[holiday-r] glowbug 2.0 [solaris&encke]

[Kaefaux]

Backdated to December 10th, 2022

Quote:

Prompt 2 (Snow Spike):
Ice and snow? Fine. Hail? Slightly less fine. Large, icicle-like shards of ice falling from the sky? Horrifying. For no apparent reason, Destiny City is plagued with another strange phenomenon, only this one can strike at any time. The icicles plummet from the sky with no warning, regardless of a clear or cloudy sky. The spikes range in size from a few inches up to two feet. Sometimes only one might fall, or sometimes a torrent of them, but they never fall far longer than a minute at a time. Some have reported a strange green lightning in the sky just before the icicles fall, so there seems to be at least some warning. Injuries and damage have been reported across the city, so it’s best to stay vigilant and hope for the best.

Solaris was extremely confused by the weather in this city. Like… severely confused. The night was clear, crystal clear. Gorgeous, really. The stars were glittering brightly above, to the point that after venturing into one of the largest parks in the city, she could even see bits of the Milky Way despite the city's light pollution. She'd found an outcropping of rocks just within a tangle of trees, their bare branches barely hindering her view of the sky above. Sitting there, the icy bite of the stone through the fabric of her skirt barely bothered her. She was too enthralled with the stars above, sitting with her knees drawn up, arms folded over them, and chin resting on her forearm. It felt relaxing to just… stare at the stars. No Chaotic auras tarnished her senses, and while she could feel the distant call of Order signatures… eh. She actually wasn't upset with just being alone for a while that night.

Now and then, she saw fast moving points of light. Most were flashing red and white, sometimes red and blue--planes. She watched them with a particularly wistful eye. Others, were far, far smaller points, but moved far, far faster. It'd taken a while to figure out what they were, but finally Realta had told her once they were artificial satelites that Earthlings had sent up into space to help utilize their various systems. Fair. They were still neat to see moving so high above.

Ah.

A streak of light flew across a small portion of the sky, slender and brief. A shooting star. A meteorite, likely, burning up in the atmosphere. Sometimes she caught meteor showers, though she wasn't aware of any that night. The random, occasional shooting star just happened. Aware of one of the Earth's customs about shooting stars, she smiled, tilting her head slightly as she conjured up a wish to send out to it.

--she hadn't wished for projectiles.

A flash of light and movement beside her made Solaris jump, just in time for something to shatter and crash into the rock beside her. Cold fragments struck her thigh, and she startled, staring at the bits that glittered in the moonlight.

Was that… ice?

More streaks of long, slender forms crashed into the branches up above her, and further into the section of forest. Some crashed into the mostly frozen ground beyond her rock, and she realized with a shred of concern that they were standing upright after piercing into the ground.

They were… icicles.

Solaris stared up. No clear sign of the source stood out to her. No youma--that she could see or sense--no cloud, no strange magic set off any warning bells in her head, no… nothing.

More icicles glittered up above her, incoming, and she cursed, diving back behind the rock outcropping she'd been sitting upon. She could hear the ice shattering up above her protective shield.

"What the heck is this now?!"

Seiana_ZI

 

[Seiana_ZI]

What the hell was this?

Encke had lived in Destiny City since he was born. The idiosyncrasies of the city weren't lost on him; in fact, to some degree, he expected them. The sound of a icicle crashing next to him and interrupting his gazing at the stars, though, was not something he just expected. It sent his anxiety to the ceiling and his heart rate to the moon above him for a moment as he quickly tried to locate the aura of a youma or a chaos agent nearby that might have been sending that out.

Why couldn't he find a source? And why importantly, why was there another one? He hissed at it, bringing up his static aura on a defensive instinct, as he glared up to the sky to see if he could locate any place they could have been coming from. He found nothing. Not like any hail clouds had rolled in within the last minute--ow, that burned--and he could still see the satellite he had been tracking.

He did feel one other aura.

Not anything chaotic though, and the follow-up voice he heard was just as confused as he felt. Maybe together they could at least beat this s**t off long enough to get away from it.

This was definitely going to make news reports tomorrow--

"Did it get you too?" Encke was already asking questions as he swatted off an icicle and winced as it shattered to pieces nearby. He ducked behind the same rock she did, murmuring an apology for probably making her body feel the slightest bit electric. "Can you tell where it's coming from?"

Other than magic and also nowhere--

Kaefauxx

Plasma Generator - Encke's passive enhancement taps into his deep relationship with his comet's energy sources and his own magic. He's gained the ability to mirror some of the elements of his own magical source. While active, Encke's form is surrounded by a static fuzz much like touching a plasma ball; imperceptible to the human eye, the odd sensation, while not harmful, can make someone's hair stand on end. Time in his sphere may cause a harmless (though annoying) static zap when touching anything metal or another person.

 

[Kaefaux]

The rapid approach of an Eternal signature didn't change much of the situation, but Solaris was at least somewhat hopeful that maybe they'd be able to tell her what the heck was going on. The figure that joined her behind the rock outcropping made her blink a couple times at the intrusion of bright colors into an otherwise largely monochromatic scene. A shock of red hair, bright purple and neon blue.

"No, it just started shooting icicles from the sky while I was stargazing, haven't seen any source," she told him quickly, turning somewhat to glance up around the protective rock shield to make sure that hadn't changed.

The hair at the back of her neck stood on end, though. Not from unease or fear. Just a natural response to being close to an electrical current. The sensation was jarring from flickers of memories it brought back.

"Name's Solaris, who're you?" She tossed the words casually, like she wasn't bubbling with other questions. It'd been... a long time since she'd felt that sort of current near another person. But the universe was a massive place, she reminded herself...

"Catalytic Spark!" Snapping her fingers to form the sudden spark and glowing ball of energy and heat, she directed it up into the path of multiple oncoming icicles. The explosion of the energy, the rapid heat and pressure rising in the immediate area, melted and blew apart a handful of the projectiles.

Seiana_ZI

 

[Seiana_ZI]

So this senshi didn't see where it came from either? Definitely holiday s**t. Great. Falling icicles were on brand but it was still definitely a new one. "Seems about right! I'm not sure how long you've been here, but this stuff happens a lot at this time of year..."

Something seemed familiar about her if he squinted, but not enough to make him assume a Solaris from anywhere. The name was not readily familiar, although he wasn't thinking too hard about it with the sound of icicles crashing nearby. Encke glanced over the rock they were both hiding behind and winced as something else shattered.

And then the sound of her magic making even more shatter made him jump a little bit, but he was happy to do that if more of these went away before a civilian crossed paths with them-- "Good idea, maybe we can head this off..." He lifted a hand and threw it in the direction of the icicles, letting the combination of electricity and minor heat from ionization cause some of them to melt and pop.

A victorious whoop followed.

Oh, right, his name, he should probably answer her question. "Encke! Transcendent Eternal Encke of Plasma. Nice to meet you!" That was accompanied by a small yelp as one shattered fairly close to where they were attempting to hide.

Why was this city always trying to kill them, again? Was it trying to just nuke the Negaverse from within, or was it just a strange side effect of all this magic blossoming in one zone? "Gonna assume you're not from Earth, right? I've met some others like you, to be honest--" this was definitely not the time to be talking about that, though, and he yanked his mind back to the relevant and prevalent problem--

Kaefauxx