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Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2022 12:14 pm
Well - this evening was going as swimmingly as the last few had. She had tried her best to be reasonably well behaved, had done her best not to intrude on others when it wasn't safe. However the young woman had made a promise to The Code that she wouldn't be selfish with these gifts and if she just stood by and watched then what would that make her? She didn't enjoy feeling so utterly helpless, when The Code had said it would give her gifts to help her stop Chaos for stealing anymore souls she had thought she'd get...more?
More and more she felt as though she might be missing something fundamental and occasionally dwelled on how difficult it may be to encounter that strange little orb again. If she had much more nuanced questions now, perhaps it would provide her with greater information. Maybe with that information she could be more useful and avoid being a complete disappointment.
Alas, for the time being Serenitatis had settled on making use of the fact she could now run much faster than she had previously been capable of. To be entirely honest, she was able to run faster than she had ever been able to run, and that incldued when she was a teenager and actually cared about sports! Nevertheless, this speed meant that at the very least she could make an inconvenience of herself. Now, if she saw something questionable, she didn't stand in the middle of them...instead she threw stones and pebbles until the poor person was put down and she was pursued instead.
Hiding in dustbins, however, was becoming a bit of an unfortunate exit strategy for her and she didn't necessarily enjoy trying to shower that off. Sadly, until she could work out how these pwoers of her were supposed to work this was the best she could do; but she had at least earmarked a moment to investigate how one might speak to the orb again.
This evening, Project Inconvenience was in full flow. She had begun her patrol as usual (though this time she had brought her coat), and she had already begun to run very quickly from some sort of shadowed monster-dog thing straight out of a piece of Lovecraft fiction. She'd woven in and out of several allies by now, hurled herself over a number of fences and then finally lunged across a busy road in a manner that she would not have approved of if anyone else had done it - to finally here the crunch of something hitting a vehicle.
She spun round and sure enough, as the Semi continued on its way, she saw the faint trail of dust she had grown familiar with when those 'things' perished. Given the size of the semi, she doubted it had seen either her or the thing it hit, but colliding with animals was a fairly standard thing for those sort of vehicles so...she supposed it worked out.
She afforded herself a small sigh of relief, an opportunity to breathe and catch herself as she stood. Carefully positioned close to the alley, the shadows partially obscured her enough not to attract attention of any individuals wandering by. However, that didn't necessarily mean she had been seen, and with the faint glow of the lantern fixed to her hip with a small ribbon, she probably stood out a little.
Granted, running out into traffic was probably more of a talking point than the costume... But hey, at least she had prevented that thing from eating a poor woman alive and while she hadn't seen any agents recently, she might have saved his soul too. She didn't know how these things worked, all she knew is she needed to make sure they didn't hurt anyone...she just couldn't take the risk.
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Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2022 5:18 pm
Richtersveld's new upgrade had come with magic, and now that the adrenaline of the battle versus the Negaverse's ambush was over, she had actually gotten a chance to inspect what that meant on a few patrols. She had noticed, versus the senshi who had pursued her at the battle, that her abilities had seemingly given her the ability to cause calming. Reconsideration, maybe? Urge patience? She had done it to a few lieutenants she had come across since, and it generally had resulted in the situation ending without any lost lives. It wasn't necessarily a perfect solution, but it was a start. Perhaps she could eventually convince some of them to take some time to talk or not even attack civilians in the first place instead of getting into situations where she needed to interrupt them. Richtersveld wasn't sure if it would work against a youma, but, well. It seemed today was a day to find out. She had felt the aura and the page running away from it, and quickly turned on her heels to run after it. Felt a lot more like her brother with the speed she had now as a squire -- couldn't even imagine how fast her brother would be if he had this kind of power, and she couldn't help the small chuckle under her breath at the thought of Zot becoming something like a speedster superhero come to life, though she definitely hoped that wouldn't happen. Was this why he liked running so much? She could feel the wind going through her curls. She had to grip onto her weapon pretty tightly, though it was better than it had been just carrying around a tiny terrarium. Richtersveld skidded to a stop as the page bolted across the street with the youma following, seeing the truck coming down the street. Said truck which took out the youma. Well. At least it didn't take out the page. She located a corner and crossed the street appropriately, following the sense of where the page was to follow her into the alley that she had ducked into. "Ah, hello?" Her voice was cautious, wary, and she looked behind her just to make sure there were no other youma somehow appearing out of the woodwork that she would help this page take out before they attempted to take her out. "Are you alright?"
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2022 12:51 pm
It was another of those odd little 'blips' again! She didn't know how to describe them beyond that, almost like a sonar went off in her head as something appeared near her. It felt different than the youma though, similar to the time she had met that Senshi, but a touch less 'powerful'. She certainly hadn't felt the area 'flood' the way it had when he had shown up, but she still felt it all the same.
Did they all have this calling card; did she?
Did she blip?
Fortunately Richtersveld had elected to speak up, allowing Serenitatis to work out where she was rather than to spin around like a headless chicken. You see, she might be able to feel these visitors but that generally didn't mean she knew where they were. It was something she would have liked to work on if she knew that it was possible to pinpoint where individuals were with greater accuracy but...well, she had greater priorities at the moment.
"Yes!" she squeaked and clutched her lantern close, however a moment she did extend it outwards to shine the light towards Richtersveld. A quick glance and Serenitatis took note of the fact she was holding something... a staff?
"Oh!" she gasped. "You're one of me!" She said with a smile. Hadn't Encke mentioned her kind held 'weapons', while senshi didn't. A staff counted as a weapon, didn't it?
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Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2022 2:47 pm
The squeak drew quiet, gentle giggles as Richtersveld settled, deciding that she probably didn't need to pull her first aid kit out of her subspace pocket just yet. She took the moment while the new knight was looking over her to confirm that, glancing over her body and looking for any injuries she might have acquired while attempting to flee from the youma. Or attempting to chase it away from something? She wasn't sure, and it didn't matter now, considering it had broken into dust in the road-- She wondered if that had damaged that truck at all-- "Ah, yes! I am!" She lifted up the ropes that were holding the terrarium, showing the no-longer-so-little terrarium that was her weapon. She wasn't really sure how this was a weapon, honestly, and worried about breaking it almost every time she swung it-- "I'm a squire, which I think is the next, ah, power up from you." Sounded like she was her brother talking about a video game. "You're a page, right?" Her energy felt like the energy of a page, but it wasn't necessarily just that that clued her into this page's newness. It was the surprise of her being anything like her... "I'm Richtersveld, squire of Pluto. And you?" She quickly followed that up with, "And do you need any first aid?" She didn't think so, but that dress was long enough that perhaps she was missing something--
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 2:31 pm
"I think so?" Serenitatis rarely sounded confident in her own answers at the moment. The Code had done its best to provide her with answers, but there really were some things she needed to learn on her own. If she spent her entire time with the strange power source, she would end up achieving nothing and the very person she was trying to save would perish. Learning on the job could be done, albeit she could have done with a more efficient mentorship program, but she could always write up and present that proposal at a later date.
...Yep, one day The Code on the Moon might very well have a powerpoint presenation set in front of them.
Oh, but where were her manners?
"Ah," she dusted herself down self conciously and offered a sheepish smile. "I'm Serenitatis, Page of the Moon," she offered and then quickly shook her head. She supposed that in hindsight playing chicken with a large truck and other fast moving vehicles was not a smart thing to do, but fortune had favoured her this evening. The youma hadn't managed to chomp at her directly and while it had clipped at her heels and torn her skirts a little, it hadn't done any sufficient damage to require any immediate care.
"I'm just a little tired," she admitted softly. "I'm not really big on the physical activities," she added. "And the last few days have been a lot of physical activity," she groaned softly.
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Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:31 pm
The knights, in general, could use some people who could provide them with guidance. Their awakenings were spontaneous; she, herself, had been fortunate to cross paths with Royal Knight Camelot not too long after awakening, someone she had already crossed paths with before, but so few people had the luck of running into a royal knight, of all things. It was part of why Richtersveld was always willing to stop and talk about basic things like this. Someone had helped her; it only made sense for her to do the same. The Moon. That explained the markings, she supposed-- "You're the first Moon Knight I've met!" Richtersveld seemed delighted by this and was quickly absorbing what Serentatis' outfit generally looked like so she knew what to keep an eye out for. "But tired I understand," her gaze returned back to Serentatis' face, sympathy in her own eyes, "it was a lot for me at first too. My day job is therapy. That's not frequently the type of thing you have to run in circles for." That was more her brother's domain with his whole track star thing. Sometimes literally. And even their sibling was considerably more of a runner than she was-- "I have some tea if that might help? I keep some with me." It wasn't anything terribly strong with caffeine, but it might help give her a bit of a boost. "You said last few days, though -- what brings you out here? Just trying to learn the ropes?"
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 2:24 pm
"I think that might be because I'm the only Moon Knight," Serenitatis admitted sheepishly. She wasn't being dishonest in this either, if she had understood The Code correctly it had at the time said that she was its first knight... That was only a few weeks ago, so if there were to be significantly more of her 'kind' round now, The Code would need to have moved fairly rapidly. Not that she actually understood how cosmic entities such as the peculiar little 'Wisp' worked, but she seemed to be a 'first' for a few folks lately.
That didn't mean she'd be the only one forever though, right? She was confident in that, The Code had implied that it was sending more help. She would be but one of many who would spring up in time and help bolster the ranks of the side of 'good'. At least that was what Serenitatis hoped for and her interpretation of what she had been told wasn't a naive fever dream. If it was, then quite frankly The Code had made a woeful choice because she was very much not capable of enacting or effecting monumental change.
...And that wasn't even when one considered that this change would involve a war!
She did smile as Richtersveld continued the conversation, moving smoothly towards further introductions without really revealing her true self. They were on common ground in that respect, in positions where physical activity wasn't really the done thing.
"Ah, Radiographer here," she offered. "I'm fairly sure there are some days I'm almost entirely sedentary," she murmured.
A pause though, as tea as offered, and Serenitatis stared at her for a few moments in an attempt to understand where the tea was hiding.
"Tea would be lovely," she replied after a moment, electing not to make some things needlessly complicated when there was every chance she simply had a flash strapped to the back of her waist. She'd seen a fair amount of odd things recently, but surely there were times when perfectly normal human logic would feature, right?
"As for that..." she pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I'm looking for something, but I'm not really sure how to find it so I'm sort of...meandering."
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Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2022 8:34 pm
The only Moon Knight. It was both incredibly intriguing and incredibly surprising. How had she found out she was the only one? Was it just from observation, or had she talked to someone already who might know? Still, though, if she was the only one, then she could definitely use some guidance. Richtersveld had not met terribly many other Pluto Knights, but it was nice to have that community-- Radiography! Another person in the caring-for-people fields. Her eyes lit up at that, finding a commonality in the woman in front of her already beside for their mutual knighthood. Admittedly, being a radiographer also implied that Serentatis was probably a little bit older than most knights she ran into, which made her especially curious. Richtersveld was nearly thirty-seven herself, and oft found herself on the older end of a lot of the knights-- "Oh! If I may be so bold, how old are you? A lot of the knights I meet are in their twenties. Not that there's anything wrong with that!" It was a little frightening to think of why that might be the case. How many had died before her? As she fetched a cup of tea from her subpocket, seemingly out of nowhere, and held it out to Serentatis, she nodded at her mentioning meandering-- "And what are you looking for? I might be able to help. After all, been at this for a little bit."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:04 pm
"Now now, a lady never tells," Serenitatis gasped and gave a wave of her hand before offering a wry smile.
"I'm 34 though," she offered after a small pause. However what Richersveld had said would have normally been a cause for concern to her if they were much younger. An individual serving in a military wing in their twenties was perfectly acceptable, but she was unaware of the nuances of who they were. Quite frankly when it came to all of this and the interplanetary elements of it, one had to assume that logically some things might have been different. Culturally she was oblivious to what might well be the norm.
"Well at least they are children," she said after a moment and chuckled. "I imagine I would be a touch less content if a child had been handed one of these," she admitted. In fact there was a very distinct possibility she would howl angrily at The Code and demand some answers. Serenitatis was not an advocate of child soldiers, regardless of how independent they might think they were. After all, there were some things children and teenagers alike needed to experience to really grow and develop.
And they needed to study.
Very important. Stay in school kids.
"Ah but -" she cleared her throat and returned to the topic at hand with a soft sigh. "The Code called it a starseed," she replied. Her shoulders rolled in a loose shrug and she finally clasped both her hands together. Though her expression didn't stay neutral for long as the woman stuck her hand in to nothing and brought out tea. Her face was surely a picture as she reached out in surprise to take the cup of warm liquid from the knight.
"...How?"
It was about all she could manage at this point, the woman's hand had literally vanished into thin air and conjured a cup of tea. What more could she have possibly said to that (other than 'witchcraft' that was)?
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Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:57 pm
Richtersveld giggled, and was about to excuse the never tells with a fair enough when Serentatis did say that she was thirty-four. Thirty-four! That was definitely considerably closer to her age-- "Thirty-seven here. Or thirty-six, I suppose. I tend to start calling myself the new age before I actually am." A child. Richtersveld realigned her mind to remind herself that wasn't anyone under the age of thirty -- the war had taught her differently, but she still sometimes had the instinct that anyone who was much younger than her was someone she needed to mother -- and bit on her bottom lip lightly when she realized there were definitely people she might consider children in the war. Even beyond calling a twenty-one-year-old a baby. She would address that in a moment, once Serentatis was done being stunned. Would also address the starseed in a moment-- "It's strange, right?" she giggled, pulling out a small cup of her own and settling. "I've heard it referred to as subspace before. I think of it like a magical invisible backpack you can't see. I store a small first aid kit in there and a few things like this." At this point, she lifted the cup to display what she meant. "Basically, just," she bent down, picked up a small rock, and offered it to Serentatis. "Take this rock. Now just imagine yourself putting it away somewhere, like in a backpack. The rock will go in there." After a brief pause, she continued with, "And then you can imagine having the rock in your hands, and it'll reappear. I don't know how much can go in there, exactly, but you can't will people or anything like that into it. Just small things like first aid kits and tea." She took a sip of her tea. "I'll go over the other things once you have that down."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:39 pm
"Oh I wouldn't be one to judge, I do basic math in my head to work out my own age," she grinned. "You know, current year minus year of birth...and that does sometimes mean I will say I'm a bit older than I actually am," she admitted. When it came to birthdays she wasn't big on them, and while her family sent her little cards and small trinkets, she never sought to make a song or dance about it. There were bigger days in the year to celebrate, at least according to her, and so...age really was just a number to her.
Nevertheless, as Richersveld carefully explained her witchcraft, Serenitatis took the stone from her and admired it with some degree of scepticism. So she was supposed to imagine putting it away somewhere, and then she was supposed to just will it back? The woman was beginning to suspect that when it came to this particular career path she was going to need an awful lot of focus if she was going to succeed.
Was it too late to master the art of meditation?
She examined the stone for a little while longer before attempting to follow Richersveld's instructions. They hadn't seemed to difficult, and yet as she tried to put it 'somewhere', it simply fell to the ground. Perhaps it wasn't something that was meant to be successful the first time, some things had to be practiced. She picked it up again, and again, and again, until finally she managed to put it...well, somewhere.
Another expression of surprise flooded on to her features and she smiled warmly.
"How fascinating," she remarked. It was only when she tried to get the stone back out again that she hit a snag. Several attempts proved to end in failure and after a while she shook her head.
"I'll try that one again later," she murmured softly. "I'm sure i'll figure it out eventually..." she admitted and returned her attention to Richersveld.
"I've had a small number of individuals explain the starseeds to me at least so that isn't a new concept, still a foreign one, but no longer new..." she sighed. "Though I was warned that I didn't have much time, I wasn't really told how much I even have," she added.
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Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2022 3:37 pm
Richtersveld did have a way of making herself older than she was, but with her birthday being in March, it wasn't for a terribly long time. She giggled quietly at the concept of Serentatis making herself older than she was -- maybe it was just a general thing for people of their ages. Once twenty-five passed, she had trouble thinking of particular age milestones, culturally, beyond the big decade markers. And even twenty-five was mostly in reference to rental cars-- Perhaps her work as a therapist shined through in her patience, and she simply sipped her tea and watched carefully as she observed Serentatis work through the concept of tucking it away in subspace. She might have offered a bit of friendly applause when she did seem to get the first part of it down. "It's a bit strange to get used to at first, but you'll adjust to it eventually! It got easier as I did it more, too. At first, didn't bother much with it and just carried my first aid kit, but," she shifted her tea to one hand, demonstrated pulling out her first aid kit, and then vanished it back into the invisible backpack where it lived, "now I just store it in there. It's let me store a few bigger tools, too--." Wasn't told how much time she had--"I could probably give you context for that, actually." Her smile was wry. Richtersveld had gotten her rude awakening to the Negaverse several years ago, when-- "Ma'am, it's nothing personal."
Her mind swam.
"We need this for the greater good, you see--""I saw them take my starseed from my chest before I fainted. One of the agents, that is. Military garb. I didn't understand who they were until later, a chance most people like me don't get." She sipped at her tea, a lightly regulating thing though she had long grown adjusted to what had happened. "From what I understand, I was in the hospital for two weeks or so, in a coma. I think Zot and Nem -- ah, those are my siblings, sorry -- said my vitality signs were fading."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 2:02 pm
Serenitatis was considering the uses for her own little pocket of space when Richtersveld bestowed a tidbit of information on her that she hadn't been expecting. Some time in the past, the woman had been subject to the same thing that her patient had. Someone, one of those who The Code had asked her to stop, had stolen her very soul. However, rather than the death sentence this should have resulted in, it seemed that fortune had favoured this woman and her soul had been returned to her.
In this, Richtersveld represented hope; but she also represented a cold and hard truth. While she hadn't confirmed it, she had essentially insinuated that at the two week mark she was running out of time. Did this mean that there was a hard cut off, after two weeks (perhaps three), was there nothing further that could be done? Her jaw set ever so slightly at that. If this was the time she had been given then she was definitely running out of it.
"How did they get it back?" she asked after a moment, ruminating over the tea that was placed in her hands.
She didn't seem completely deflated yet, but she had certainly sobered at the possibility that her time with her patient was coming to an end. Truthfully, he had already begun to show signs of weakness and though he had been healthy at the start, his brain was wasting away. For want of a better phrase, he was beginning to resemble a 'vegetable' and she very much hated it when people called patients that.
"How did they know how to find it, how to find whoever took it?" she clarified.
…Maybe if Richtersveld had a means of locating specific individuals and starseeds then that could be of use to her, right?
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 7:06 pm
Richtersveld knew that any news she was giving was both encouraging and likely not what Serentatis wanted to hear. Encouraging in that starseed loss was not necessarily a death sentence if it was found in time. Discouraging in that there was a time limit, that there was only so long that the body would manage without a soul within-- And it became even worse when she had to make her next admission, and she found herself taking a sip of tea as she tossed over in her mind what was the best way she could possibly word this -- the best way, the nicest way, the way that would cause the least pain while still being realistic about the chances-- "I wasn't sure at first, to be honest," she started, as she lowered the cup from her lips. "It wasn't my siblings. They hadn't an idea what was happening as they had never heard of the Negaverse or starseeds or anything, and I hadn't even really known until later, other than something disappeared from me that was -- very important. Evidently, enough to knock me out, which at the time was interesting to me considering my medical training." For a time, it had actually spiked a sense of religiosity back in her body -- she could think of nothing else other than it had been something of her that could only be accessed by magic, and magic was -- A religious experience, and an obvious one. In some ways, it remained as one even as she found out the truth of it -- what was the Cauldron? Why did it exist? Who had created it -- was it Sailor Cosmos? Was it simply a product of the energy created when the galaxies were created, when the Big Bang happened? "It's primarily a theory, but -- there was an event that has been described to me that seems to timeline-match up with when I had my life nearly stolen. There was an invasion of the Negaverse -- starseeds were rescued from their stores, from what I understand." This wasn't exactly promising, all things considered...
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 10:31 am
"I see, so within the next week or so I need to invade the Negaverse and find the right seed," Serenitatis murmured. She sounded as if she was making a mental list, almost as though she was preparing to buy apples or something equally unimportant. Fortunately, she wasn't that reckless and was unlikely to invade any particular region when the most she could do was wave a lamp at them.
...However if it was large enough to drive a Semi through.
Was it big enough to drive a semi through?
"Where is there headquarters?" she asked at last and pursed her lips thoughtfully. Again, she knew better than to get herself in to that much trouble, particularly when someone as 'strong' as her had already tried to take her heart, but in regards to gathering intelligence... "If it's somewhere in the city then they're doing a fantastic job at blending in," she mused.
A brief pause, and then a gasp.
"Ooooh maybe they're an outbound call centre!" she hazarded. She remembered those jobs when she was studying, she had felt like her soul had been sucked out there too. Quite frankly she wouldn't be surprised if they actually did steal and store souls there.
"Regardless if it is within striking distance it should be found, if they're storing things that valuable then we need to get them back... Not just the one I'm trying to locate."
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