said, and then she waved the youma forward. "Kill," she ordered, brightly, and she leapt ahead in its wake. This, she knew, would be fun--she would get to rip and tear, and put down this irritating brat of a Senshi once and for all.
In the back of her mind, she could feel a Squire's aura, but it didn't seem particularly close, so she ignored it.
That, she realized a moment later, was a mistake.Never had Aokigahara been quite so glad for the power of his planet's Aspect. He had felt the Captain aura and moved to confront it, and then there had been the bloom of a much weaker Senshi--someone brave and foolish, no doubt, and Aokigahara admired that kind of thing.
Still, it was dangerous, and he wasn't going to leave them alone. So he'd drawn his Aspect around him, letting it cloak him in shadows and silence his footsteps, and then he moved in, and when he was close enough, he dropped his Aspect to activate his personal magic. The light in his lantern flared, and its eerie purple light spread out around him, and he watched the Captain freeze in her tracks as the gruesome specters of his magic grasped for her.Amazonite had seen a lot, in her time in the Negaverse. She'd seen grim, ghastly things. Monsters and men who might as well be monsters, of all shapes and kinds. But nothing she'd seen prepared her for the sudden surprise of having a ghost whose guts seemed to be spilling out grab at her arm and plead for her help.
She screamed. She wasn't proud of it; she was supposed to be a tough, noble agent of the Negaverse, powerful and strong and able to stand up for herself. But she did, shrieking her fear for the whole world to see, and she lashed out blindly with her knives. They sliced through the specter, well enough, but it did nothing to deter it--or the other ones, gathering around, pressing towards her, grabbing and groping and wailing.
this was an absolute nightmare.With the officer frozen, clearly captured by the horror of the grim things reaching for her, Aokigahara strode forward and brought his boot down on the youma. It wasn't exactly easy to tune out the specters of his own magic, but all the time he spent on his Wonder had acclimated him to horrors. If he could handle bleeding walls and wailing horrors, he could handle a few grim ghosts he had called up himself.
The youma wailed and wriggled under his boot, but he stepped down harder, leaning his entire weight and strength on it. It kept squirming for a while, before finally it crumbled to dust with a last, wheezing sigh.
"Leave," he ordered the Captain, voice like black ice. "Leave, and maybe they won't follow you."Aspect of Saturn As servants of the planet of death, the ghost-like demeanor of Saturn Knights is incredibly fitting. They always appear somewhat cast in shadow and their movements are completely silent, making them masters of stealth. Aokigahara's Magic Aokigahara Squire holds up his lantern, and the flame inside becomes brighter, bathing a six foot radius around him in an eerie purple light. Anyone within the radius, including Aokigahara himself, will hallucinate gruesome ghostly shapes - essentially ghosts that look like they died VERY violently- grabbing on them and trying to get their attention, and hear the sound of ghostly voices begging for help. These pleas will generally be nonspecific - "help me, help me please!" or "avenge me!" or the like, but it is generally fairly unsettling, though exact reactions are up to the player. Aokigahara can channel for up to 30 seconds at this stage.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:27 am
Monoceros had brought up his hand to shoot quills into her face when someone else stepped into the picture. Though he hardly had time to notice the guy when the ghouls appeared. Every hair stood on end and he choked on his own breath as they clutched at him, people who'd all died in such horrible ways—a guy whose head hadn't been fully cut off, leaving it flopping around in a very queasy way. Another with their chest stomped in, presumably by stampeding horses or something. God, that looked awful. And so many others that he didn't want to see. All screaming for his help. But he couldn't do anything. Frozen to the spot. He had no way to help them and it hurt, because he really wished he could. How to help the ghosts probably depended on all kinds of things he just had no ideas about and oh, God, he was probably going to throw up.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:42 am
Amazonite did not like to take orders. Not whent hey came form someone on the other side, and not when they meant revealing herself to be a coward. But this strange and terrible magic had her feeling all kinds of out of sorts--and with her youma dusted, the observation was over anyway. What else was there to observe? How the dead might devour her, when she proved herself unable to acquiesce to their requests?
Without a word, just a whimper of fear, she teleported away.With the Captain gone, Aokigahara exhaled and let go of his magic. All at once, the candfleflame in his lantern returned to a simple flickering light, and the ghouls vanished back to wherever they belonged. He hoped, briefly, that he wasn't calling on real souls, drawn to his candle's flame like moths--but that was ridiculous. Surely, they were just conjured illusions.
"My apologies for the grim sight," Aokigahara said, shifting his lantern over his shoulder, "I would have warned you, but I feared the Captain might take the chance to get out of the way herself, and when she was my target...." He shrugged his shoulders, looking slightly guilty. "Are you alright? Physically, at least?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:49 am
Monoceros gasped when they all vanished, falling to his hands and knees and trembling all over. "I—I—they," he gasped, looking up at the other man as he slowly shifted to just be resting on his knees, "You? And? The people? I... I'm okay, yeah, but those people, are they, or was it just—Kn—no, you're a Sq... Squire? Sorry, I... That was..." He swallowed, hunching his shoulders and staring at the ground. "Thank you. For saving me. I wasn't sure I could beat her, but I had to try."
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:59 am
Aokigahara waited, giving the Senshi a moment to come to terms with what he'd seen. "As far as I'm aware, they aren't real. Just illusions, conjured by the power my Wonder gives me. Grim, gruesome illusions, but the ground at my Wonder bleeds sometimes, so I suppose grim and gruesome is just what I expect."
He exhaled, extending a hand. "Yes, I'm a Squire. Aokigahara, of Saturn."
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2021 9:28 pm
He inhaled deeply, exhaling shakily, and took Aokigahara's hand, letting the other help him up. "H-Hi," he stuttered a bit, "I'm, um. Monoceros. Of. Prickly-pines. Porcupines. Sorry, I, that was.... a lot." He inhaled again. "How do you deal with that all the time? Actually, hold that thought." His body decided it had quite had enough and caught up to his emotional state, and, turning and marching a few feet away as quickly as possible, he put a hand on a wall and bent over to throw up. He tried not to think about it, but there was almost a lingering certainty that someone in those visions had resembled the person he'd failed to save tonight. Illusions. Just illusions, he tried to remind himself as his body heaved.
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:31 pm
Aokigahara winced sympathetically, and politely looked away while Monoceros threw up. It wasn't that he didn't sympathize--his magic was dark, and creeping, and unpleasant--but his entire life had prepared him for gruesome sights in a way he supposed made him a bit different than most people. A bit off, certainly.
"My answer to that question isn't going to help you very much, Monoceros," he said, but he said it gently, because he sympathized with the desire for help. "I've led a....very particular sort of life, and it's left me a bit less sensitive to the gruesome."
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:51 pm
Monoceros burped one last time and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, turning with watery eyes to face Aokigahara again. "Yikes," he said with a raspy voice, "I'm sorry. You'd think VR horror games would've prepared me a little." He smiled a bit, having said the last jokingly, hoping to lift the mood. "That aside... It's nice to meet you, Aokigahara. Thanks again, for saving me."
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Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 10:46 pm
"Nothing can properly prepare you for a murdered soul in front of you except for seeing death," Aokigahara said, and he knew that it would probably reveal more than he meant to--but he had seen his father's body fished out of Yokohama Harbor, and so a few strangely rotted corpses weren't nearly as affecting.
"It's good to meet you as well, Monoceros. I'm sorry the circumstances weren't better."
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Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:04 pm
"Yeah, well, you saved my dumb a**, so I'll take it," he said lightheartedly, grinning. "What were you up to before you had to save me? Could treat ya to some late-night food or something, make us kind of even."
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