With his office effectively burnt to the ground, Faustite had no sanctioned space to think. Tried the gathering halls in Negaspace, but a pack of carousing Lieutenants interrupted him. Tried pacing throuhg the halls, but after the third trip on an uneven step, he gave up on it. Thought about trying the Rift, but given his recent experiences overall, he wasn't certain he could convince himself to come back out. Then there was the city, which was perpetually falling apart. Then there were the Citadel's crenellations, its passageways and courtyards, but those were oft haunted by people or a rare youma.
That left the city. A kindling of thought and he was there, descending the sharply angled eaves of one of the neighborhood's tallest churches. Faustite skidded past the steeple, heels clacking on every tile, reached midair, then landed in the churchyard. From there, it was a few leaps to get started — get moving again. Get thinking.
Faustite settled into the old habits of his patrol route as a captain. It was easy enough to remember — the poorer parts of town renovated much more slowly than the up-and-coming — and he wove between alleyway and car-packed street. Watched the way the lamps shone spherical in September's hanging haze. Maundered between silence and the covered dins of some of the area's most lucrative establishments.
While he walked, he thought. Thought about Squiddy, about the youma he saw wearing his face, about the trudging journey into the Scar, about Cybele and her alien motivations, about Albite's goads to get Faustite to trash his own office, about Axinite and his faith in Faustite, about Yuuri, about Jet, about hte party, about how Nembus shrank more and more, about how Albite stood taller, about the tenuous connections he left to decay.
He couldn't remember walking there, but he was in the receiving alleyway behind The Library, an establishment that pulled large crowds every Tuesday for their ludicrously cheap happy hour. Even as he touched brick, he felt the bass pulse through his fingertips. His free hand open, he shut his eyes, felt for the threads of energy colluding closest to the wall, and wove them through his hand, up his wrist, and into his other hand as an orb of energy.
Work through it by doing, he told himself. Please his fiery side and buy time to think.
whimsical blue
Posted: Sat Sep 11, 2021 7:59 pm
She felt the heat and the… wrongness from a distance away. It crept from between the buildings and wound about her, promising danger and excitement. Pausing in the darkness of a damp, rank alley mouth, Tanais lifted her dark head like a hound scenting the wind, testing which direction that aura was coming from.
“Ready or not…” She murmured to no one, a toothy grin splitting her face. The knight turned with a crunch of gravel and detritus under her heel and took off towards the signature, falling into a ground eating lope. Down a backstreet and around a corner, jumping a fence with an easy motion before slowing as she felt herself approaching the source. They’d likely feel her coming, but if she was careful… a flat footed general would be just the entertainment she needed tonight.
Pausing, Tanais slid up to a corner and peered around it, finding a slim figure wreathed in dancing lights. Curiously, they were alone, hand to the wall… the stance incomprehensible from this angle. There were perhaps many ways to approach this, but very few that appealed more than the… direct one. Whatever. It’s not like anyone had come up with a diminutive guide on how to go about this. Might as well do what worked.
“Hey! Asshat!” The knight shouted as she stepped free, launching herself at the officer with a quick beat of her boots on the pavement. “Heads up!”
Winding up, she swung hard at the officer, fully expecting one of their tricky teleports. First moves made, then the real fun would begin.
Heads up was all he needed. Left the orb to lapse, retreat back to its owners. Faustite twisted with the call, made the mistake of trying to catch the fist in one of his hands and found the impact much stronger than he bargained for. His bones sung with the pain of impact; Faustite stumbled back to avoid the blow connecting his hand to his own head.
"Not in the mood for you, Knight." His words hissed and crackled on his tongue as his form became fire, then fire without form. These rivulets of flame danced together, then braided together on their way out between the Knight's legs and toward the strip joint's back doors. Humans spoke over the din there, talked their nothings at each other over half-wasted cigarettes. A dumpster outside a dive, where people tossed their sins off the back deck like it wouldn't find its way back into their lives.
There would be energy here, he knew. Starseeds. Bargaining chips. More room for youma to play.
Let the knight follow, if she was so interested. Show her some fun.
Fire reformed in that space — a wide alleyway with low-hanging rooftops and a long, muddied tract of pavement. Further down were discarded materials: pallets stacked up against the side of a building, a chainlink cage full of propane tanks, an abandoned outhouse. To his right was a 'patrons only' outer deck, ramshackle for all its deferred maintenance, bleached grey by the weather and adorned with a round table and chairs that were oft shoved into the corner. A pair of women were on the deck, just outside the door, and more engrossed in each other than the strange events occurring beyond.
whimsical blue
This is being used as a travel form! No attacks just yet!
Hellborn ;; Range: Self Duration: Up to 1 minute Use Count: Up to 3x Miss Chance: Escaping his reach Effect: Faustite's fire expands and engulfs him, transforming him into a living embodiment of flame. For the duration of this magical ability, he appears fully youmafied. When he moves, he moves amorphously as a gout of fire. Faustite can pass through or over nonsolid surfaces, and cannot be hit by physical attacks. He becomes highly susceptible to magical attacks and enchantments, however. Any attacks he makes toward others will be fire property, and will provide the illusion of being burned.[/size
Posted: Mon Sep 13, 2021 2:23 pm
"The ********..." The words slipped out as she watched the fire flicker around the general, and then he just... disappeared with it, leaving her staring dumbfounded as the trail of flame ran between her boots and back towards open space.
Tanais spun to watch it, brow furrowed and gears turning in her head. This was not a power she had seen before. It wasn't teleporting... Was this officer actually a youma, or some other kind of monster? She could have sworn she'd felt a General's power signature. It didn't really change the general plan, but it did mean she might need to approach this differently.
Was there anything solid to make contact with if she punched it? Would it burn her if she came into contact with it? Instinct said yes, but not all magical fire worked like real fire. Was this a power with limited duration, or a state of their being?
"That's a fun little trick." She said, tossing her head to cast her dark mane down her back. She slammed her knuckles together, metal clashing against metal. "Since you showed me yours, I'll show you mine, yeah?"
Flames flickered up between her hands, rushing from beneath the golden gauntlets. It flowed over her form like water, like she'd been dipped in oil, dancing ghostly about her form till it condensed, taking on shapes even as it kept flickering into tongues. Her red eyes burned in the holes of a lion-shaped helm, the rest of her faintly visible through a suit of flaming armor. She grinned again, more teeth this time, and rushed her fleeing prey, fingers mentally crossed she'd actually hit something when she swung at it.
Strickenized
Magic: While channeling her magic, Tanais summons the spirits of her knight line for protection and a suit of magical, shining armor licked with ghostly flames appears on her. While channeling (around 45 seconds) her defense is increased and she’s better able to take hits.
He wasn't the only fire fiend. This one, as she followed him, adopted something similar. But she hadn't transformed so much as cloaked — and it was that cloaked, gauntleted hand that swung through him, dispersing his form as his flames licked their hunger across that mysterious armor. Punched through him, but Faustite was unscathed, and smirked at her for it.
"Cute, but mine's real." Words crackled and spat, griddle hot, as he spoke them.
Liquid thing, he moved as he traveled before — gouts of fire reached her back, reformed, and kicked at the bend of her knee. Would kick her legs out from underneath her, put her off balance, put her on the ground for as long as that mockery of protection lasted.
whimsical blue
Just FYI, any attacks in his current form don't produce physical damage — it's all just temporary fire damage. He doesn't know that he can't kick out her knees because there's no physical force to go with it. He can't take or dish out physical damage.
The form will have ended by the end of this post!
Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 11:38 am
The flames parted... and her fist passed right through them, connecting with nothing solid. Heat washed over her arm, warming the metal to something that would be searing if her own magic hadn't been shielding her from the worst of it.
She still hissed though, more out of frustration than the stinging pain. The two fires, one bright and hot, the other pale and ethereal, swirled together as the monster moved, reforming behind her. Tanais felt the heat beating against her back before it concentrated on the backs of her knees where her flesh was not covered with metal. That stung more than her arm had, like splashing herself with scalding water... but nothing actually struck her, allowing her to keep her stance as she spun and swung at the flickering tower of flames again.
Again, flames parted about her fist and now she growled in annoyance. This was not the sort of fight she had anticipated when she'd thrown herself into it. Tanais wanted the thud of her fists on flesh, or at least on metal as she met the other's weapon. This ineffectual flailing about at each other was... disappointing. Annoyingly so.
"Are you just going to keep blowing hot air at me, or are you going to actually hit me?" She snarled, feeling her magic draining from her the longer she held the spectral armor up. It was fast running out, and then things had a strong possibility of going not well for her. "******** useless youma... I wish I could dust you permanently, you ******** cockroach."
It was entirely unfair that the shits reformed themselves. She wasn't entirely sure why she knew they did that, but that kernel of information was as firm in her mind as her own name. Every one she destroyed would come back, in an endless cycle she usually tried very hard to not think about. Only Now mattered, only removing the threat in front of her, for however long that lasted.
Tanais felt her magic run out, the armor flickering and dying... just as her enemie's flames did, leaving her blinking in confusion.
Nothing about this fight was progressing as Faustite expected. His foot went straight through her knee, completely absent resistance, but her knee was whole. Felt like she was a projection, or like Faustite was the projection. Disconcerting, that.
If her armor lasted the length of his transformation, then he knew its timer. Could guess its function by how she wasn't hissing breath through her teeth for the burns on her knee. This knight was his perfect counterpoint, then -- a firefighter to his fires. And Faustite hadn't the experience to contend her counterpoint.
Shitty of her to mention permanent dusting. To remind him of Squiddy. Lip twitched into a sneer for that.
Liked to run her mouth like Albite did. As the flames wicked off his skin, he moved, kept moving, asked himself what the boy would do. Likely burn through his magic, but Faustite's hadn't worked quiet the same. So while she spoke, he stalked. When she complained, he spent a measure of his energy to vanish beside her.
And once he was there, he kicked at her head.
whimsical blue
Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2021 7:26 pm
The knight's eyes widened as flames flickered and died from the both of them, leaving her facing... not quite a human, as some version of the flames still flickered through his middle. That was disconcerting, and her eyes skittered away from the unnatural view of two halves of a person, separated by flames and empty space while they still moved.
"The ******** are you?" Tanais panted as she pulled back, her fists up in defense. He smelled like something burning, mixing with the gasoline and cooking smell of a city at night. He sneered at her, his face so very youthful save for those dark, dark eyes... eerily familiar eyes. And then he winked out and she had enough instinct left to whirl and take that blow across the side of her head, rather than the back, flinging her to the side as the world filled with shooting stars and lancing pain. Instinct had her curling herself so she hit the ground and rolled, coming up in a crouch that wavered. Her dark mane swept her shoulders as she shook her head to clear it.
This wasn't working, and something was very off about it. If they kept on this way, he was going to invariably flee, or call in some reinforcements, and all she'd have to show for this fight would be the bruises. If she could just get him alone, somewhere he couldn't run away from her... maybe she could get to the bottom of what it was that bothered her so much. There was a... fairly easy option there. Ghen had done it with her once, by what he'd said. If it didn't work, well. She'd be no worse off.
She began to murmur under her breath as she lunged at him, flinging her arms out as she pushed to her feet and charged. All she had to do was touch him...
She came with magic on her tongue, and the burning General ducked down for her charge. She would reach him in hardly a breath, he knew.
This one wasn't patient. She had her questions, but Faustite found no want or reason to answer them.
Quicker she ran, until she was upon him, and Faustite watched for a moment where he could turn his arm upward, flexed like a server holding a plate, to touch fingers to breastbone, past breastbone, to the engine beneath the body. He just needed that piece of her —
And before that thought could coalesce, the rest of the world unspun itself —
whimsical blue
short tag~
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2021 4:49 pm
I pledge my life and loyalty to Mars, and to Tanais. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I…
“…May give you mine.” Tanais finished with a sharp, feline grin as she caught the General’s sleeves in her metal gauntlets. He hadn’t really dodged, taking the opportunity she had gambled with by leaving herself open and vulnerable. But she felt the magic unraveling from inside of her, sweeping them both up… and then their surroundings were a blur, a sense of movement, and sudden change.
Cruel sun beat down on the dry, broken stone of a courtyard. To one side a fountain, empty of water, and to the other beige and buff colored buildings with gaping windows and crumbling walls. The dirt and sand of centuries turned everything the same sort of desert hue, dulling ceramic roof tiles that might have once been red, while the sun bleached the vibrancy from lively mosaics on the walls and in the basin of the fountain.
Tanais’s rough, pained laughter broke the sudden silence. Pain lanced through every part of her, radiating from the slender hand plunged deep and bloodless into her armored chest. She grabbed the general’s wrist and gripped it tightly, every particle of her screaming.
“You might not… want to do that.” She managed through gritted teeth, her red eyes trained on his as they baked in the heat of the Mars sun. “We’re a couple… million miles… from home and… I’m your ride back.”
A hot wind swept wildly down the broken streets of Tanais, kicking up dirt and sand as it swirled about the courtyard and the two combatants in their stalemate. The desolate buildings stood like haggard sentinels, staring from their empty windows with dry rotted shutters. Some where, the sound low and constant, was the rush of a river.
First came an uncharacteristic lurch that sent bile into his throat. Wrenched his brain forward in his skull like he rode too much inertia, then went full stop without so much as a lag. Then she was talking, and the words meant nothing at first, then his mind caught up enough to color in their shapes with ********."
Faustite hadn't meant to say it aloud; the response was automatic.
The response was automatic: cold sweat like a river sheen over his pale skin, reflections impressed upon it from the fire in his gut. He hadn't loosened his grip, nor had he tried to remove the starseed; for as long as he kept his hold, he bought precious seconds to get his bearings. Spared a few glances about, enough to verify that they weren't in any part of Destiny City. Nothing he'd known of it could look this old, and the austere quietude was that of Lysithea, and Castor.
And the sky — he chanced it, looked up however briefly — it wasn't Earth's sky. Here, the stars were closer. Here, the sun was larger, at a different angle. Midday to Destiny City's nighttime.
Faustite felt an overbearing heat that hadn't come from himself. Felt like summer again. He hated everything about this sudden trip. Knew that, by feel, he couldn't teleport his way back to Earth. And wherever this was — Mars, he guessed by the symbols of her uniform — he wouldn't find a direct line to Negaspace.
Racing mind settled on the first solution it discovered. He hadn't tried to pull the starseed in hand, knew he couldn't with her grip so tight on his wrist, but he squeezed the damnable jewel. "Where the ******** are we?" He asked her, voice unduly even.
whimsical blue
sleepy tag
Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:36 am
Tanais watched him process what had happened and where they were. His eyes, their schlera that weird black color, passed over the rubble and rock of the dusty street. The beige, cream, and gold colors.
He didn't seem to like what he saw and she got a deep, vicious thrill, imagining the surge of panic it might have given him. Ripped away from Earth and all his protections... thrown into a strange, alien environment with the enemy... What thoughts were passing through that pretty little head? Did his heart, if he had one, pound faster?
Pain lanced through her as his hand closed tighter around her starseed, feeling him squeeze it with every pore, every organ, every inch of the rest of her... and that was another thrill, both the exquisite pain and the danger of having an enemy gripping her soul. Would he believe what she'd said, that he'd be trapped here? She wasn't entirely sure herself, since she'd never tried to leave anyone behind before. Would he risk killing her and being stranded?
"Mars." She said, grinning with teeth. "Welcome to Tanais, City of the Red Lion. You want a tour? We're going to be here for a while."
"Tch." Mars. ******** Mars. Each time he'd been dragged ******** by a senshi or knight, it had been under superficially friendly terms — no violent fights, no sudden kidnapping like Nembus, nothing like this. He seldom feared for his life with immediate reason. But here he was, on Mars, taken by a Knight who wouldn't mind killing him.
Faustite was a tactical General, not a frontlines fighter. The starseed might stay her for now, but it was no collateral to get him back home. No life, no ride. And if their teleportation was as temporary as their magic, Faustite doubted his concentration for breaching the starseed cavity would outlast it.
He considered squeezing it until she relented, but she looked more thrilled than pained. The flamebound General let go.
Breath caught in a few pants, Faustite waited for her to release his arm. "Give me the grand tour." Looked her in the cherry red eyes, scrutinizing her, as if he could glean her next moves so efficiently.
She looked terribly familiar, but his mind clouded whenever he tried to make that connection.
whimsical blue
Posted: Sat Nov 13, 2021 6:43 pm
Relief rushed in like a flood when the pressure on her starseed retreated and she reflexively jerked his hand out of her chest, his thin wrist still held tight in her gauntlet. She was almost disappointed he'd stopped, but it was probably better in the long run if he didn't fracture her starseed. She had no idea what would happen if he did, but chances were it wasn't good.
Tanais released his wrist, both hands up as she dismissed her own weapons, and she stepped back on the broken stonework, giving him some space to really take in their empty, ruined surroundings. She waved towards the dry fountain with its rampant lion statue.
"Welcome to the central plaza. They used to run a market here, and the fountain provided water to the surrounding few blocks for anyone who couldn't afford to have it piped into their homes. I assume, from what little memories I've snatched. " She gave him a mock little half bow of her dark head. "My humble abode is that way, the garrison is over there, and down that main road is the rest of the city all the way down to the docks. And all of this, or something like it, since this one is mine, could all be yours for the low, low price of giving up your memories, betraying your b***h queen, and purifying."
She sketched him a deeper, jaunty little bow this time, arms out swept.
Dead places didn't warrant introductions, Faustite thought.
Dead places had no right to demand supplication, or visitation, or any shred of reverence from those who held deed and title to it. This knight knew some of its desiccated history in the same way that Faustite knew some of his long-dead counterpart's. But he held no loyalty for those thoughts, had no stake in them, unlike the Knight who indicated her abode.
But that was the easier half of the surprise. The other, the crux of her statement, as they raised their hands in truce at each other, had him raising his eyebrows to his hairline. First incredulity bolted across his features, then rote disgust.
Who did she think he was, that he would give up everything he worked for, that he would surrender half his memories, for a dead, derelict, ditch of a Wonder? Why the ******** would he purify for someone else's long-neglected hole?
The more he looked about himself, the more he realized that there was nothing to be proud of here. No water, the buildings looked beat to s**t from weathering, no magic in the air, no people around, not even any youma. Who the ******** would leave the Rift behind for this? And what was the point in bringing him here, a stranger, to pitch an offer that, frankly, wouldn't impress anyone? He remembered his dad bitching about timeshare scams before; Faustite thought this seemed close enough to what his dad mentioned to him years ago.
"One," he answered after a beat, and his hand curled down to an index finger. "How do I leave?"
