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 Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2022 8:06 pm
A quick jog around the neighborhood wasn't revealing any immediate dangers, and the weather was nice enough considering it was winter. The air had that crisp quality to it, and it almost seemed like the stars were standing out more than they ever had before. It was as good a time as ever to have a conversation, Cybele decided. Anser was, as always, near the top of her contacts list. She was also just one of her top contacts. Even though Cybele couldn't quite shake the fact that something especially important was missing from her memories of this relationship, they had similar enough philosophies and personalities now that it was always nice to patrol together. Of course Anser was going to be one of the first people she would invite to a project like this. Was the first text. Something about spending time with an energetic teenager helped her cut her formality just a bit. Quote: Are you out, and able to meet up? I'm getting close to the financial district.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2022 8:30 pm
A nighttime patrol after a shift at the cafe was always nice. She had homework, probably, but it was truly the last thing she cared about. What did she care about? The frappe that her and her coworkers had made that tasted like cinnamon toast crunch, the fact that she really wasn't feeling many auras, and the fact that her phone was going off about something. She pulled herself against a wall to sip at her frappe with one hand and check her phone with the other. Her face broke into a grin. Of course she was out and able to meet up. That was easy. The location was easy too. That was where her brother's father-in-law worked, she was pretty sure. At least, he was over there decently often... Quote: Yeah, I can get down there! Gimme a little bit to run over. One of the advantages of her higher form now was that even if her skirt was floofier, she moved a whole lot ******** faster. Like a tornado, even, or just a flock of very angry geese out on a mission. She wasn't angry, though. A patrol with a good friend was fine with her, and something she was quite happy to pursue. And she figured that was why Cybele was messaging her... It did indeed take a little bit, but when she got there, she pulled her phone out again. Quote: Here! Lemme know where you're at Or come find me ig, our auras are kinda obvious atp
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 4:58 am
Even with Cybele's newfound ability to sense auras from a bit farther away, she couldn't technically tell who was who just by the energy they gave off. Anser's, for example, didn't come with hints of intensity and goose down. There was something about the way this aura moved, however, about the way it was coming at her as fast as possible from the other direction, like a bullet, that made Cybele grin before she even saw the other senshi. She had a feeling she knew who that one was. She reached for her phone one last time. She wouldn't be a very good huntress if she couldn't even track down one of her best friends. It didn't turn out to be very difficult, either. She had to zigzag around a few tall, formal looking buildings, but then, there was Anser, with a giant skirt and a Transcendent glow about her that made her hard to miss. Cybele raised a hand in greeting. "There you are! See, I found you." Her gaze focused in on the cup her friend was holding. "That smells amazing. It's smart, too. I should start picking something up before I go out when it gets cold like this."
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 5:30 am
Anser grinned when she saw Cybele's response. She waited in a way that would have only seemed patient to those who knew her, bouncing and sipping at her drink and bouncing even more eagerly as she felt that eternal aura blossom into her senses and come closer. She was certain she knew who that was. Anser was also certain when she saw that woman come into view, and she lifted a hand to wave back. "Good job! Should hide a bit more next time." Anser pursed her lips. "Not that auras make it super possible..." Sounded like an appropriate challenge, honestly. And maybe if she could hide from Cybele, she could get the jump on some evil people. "Do you want a sip?" asked Anser, with a grin, as she held it toward Cybele. "I'll bring some drinks with me next time! I can zero out anything I get while on shift so I can just get a bunch. Or a few." She snickered. She could fill in a whole carrier just for the two of them, honestly. Two for each! "Ready for a good patrol?"
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2022 3:06 pm
"I'm sure I could find you just fine even if you tried a bit harder," said Cybele with a smile that was almost edging towards smug. There were many places where her confidence faltered, but her tracking abilities were not one of them. She was the Senshi of the Hunt. "It could be a good training exercise, though. For us, even, but especially if we got some newer people in." The playful smirk faded a bit as the gears in her head began to turn. "It could teach aura awareness to someone very new, but also spacial awareness, that sort of thing." A lot of their enemies were the sort that liked to skulk around in shadows and hover just out of sight for as long as they could manage it. Even agents tried it as well as they could, but the youma tended to be better at it. Cybele had lost count of how many of those smaller, slippery ones she'd dug out of dumpsters even in the year and change since she'd purified. "I always like the seasonal flavors," she said, reaching out to take Anser's drink for a moment and taking a small sip. "Peppermint. Pumpkin spice. Whatever it happens to be. If you ever want to pick one up for me, I'd appreciate it, but just one. I don't need that much caffeine." As she handed the cup back, she made a face with her eyes wide and her teeth bared teeth as an example of how it could be, but it only lasted for about a second before she was laughing at herself.
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Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2022 6:12 am
"Bet," because Anser did know that Cybele was good, but hey, if she could test that out-- though the next suggestion was even better. She hummed in thought, and responded with an even more enthusiastic, "Bet!" They were definitely good enough to help other people in aura sensing. She had trained her senses as a chibi. As a transcendent eternal? She could definitely show other people how it worked. And she'd feel that victory when people failed to track her down because part of the key when everyone could sense each other was keeping hidden. She had gotten good at hiding herself in fire escapes. A bit higher than most people's view lines, but not high enough to be obviously on the roof... Anser happily let Cybele take a sip, though she couldn't help a smattering of giggles when she said that she didn't need more than one. "Aww, one for now, one for later!" It didn't cost her anything, though more giggles escaped her with the face Cybele made. To be honest, caffeine helped her feel a bit more balanced. She could focus a bit better than normal, and it made her feel like her memory was actually sticking... When the laughter calmed, she continued with, "Okay, okay, just one of whatever the current seasonal drink is. Or one of them. I got you!" Anser wasn't feeling any auras nearby besides their own, which was nice. She bounced on her heels, though, eager to get moving. For as much as she was fine with and even felt like it was necessary to patrol on her own--always had, much to some people's chagrin--it was nice to have company. "Ready?"
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Dec 19, 2022 6:25 pm
"I mean I guess one for later isn't a bad idea," said Cybele, making a bit of a show out of putting some thought into it. Really she wasn't the kind of person who constantly needed some kind of fancy cafe drink in her hand, but if it made Anser feel better to stock her up, she wasn't going to be rude about it. "And yeah, we can go." There still weren't any auras obvious in the area, so Cybele just picked a street to start down so that Anser could move and stretch her legs a bit. Before they could get too far, and risk running into any youma that would interrupt them, she was saying, "So, there was actually something I wanted to get your opinion on." A moment passed, and she added, with a winning smile, because she supposed that technically she was selling something, "And perhaps get you involved in, if you're interested."
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2022 6:33 am
Anser liked movement and always had, so it didn't take much for her to happily launch after one of her favorite patrol partners. Of course, she was very careful not to upset the balance of her own drink. She moved with the grace rewarded to her both by dancing and also by the fact that she was a barista at a fairly busy cafe. Somehow, she found herself able to take a sip as she caught back up, and then a gentler one as she actually kept pace next to Cybele. "You can count on me!" Anser was the one being asked for advice this time! That was exciting. Cybele was good enough at this s**t to hit eternal twice and her opinion was still helpful here-- Oh! And her involvement, too! "Oh hell yeah," Anser's grin was as wide as Cybele's smile was winning. "So what do you need me for? We forming an eternal duo of chaos a**-kicking? Because I'm always down for that." She was always down for a lot of things but--
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2022 3:58 pm
Anser's drink juggling was impressive, honestly. Cybele watched it out of the corner of her eye as she kept a steady pace down the sidewalk. That cafe where she'd gotten a job was lucky to have her. Anyone would be lucky to have her around, Cybele thought, and she tried to pull herself away from that thought so she didn't end up getting too sappy. Anser was making it hard by being so willing to help out with whatever idea had popped into Cybele's head. She was excited about the thought of fighting together forever. No, there was no escape from the fact that her heart was melting. "We're already an amazing duo," she said, her voice softer and her smile softer too. "And eternal, I think. Not just because of the wings," although that did mark them both as Eternals, in that sense of the word, "But you found me even when I forgot everything, and in a way by purifying I found my way back to you." Cybele straightened, and she probably would have slowed her walk if she didn't know that Anser would want to keep moving. "I was thinking about trying to expand that, actually? I know there's people out there who feel alone in Order. I was thinking it might help meeting people like that if we could offer them a group to turn to that's a bit more close knit than just The White Moon Court, which can be sort of nebulous. Just, people with names and faces, watching each other's backs." Anser had been the right person to ask about this, she knew. Of course the other girl would instinctively understand. "Basically, a team."
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2022 12:46 am
Anser beamed, and her sunny disposition could have lit up that whole alleyway. "That's so sweet!! I'd like to think that, too. Not even Chaos trying to take you away got in the way of us being friends, right?" Even if she couldn't remember some of those pieces that brought them together, that was okay. The important part was that Cybele was Cybele, and not what Chaos was trying to make her into. The important part was that they were together again. The important part was that Anser's failure to be there hadn't doomed Cybele. She found her way back, and they found their way back to each other. It had shaken Anser badly at first, and it made her increasingly angry at Chaos, but Cybele? Never Cybele. She was just happy to have her friend back, even if Anser had to hold all the memories and they needed to start again. Oh, an expansion of their friend vibes? She was very in. "Oh, I'd love to help with that! We got something really good going on here, and if we can help others in Order feel that even a little bit, I think it'd help a bunch." She had a jaunty spring to her step as she took another sip of her drink, somehow. "We're such a loose organization. Which is fine, we're not really an organization, but it'd be nice to have that for people who need that. Friends have helped me a lot through this, after all." And she would have never stopped even if she hadn't found anyone outside of her brother, but the work was sure far less lonely with people to turn to. Like Cybele!
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2022 8:06 pm
"Not even having to start over could get between us," Cybele agreed. She had to admit that she was glad that Anser seemed to have accepted that now, and she no longer looked at Cybele like she was a ghost before flying into a rage about Chaos. Although, Cybele was glad that her own perspective on all of that had changed. For a long time, she'd seen the person who she was before waking up as dead, and while that was true in a lot of ways, it was beginning to seem like there were some things that had carried over. She still didn't know if she could live up to the hero she'd been before, but if her friends wanted to see her that way, she was no longer going to argue with them. She hadn't expected Anser was going to have any problems with her offer, but she smiled all the same. "I'm glad you approve," she said. "There was someone else I was already going to talk to about it, one of the aliens." Although she realized that given recent events, that didn't clarity all that much. "A refugee senshi, not one of the Velencyans. Solaris. I don't think she's settled in quite as well as some of the others I've met. You'll like her, though." Cybele was almost certain of that. "She's angelic, and hates Chaos. Like you, with wings." She supposed Anser was almost feathery enough to match that, too.
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Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 5:13 pm
Anser showed her returned happiness with something of a wiggle in place, a wave of her body, and a twirl before continuing to walk alongside Cybele. "Oh, you're finding alien senshi too?" Anser sipped from her cup, glancing down at Cybele with increased curiosity. She knew of enough aliens, at least. With Encke it had started with Caedus, and then he had someone named Dagon, and there was a Roka, and Viatrix had found a couple too-- "I'm kinda surprised by how many there are on Earth now. They're interesting!" And sad, from what she understood. Very sad. She beamed at her bestie at the concept of not only making this team with one of her besties but also including people like the aliens-- And one that despised chaos? But with wings? Beautiful."She sounds fantastic! I can't wait to meet her." Anser wondered if Encke knew her, too, seeing as he seemed to know all the aliens-- "I imagine she has a lot of reasons to hate Chaos. A lot of the aliens lost their worlds to it, right?" Her brows knit. "Really sucks honestly. And I thought I wanted to run them through..." Not important, though. What was important-- "We'll get her a team to stand against Chaos with! Even if our wings are all decorative."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2023 3:25 pm
Cybele didn't wiggle or twirl the way that Anser did. She kept a steady pace and simply gave a nod when asked the question, although the nod was a bit bouncier than usual. Being around her younger friend did rub off on her, sometimes. "Of course I know some aliens," she said. "They're sort of popping up everywhere, aren't they?" She'd seen them in armies on the hill outside of town. She'd seen them sitting alone on a park bench, sketching. She'd seen them show up, suspiciously, at her family's Christmas dinner. A beat passed, and she leaned in to whisper to Anser, like it was some sort of secret, "One of them is actually getting married to my brother." She raised an eyebrow to add to the intrigue, and vaguely hoped that wherever he was, Sessrumnir would not object to her claiming that relationship to him. They hadn't actually gotten a chance to talk. "Not Solaris. That one's Alastor, the one where we went up to help get the Chaos off his world? At least a lot of us went, I know Encke was there." Now that she thought about it, she didn't know if she'd glimpsed Anser's face in the crowd. "You'd like him, too. I don't know if he'd want to be on the team, he's got some other things going on, but," she glanced over, "A lot of the aliens don't beat around the bush with Chaos the way our friends here do."
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Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2023 5:17 am
"Married!" That was a spicy bit of gossip if she ever heard it, and she leaned in a bit closer too. "That's gotta be a big change after being alone so long. Congrats to him!" Alastor. She recognized that name, but she did shake her head when Cybele said we. Her brother had definitely been there. She remembered when he seemed so bright when she visited about that they had actually rescued an alien's homeworld. But-- "I think I would like him, honestly!" Especially if he didn't really beat around the bush. She understood in theory that their path was the harder one, but had they been left a choice? "I think a lot of them here can't quite get around the fact that our enemies have civilian lives here." Anser's brows knit. "But they're mining humanity behind a mask. It's like those murder documentaries where they say they seemed like such a good person, but at a much wider scale. People who have lost everything probably don't have those kind of..." Anser knit her brows. She heard a term recently in her English class that might have actually suited her here-- "Conpunctions." With a confident nod that she had gotten the word right, she continued, "I know what they've done to people like my brother. I don't have those, either. Wish more of us didn't, but," but those of them that didn't would do what they had to do. Perhaps as a team, they could.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 4:38 pm
"Really?" asked Cybele, seeming surprised in the thoughtful sort of way. Her brows drew closer together, just a bit. "The ones I know best, the ones I just mentioned? I don't think they're strangers to war, or that they have any more than the usual compunctions about killing people with families back home." For a moment she wondered how much of these were her stories to share, but the others seemed open enough about it, so she added, "Solaris was saying something about being conscripted into the role of a soldier before Chaos even showed up on her world. We were talking a bit about our experiences." A beat passed. "About my experiences." She didn't need Anser to tell her about the awful things that the Negaverse did to people. She didn't need anyone to tell her how it ruined lives. She'd lived that. She'd killed, and broken families, just as she herself had been shattered from the inside out. Anser wasn't completely right either, though, and Cybele found herself shaking her head. "Some of them are good people," she said. "I wasn't the only one who didn't want to be there." She waved a hand, eyes still narrowed in thought. "Not that I think we can save everyone, the way that some people want to. Even if it was, I don't think it's practical or even merciful to try when there are simpler ways to stop the atrocities." She let out a slow breath. She didn't mind getting a bit more blood on her hands. "But I have to acknowledge the complexity of the situation."
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