Prompt 4 (Fear and Feathers): The moon is bright tonight and reflects off of the snowy ground, illuminating everything with an ethereal glow. Destiny City feels almost safe, even at night. The fresh fallen snow seems undisturbed and brings a sense of peace. Only, nothing is ever as good as it seems, and there’s something eerie about it. After a while, it feels like someone--or something--is watching you. In the shadows of the trees, a set of milky eyes watches. Whatever it is, it’s tall and bulky. If you walk quickly, you feel it follow you but once you leave the line of trees, it disappears. If you try to approach it, a great beast will screech at you: a six foot tall snowy white owl takes flight. It may tackle or claw at you, depending on how you approach it, but it will always take flight and disappear in the night. If you choose to attack it, for the next few nights any time you look out your window you will see glowing eyes in the distance--or worse, hear it scratching to get in. Eventually, the temperature rises and the visits stop. For now.
Note: The owl is not a youma but can be used as a battle requirement for a character. It can only be used as a battle if there are two powered characters involved; you cannot write a solo and count this as a battle, and your character must be powered to count this for a battle. If you repeat the prompt with the same character, only one will count for a battle requirement. The owl will not appear to have any magical abilities and seems to simply be a very large, aggressive owl.
Actaea was out moving through the snow she watched as the moonlight reflected off the snow and it was rather pretty. She felt it was a little bit creepy though, she had been having a weird time dealing with a lot of new things. She had recently been to an introduction meeting that was helping her get her feet in this world of the negaverse. She felt like something was watching her in the forest and she saw a pair of eyes, she decided for the moment to just watch the eyes and consider her options before she decided what to do.
Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2021 5:35 pm
If there was anything Kosmochlor was thankful for about the Negaverse (and she really did appreciate quite a lot of it), one of the big things was that Captain Kosmochlor suffered from the chill far less than Soleil Rigby did. She was tall and skinny and prone to some deliberately exposed skin -- winter winds were a nuisance and a menace at the best of times as a civilian, but less so as an officer.
That was secondary. The point of this outing, at least now, was that she recognized that girl making her way through the snow from the Orientation -- teenage, a little guileless, vaguely pumpkin-shaped skirt, hair for miles like all corrupts -- and then Kosmochlor broke into a sprint to catch up with her. "Hi! Hey. Sorry, don't think I caught your name at the orientation?"
And then she paused, skidding abruptly to a stop, gaze honing unerringly in on the same set of eyes Actaea was staring at. "Alright. Let's shelve introductions. First things first, do you know how long that's been there? Those eyes are astandard for humans, and that's not some sort of youma, I can tell you that right off."
Actaea turned when she heard someone coming up behind her, she was didn't even think about her hair since she didn't remember a time when it wasn't this way. So it was fine. She looked at the Captain she had seen at the information conference. "I'm Actaea." She figured she didn't need to point out the corrupt senshi part since it was pretty clear that was what she was. "I'm pretty sure they have been here since I got here, I don't know what it is, but I agree it's not a youma." She looked at the Captain and waited for orders. She figured she would come up with something since that was pretty much what Actaea's job was at this point. She was able to stay in the barracks she didn't have to bring danger to her old family. So she owed the negaverse a great deal.
Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2021 2:10 pm
"Kosmochlor," she said, and then, "but you knew that already, unless you weren't paying attention, which is definitely not any problem of mine yet!" She squinted at the eyes, contemplative, summoning her gauntlets to her fingers without a second thought; it never hurt to be a little cautious.
"Definitely no aura, so whatever it is, it's either got good dampening tech going on or it's an outside-context kind of thing." She clicked her tongue, thinking further. "I think it might have tapeta lucida, which would mean animal, but if you find me a Mauvian stalking in the woods alone like a feral thing I'll have to crown you Queen of England; they're urban little things." That was the thing, with Mauvians: there were stupid ones, now and again, but stupid for them didn't quite equivocate to feral.
Apparently that was enough contemplation - she rolled her shoulders, stretching for a second, and then set onwards at a brisk pace. "Well? Come on, then, we don't have all night! If it runs it runs, but if it doesn't we get valuable information, Actaea!"
Actaea nodded "Yes I was paying attention, but there was a lot of information so forgive me if I didn't remember every name that was introduced." She said in a stubborn fashion. She listened after all the negaverse was rank and file and she was at the bottom, even when she grew in power she would still be a lower rank than negaverse officers. There wasn't much she could do about it so she rushed forward towards the creature and watched as the snowy owl dove forward at her and it's claws cut across her cheek. She struck out with her fist to scare the owl away and she watched it swoop and and circle waiting to see if it was going to attack again.
Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2021 9:39 pm
If Kosmochlor rolled her eyes, she was at least polite enough to do it at an angle where Actaea couldn't see it. It wasn't worth giving this girl any flak over it, not at this time and not in this situation, not with the sort of person Kosmochlor was presenting herself as in this context - and that was some sort of owl, wasn't it, genuinely baffling - god, but she wished her tablet was more efficient, she would've loved to photograph it. Or dissect it.
Ah well. Priorities, after all.
"See if you can get it grounded when it comes back around again!" Whatever it was, owl or "owl", it was smart enough to stay out of Kosmochlor's range - if it wasn't in arms-reach, she was out of luck again, and she was out of luck this time.
Actaea couldn't believe this Captain they wanted her to get an owl down to the ground which didn't seem likely, but she was outranked and she didn't have much choice but to try. She unleashed reaping wheat which created spectral wheat and a ghost scythe to go after the owl, but as she thought the bird was just flying higher. It wasn't like Actaea could fly she was able to jump but that wasn't the same thing. She was pretty sure the owl was going to getaway. She was pretty sure it was just a normal owl and not a youma anyway so she wasn't sure why Kosmochlor wanted it anyway. She huffed out a breath watching the puff of white from her breath in the cold. "Why do you want the owl anyway?" She wasn't sure if she would regret asking, but she asked anyway.
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2021 3:50 pm
Kosmochlor looked at Actaea like the girl was an idiot. (Really, the problem was that Kosmochlor was skipping about sixteen steps and starting in an entirely different mental location; her train of thought was mutually exclusive to Actaea's. But it wasn't as if she knew that.) "Owls aren't normally this big by a long shot? Youma might make sense, youma do as they please, but some utterly normal animal being absolutely massive is wild - and given Destiny City, it's probably been influenced by some sort of magic runoff! Haven't you ever just wanted to study something? Break it apart and see how it works? It's called being omnidisciplinary --"
There was no answering light in Actaea's eyes, and the Captain's face twisted into a scowl as she tipped her head upwards, watching the owl spiral higher and further away. "Never mind that. Unless it comes back around for another pass, which isn't going to happen, we've lost it. Should've moved faster. Can't get them all, I guess."
Jumping between thoughts, between ideas - "Are you at quota yet for draining? Best to do it before the sun goes down. Plenty of ne'er-do-wells come out at night; they're too much of cowards to tackle us in broad daylight, you know."
Actaea listened to Kosmochlor and she said "No, no I really haven't I like wildlife and don't see a need to cut it open even if it's magical. " She wanted to roll her eyes and walk away but she didn't have much choice here, she belonged to the negaverse and they were all she had right now. Actaea remembered what she had learned at the conference. "Yes, I'll do my draining tonight." She said she figured it was just part of her life now, she didn't remember any other way of being so it was fine. She hadn't really learned anything tonight so she didn't think she would thank the Captain for anything besides the negaverse wasn't a warm cuddly place anyway.
Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2021 6:32 pm
"The correct answer is 'thank you, Captain, you've been a huge help'," Kosmochlor said a little spitefully, but she was already turning to leave, and after a second of focus she vanished - and her aura with her, gone.. wherever she'd gone, which didn't seem to be in the immediate vicinity.
At least she wasn't sticking around to trouble Actaea any further - or, at least, she wasn't doing it tonight.
Actaea didn't respond there was nothing left to say the captain wouldn't like her and she didn't expect her too corrupt senshi were tools of the negaverse nothing more and she would serve her purpose and fulfill her role.
