Backdated to early December.
Word Count: 1558
Cymophane began his mission in earnest just as November gave way to December.
The city was decked out for the holidays, adorned with twinkling lights — draped around storefronts, strung through tree branches, lining houses and illuminating yards. It made for scenic viewing as Cymophane wandered the streets, arranging what White Moon encounters he could.
Their auras made finding them easy enough; the problem was getting some of them to talk.
His first target, sensed along the edges of Cymophane’s radar and tracked down to a stretch of shops on a quiet street, turned out to be the type to attack first and ask questions later.
“Hey, wait!” Cymophane said, hands raised to demonstrate his innocence after dodging an attack. The bright ball of golden light struck a building behind him, where it promptly exploded. Cymophane glanced at the building, and the scorch mark left behind by magic, putting something like fear into his expression when he turned back to his assailant. “I just want to talk.”
“Go ******** yourself!”
The assailant in question was a fellow Super Senshi, clothed almost head to toe in white, and the unfortunate victim of a rather frumpy pair of shorts. He took one look at Cymophane and scowled so menacingly, one would think the Negaverse was responsible for the death of his nearest and dearest.
The fact that such a thing could very well be the case was almost as unfortunate as the shorts.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Cymophane said. “I need help!”
But the Senshi wouldn’t listen. He lashed out with his magic again, sending another ball of sizzling golden light straight for Cymophane.
Cymophane put less of an effort into dodging this one; sometimes sacrifices had to be made in an effort to gain sympathy. The ball of light exploded on contact with his arm, which sent him crashing to the ground in an undignified heap. His arm tingled, useless while the sensation lasted; the sleeve of his new outfit was left in tatters.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, letting himself sound quiet and timid.
“You’re all the same!” the Senshi said. “You’d kill us all if you had half the chance!”
True, maybe, but hypocritical given the circumstances. Cymophane weighed his options. They were minutes into the encounter at most, but already it didn’t seem likely that this boy would be convinced. He was too angry, too adversarial — the type to think what he wanted despite what evidence might be offered to him. Cymophane needed someone sweet, someone docile, someone guileless, someone looking to save him. This Senshi made up his mind about Cymophane as soon as he sensed him.
His magic was troublesome, edging toward dangerous. Cymophane wasn’t expecting this mission to be easy, but he also knew when to cut his losses.
So Cymophane sighed and asked, “You mean like your people tried to?”
“Shut up!” The Senshi glared, seething. “You don’t know anything!”
“Said by desperate people who have no way to prove their moral superiority, because the truth is they’re no better than the people they’re fighting against. You could even be worse. You’re right, I don’t know anything.”
Cymophane shook out his arm and climbed back onto his feet. The Senshi in white was red in the face, his expression stuck in a snarl of rage.
“If you don’t want to talk, then I don’t have any use for you,” Cymophane said. He smiled, because he knew it would further infuriate his opponent.
“I knew the cries for help were just an act,” the Senshi sneered.
“I mean, I do need help, but you don’t seem inclined to give it to me.”
“I was there on the hilltop! You people ambushed us!”
“We could go back and forth about who’s in the wrong all night and it wouldn’t change anything. You wanted to destroy us. We ambushed you before you could do it. Except you were never going to be able to do it anyway, because you trusted the wrong person. Sucks to suck, I guess.”
The Senshi shrieked his fury into the night and lashed out, sending more magic in Cymophane’s direction.
Cymophane dodged, then took another hit that sent him to the pavement. One leg refused to support him while the magic seared through his thigh. From the ground, he watched the Senshi approach, gauging how much magic the Senshi might have left based on what he knew of the limits of his own. Two more uses, maybe. Or three, if the guy was lucky and desperate. The question was, which magic had he been utilizing? If what he had left was stronger than what he’d already used…
Coming out of this a bloody mess when it was only his first try was not Cymophane’s idea of a good time.
He put helplessness into his expression again, lurring the Senshi closer, then threw his own magic right into his face.
The Senshi howled, grabbing at his face to stem the flow of blood from a set of lacerations that didn’t appear, despite the pain of it.
A shame. Perhaps Cymophane hadn’t cast with enough intent.
They traded blows. No sooner had Cymophane gotten back onto his feet than the Senshi threw himself at him.
They grappled. The Senshi threw a punch, which Cymophane took with a laugh, taunting him as weak and ineffective before returning the gesture with more strength and better precision. They separated, stepped back to reassess. The Senshi cast another round of magic, throwing it at Cymophane with his trademark vicious snarl. Cymophane quickly evaluated the risk and took it. The blast sent him careening against the side of a building, where he slumped down and pulled air into lungs that were suddenly empty of it.
“Not so good at this, are you?” the Senshi said, tone arrogant, contemptuous.
Cymophane welcomed his next approach with another smile. “You seem to think so.”
He rolled back onto his feet, used his basic attack and relished the hiss of pain it drew from his opponent, whose collar hung in strips of blue fabric, white shirt torn open. The next ball of light to come his way whizzed past his face by inches, skillfully dodged on its way into a streetlight, which exploded and rained glass down upon them.
His new magic, stronger and with a wider range, finally drew blood.
The Senshi staggered back. Wild eyed, he looked down at his chest, where three long stripes had been carved into his flesh.
“Oopsie,” said Cymophane.
He took advantage of the Senshi’s shock and teleported behind him. Before the Senshi could turn, Cymophane’s hand sank into his back, pulling his starseed free.
A hush fell over the area without magic flying through the air, broken only by the thump of the Senshi’s body slumping to the ground. Cymophane looked down at his inert form. He tried to dredge up some sympathy, but couldn’t. At most, he was disappointed.
“What was waste,” he said, then turned his gaze to the glimmering starseed in his hand. “You’re useful like this, at least.”
Heavy breathing and the crunch of broken glass alerted him to another presence behind him. Cymophane turned. With adrenaline coursing through him, he prepared himself for another attack, but he needn’t have bothered.
A woman stood there, no more than a civilian. At least as far as appearances went, anyway. She seemed young. A university student, maybe, bundled up against the cold in a nice coat and a plaid scarf.
“Hello,” Cymophane greeted her.
She gaped at him, looked from Cymophane to the body on the sidewalk, then to the starseed in Cymophane’s hand.
“Do you know him?” Cymophane asked.
She shook her head, face white with shock and fear.
“Do you know people like him?”
This time, she took too long to respond. Her mouth trembled. Sensing danger, she took a step back, crunching more glass beneath her boots.
Cymophane frowned as he considered her.
She could be innocent, just a young girl on her way home from a job she hated. Maybe she knew nothing about the war beyond the complaints of terrorism and gang violence that passed between Destiny City’s citizenry.
But she knew Cymophane’s face now, and that wasn’t a risk he could afford. His mission was too important. Even if she was a civilian, she might have friends who weren’t, whether she knew it or not. All it would take was one comment to the wrong person.
No witnesses, said a voice in his head.
Cymophane hated that it sounded like his mother.
He heaved another sigh and teleported in front of the girl. His hand was in her chest before she could scream.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Her body fell like the Senshi’s, motionless on the ground.
In the palm of his hand, her starseed looked unremarkable, but the more he considered it, the more Cymophane wondered if it might prove useful, too.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be okay,” he told the girl’s unconscious form. “In a manner of speaking.”
Cymophane scanned the area for more threats and found none. With hardly a backward glance, he left the bodies there in the cold — two more coma patients among the countless others that came before them.
