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 Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2023 9:57 pm
Two days and two nights.
That’s how long Andesine had been in with the Negaverse’s medical corps after her encounter with Sailor Pumpkin Spice and those rancid little leporids she’d been so eager to cuddle. On several levels, Andesine was grateful for the Negaverse operatives who had medical training and doubly so for the operatives who knew both the scientific and more magical forms of healing. Grateful that, even though no one could diagnose what the chills were, exactly, and all attempts at stopping them ultimately proved futile, the Negaverse had resources enough to give its operatives such good, attentive care and to put her up while she waited out the nightmare, freezing from the inside out and feeling like maybe, she’d never know the feeling of warmth again.
On the other hand, though, the story made her stomach lurch in humiliation. Getting yanked through a hole in reality to some sticky, parallel dimension full of gargoyles for several weeks? No injuries to speak of. Getting kidnapped out of nowhere to some nowhere planet full of weird, overly friendly robots? She’d made it out perfectly fine. A massive mission into the Rift, and far more specifically into a facility that was full of traps as well as General Galvorn? Nary a scratch—well, a couple bruises, including one to her ego, but nothing that painful, much less truly debilitating.
But being assaulted with a magical rabbit by some airhead basic senshi who honestly deserved a Darwin Award for playing with bunnies in the presence of a Negaverse aura? Now, that—that had been the thing that send Andesine to the med-bay in search of whatever help the Negaverse could give her.
As soon as she got back on her feet, Andesine was eager to course-correct. Not that she’d been knocked too far off, she thought—getting injured in the line of duty happened to everyone, and statistically speaking, it was likely impossible to avoid all kinds of humiliating injuries, especially when White Moon senshi insisted on being so………ugh, Like That—but Andesine’s pride very badly wanted to reaffirm for herself that she was not some kind of screw-up just because that one encounter hadn’t ended in her favor.
That, and the bunny-themed decorations all over Southside Park were pissing her off. Honestly, she knew it had to do with Lunar New Year and the Year of the Rabbit—the red and gold color scheme mixed with characters that Andesine couldn’t read said as much, as did Southside Park’s proximity to both Destiny City’s Chinatown and Little Tokyo. But so soon after that embarrassment with Sailor Pumpkin Spice, looking at all the heinous little rabbits chafed something awful.
Fortunately, the objective cuteness of the decorations also meant that, despite the cold, plenty of people were out in Southside Park tonight. Maybe Andesine could only drain off one person at a time, but this crowd was perfect for her favorite autumn and winter strategy: fastening her coat around her uniform so nothing would look too strange, and flitting around between all of the civilians, siphoning off energy in little bursts, taking enough to knock her quota out with a thousand cuts but not so much that anyone would notice.
Well, mostly.
Maybe she was getting bolder tonight. Maybe she’d noticed four of the people she’d drained start showing signs like muscle pains, headaches, and abruptly yawning like they could have passed out on their feet. Maybe Andesine could have stood to be more careful—but she did have a two-day backlog to make up here. Even if her superior officers understood the “stuck in medical after magical mishap” part of things, Andesine didn’t want to slack off or let them down. And as she made for one of the more sparsely-populated areas of the park, she very much doubted that was a risk anymore. Oh, she’d done so well with harvesting energy tonight. All she needed to do was turn in her haul and make everything official.
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Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:49 pm
Asmodeus had a sneaking suspicion about the girl in the long coat.
She'd been very careful about following her, when she first noticed that people around her seemed to be getting tired--when she'd noticed that she herself felt like she was flagging faster than expected. She'd come down as Hope, just to walk throguh and see some of the Lunar New Year decorations in the park, and scout things out a little for bringing Zev and Annabel later, and it had all seemed like a great idea.
Until she realized that someone else magical was here, too.
There were enough people around that she had easily diverted her path to follow the woman she suspected was responsible, and still belnded quite well in with the crowd, until she was sure, and they were headed for a less populated area of the park anyway.
She tucked herself into the darkness, produced her henshin pen, and whispered her transformation phrase, and then she stepped out as Super Sailor Asmodeus and put a hand on her hip.
The aura she felt was first stage. Maybe that meant that she was about to bully some baby Lieutenant. Maybe she didn't care.
"Busy tonight, Lieutenant?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2023 12:35 am
Andesine’s attention perked up like instant coffee when she felt the sudden eruption of a White Moon aura—more powerful than herself, and nearby, to boot.… Probably not going to be a repeat of that nonsense with Demeter Pumpkin Spice and the stupid rabbits, then, and on one level, Andesine realized that getting herself into a fight with someone more powerful than herself? Was strategically about as likely to go well as trying to endure a family gathering without access to a decent amount of alcohol.
On the other hand, if she came out of this encounter with a more powerful adversary victorious—or Hell, if she just managed to keep her energy haul secure—then the potential rewards were definitely worth the risk.
Especially when the risk in question stomped out into Andesine’s view, wearing her little ankle boots and cute little steampunk-looking dress.… Red, yellow, and orange colors all over the fuku, so……hmm, probably something to do with fire? Tilting her head a bit quizzically, Andesine smirked. It was almost too bad that things had to be this way. Tonight’s particular risk was cute—very cute—and a feisty attitude only emphasized the overall cuteness.
“Isn’t everybody, these days?” Andesine shrugged. “Surely, the White Moon’s senshi have better things to do than making a lot of noise about some charitable donations?”
Charitable donations that Andesine had collected without asking or otherwise allowing the people in the park any option of refusing.
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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2023 12:41 am
Her instincts had been right on, it seemed. Asmodeus had clearly been doing this for too long--or long enough, perhaps; one or the other, at least. Mostly, the point was that she was looking an enemy in the face, and this was clearly someone who had no remorse about her actions.
"Charitable donations, huh. Is that what you Negaverse parasites are calling it these days." The comparison seemed apt, really--they needed to suck the hist that was the people of Destiny City dry, like nasty little ticks, just ones that went after energy instead of blood.
"You're gonna let that energy go back to the people it came from," Asmodeus said, and she brought up a hand to start her casting gesture, "or we're gonna have a problem. And trust me, honey, you do not want to have a problem with me."
She remembered what her magic had done in that alternate future. It didn't seem quite the same now--perhaps leaving the Mirror had changed it--but she was still the Senshi of the Inferno, and she still burned from her core to her fingertips, and she would gladly light this idiot up if she kept playing stupid games.
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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2023 2:35 am
Oh, the senshi liked to get bossy, did she? That was adorable, really. Even the part of Andesine that knew better—the part of her that knew the hand gesture the senshi was pulling out could be the prelude to something incredibly unpleasant and very possibly on fire, which might well have outweighed the potential rewards to be gained (especially when Andesine had an energy haul to protect and, at the moment, just her jingle-bells)—didn’t want to yield, though. For one thing, it was fun, having an opponent who’d actually fight back, instead of just lying in the snow and whining like Sailor Pumpkin Spice had done.
“I will do no such thing, sweetheart,” Andesine informed her, smirking like the blades on General Ashanite’s staff. “Did you see anyone in this park keel over from a sudden lack of starseed? Did any of them suffer anything worse than a headache or needing to take a nap? Most of them haven’t noticed anything, and by morning—assuming they sleep like normal people—they’ll be fresh as a daisy. Sounds like a ‘no real harm done’ situation to me, hmm?”
As if it helped illustrate how little she felt like respecting this bossy senshi’s commands, Andesine moved to slip around her side. Nothing casual about it, really, but she kept her head high and hummed like nothing was wrong, Got a little motto, always sees me through: ‘When you’re good to Mama, Mama’s good to you.…’Vanya hated making deliveries over by Southside Park. Truly, he did.
For one thing, while the park wasn’t exactly on the other side of town from Nagisa’s, it was far enough away that he wondered if DoorDash or UberEats would actually take Nagisa’s food over here. (Maybe Vanya could’ve asked the guy on his floor who had gigs at both of said places, but that would’ve required talking to the neighbor who’d made his first impression by mistaking Vanya for a girl from behind and slapping his a** while calling him “Baby.” Thanks, but no thanks. He’d prefer not to.)
For another thing, simply getting to the vicinity of the park required going through Little Tokyo, and oh boy, that gauntlet could prove quite harrowing when fortune didn’t favor you. After so many years of working at Nagisa’s making this same trip on his bike while carrying their take-out bags with the logo printed on the side and take-out menus attached, Vanya thought it was safe to say that plenty of the restaurateurs and waitstaff in Little Tokyo recognized him on-sight. The blue-haired white boy on the black mountain bike that you’d never guess he’d fished out of the trash during his third week in Destiny City, always carrying the food for a competing business from another district.
Tonight’s gauntlet hadn’t been too terrible, but Vanya had still been on the receiving end of some spirited cussing, about half in English and half in Japanese (though he was pretty sure a few stray bits of Spanish had snuck in as well), from Nakamura-san, the girl with the hot pink hair and a borderline Hellraiser-looking amount of facial piercings, who waited tables at Wild Ginger. Considering he’d had things thrown at him sometimes—usually by overly loyal customers rather than staff, but still—getting called a rude, mangy, uninvited, b*****d-born, ******** parasite?
……Well, it still sucked. He didn’t enjoy it. And yeah, it kinda <******** stung, actually! Because, despite having what every teacher he’d ever known had generously described as “a moderate Attitude Problem,” he tried to be kind to Nakamura-san, out of solidarity with a fellow waitstaff worker or something. Moreover, it wasn’t like he placed the orders that came in from this side of town, right? ******** sakes……
Finally, there was the way all the addresses got wonky around Southside Park for inscrutable city planning reasons that Vanya didn’t actually care about. Something about how it sat at the intersection of so many roads, he assumed. But either way, he had to meander around the edge of the park, looking for the right apartment building by number because tonight’s Southside patron had apparently ignored the box asking people to attach the name of the buildings they lived in. ******** awesome.… They probably won’t going to tip him worth a good goddamn, either. The apartments around here looked so expensive and ritzy, Macaulay Culkin could’ve easily turned them into some holiday-themed, robber-foiling shenanigans that would’ve made Rube Goldberg proud. But ******** God forbid they give waitstaff and delivery peeps a fair or decent tip, like, ever.
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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2023 8:47 pm
"Oh, is that the game we're playing," Asmodeus said. "I don't do philosophical debates on the merits or lack thereof of sucking people's energy without their consent. Don't give a s**t about your 'at least I didn't do murder' excuse. You're ******** with people in my city, and I don't appreciate it."
She was just a Super Senshi. She had no real claim to anything. But it sounded cool, so that was all it needed to do, right?
She moved, to physically stand in front oft he Lieutenant, and block her form getting away.
"I told you. Give it back, or we'll have a problem. Your. Pick. Lieutenant."
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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2023 10:07 pm
Andesine hmph’ed, narrowing her eyes and scowling at the senshi.
“It’s more my city than yours, sweetheart,” she snapped. “Didn’t you get your own planet when you sold out to the White Moon?” From some of what Andesine had backread in the intel database while laid up in Medical, that seemed to be part of how the White Moon seduced senshi away from the far more worthwhile cause of protecting the Earth from would-be alien colonizers (they must have had something to offer these idiots, and Andesine couldn’t speak for a senshi, but having an entire planet to oneself did sound like an enticing offer).
“Go stomp around that hunk of rock, why don’t you,” Andesine added with a sneer, “since none of you give a damn about actually protecting the Earth.”
Very possible, even likely, that a super senshi would know more than Andesine, and this one seemed to have a certain flair about her. A taste for drama. A way of loving the sound of her own voice. As a fellow Theatre Kid, Andesine could more than appreciate that sort of tendency in someone—and as a Lieutenant of the Negaverse, she could appreciate a potential avenue for exploiting more information out of this one. Even if it was only about the little spitfire herself reacted to being rather bluntly reminded of the treachery at the heart of the White Moon’s lies: they said that they wanted to protect anything, but so happily sold the Earth out to aliens who only cared about its resources.
Ugh, just thinking about it made Andesine exasperated by the self-righteous hypocrisy of it all.The building attached to the street number wasn’t appearing, no matter how hard Vanya silently pleaded with the street layout around Southside Park to please make sense for once? Please.
Please.
Pretty please.
With sprinkles and a cherry and chocolate sauce, like? ******** please!!!
This was his last delivery for the night! He wanted so badly to drop it off, go back to Nagisa’s to clock out (and maybe snag any pick-up orders that had gone uncollected or delivery orders that had been returned), and skulk back to his apartment. He wanted to curl up in the blanket-nest he’d strategically accumulated since moving north, pull out his laptop, and watch something that made more logical sense than Southside Park, like Un chien andalou. Something that offered more comfort and understanding than the increasingly menacing architecture, like Requiem For A Dream. Something that, like Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom, at least cared if he survived to the end, even if only because he needed to appreciate the director’s vision in its entirety, which was more than he could say for the misleadingly easy task of delivering someone’s takeout order.
At least this customer had provided a contact number. Probably had s**t like this happen one too many times, Vanya thought miserably, firing off a text.
At least the customer had been willing to adapt a little in the name of getting their food (which sure seemed to lend further support to his idea).
meet you in the park, the return text said. two girls, red hair. i’ll have a black trench-coat
Vanya sighed in relief and pocketed his phone. He’d need to look for the two redhead girls, one of them in a trench-coat. But that, he figured, was significantly easier than trying to find one building that refused to let him see it.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 11:19 pm
"Sold out?" Asmodeus barked out a laugh. "Do you know what your Metallia's endgame is? She wants to eat the ******** planet! But sure, we're the sellouts--"
Oh, this Lieutenant was so ******** stupid and so ******** brainwashed. Fine, she needed a little reorientation from someone who wasn't one of her Negaverse bosses. That wasn't going to be easy, but it wasn't Asmodeus's job to un-brainwash her. She could, however, swing a ******** punch.
And she did, aimed for the Lieutenant's smug ******** face.
"You don't know s**t, and you're an idiot for it."
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 12:27 am
Andesine saw the punch coming, but barely fast enough for her to think, Oh, I’m about to be punched in the face, aren’t I.
The senshi’s fist connected. Hard. Most of the fights Andesine had ever gotten into as Sable had only gone near the face with a handful of high-quality press-on nails because so many of those silly, flippity little rich girls thought the worst thing you could do to another lady in a fight was scratch her face. Never mind all the damage you could do to someone’s corneas with those things because if you broke the skin, you had a chance to ******** up her makeup routine for ages and make her look a ******** mess.
As she felt something crack under the senshi’s knuckles—as she felt a rush of warmth gush out her nose and, in the back of her throat, drowned in a coppery taste she dimly, intellectually recognized as blood—Andesine couldn’t help thinking how stupid all those little bitches were. Another part of her, though, felt exhilarated and yearned to hit the girl back.
Still a third part, though, knew she was outclassed. In all likelihood, she couldn’t fight this girl and protect her payload. Medical could fix her nose if she could find someone to take her to Negaspace, but after all the work she’d put into draining tonight, she was not going to risk losing this energy. Especially not after missing two days of quotas, no matter how valid an excuse she’d had in “stuck in medical to recover from unknown magical attack.” But how to get out of this……The first pair of redheads Vanya spotted, he darted towards. As he got closer, something of regret twisted in his stomach. These girls……did not seem to be in a good collective mood? The one in the long coat, with the hair that looked more garnet-toned than the firestarter red on the girl in white? Yeah, long-coat girl was groaning like she was in pain, and holding her nose like she’d gotten punched in it.…… Maybe he had the wrong redheads?
Then again, if he didn’t at least check, he might’ve missed the right ones and then, he would’ve been in trouble.
Clearing his throat, he ventured closer to them. “Hey, I, uh? Sorry? For interrupting? But is either one of you, uh……” He double-checked the name on the receipt stapled to the bag. “Laurel Sutton?”At the sound of a newcomer, Andesine perked right up. Large bag of takeout in one hand, multiple layers under a beat-up leather jacket, black glasses that looked ready to lecture you on the great societal benefits of only drinking local craft beers, and long, icy blue hair. No aura hanging around him, though—which made him perfect.
The boy yelped when she grabbed him. Squeaked as she pulled his back to her chest. Went limp and whined softly as Andesine held him in place. Whatever, he could whine all she wanted. But his fate rested in the little senshi’s hands now.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen: you are gonna let this little Lieutenant go back where she came from.” Peering around her meat-shield’s shoulder, Andesine arched a brow at the girl like a silent dare. To emphasize what she meant, she pressed her fingers and thumb into his chest—well, he had more fabric than chest going on here, but it didn’t matter. If this Hell-b***h didn’t stand down, his starseed would burst with light all the same when Andesine yanked it out of him. “I haven’t taken any irreversible donations tonight, senshi, but I can change that if you don’t stand. down. *Now.*”………What the <********> was happening?
“I just asked if you were Laurel Sutton,” Vanya protested, and knew that he was whining. That tended to happen on the infrequent occasions when people gave him room to talk about his problems. “All you had to say was ‘No!’”
Dammit, something felt really, really wrong about the way Long-Coat Girl’s fingers were touching his chest. Something felt……distinctly less solid? Than a human chest should have felt? Like she could’ve reached in as easily as plunging her hand into a bowl of water. If he didn’t die tonight, he’d have nightmares about this feeling for the next ********>, he <******** hated making deliveries around Southside Park.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 12:54 am
Oh, s**t.
The second the civilian stumbled onto their little fight, all the satisfaction Asmodeus felt from her fist connecting with the Lieutenant's stupid, pretty face, and from the crack that she heard under her knuckles--she hoped she'd broken her nose, she hoped this stupid, brainwashed b***h carried that with her for a long, long time--evaporated in a single, breathless instant.
There was a civilian. Just some food delivery boy, trying to get takeout to some poor random person who happened to be in the park, probably lost because the layout around this park was a special nightmare. And now he was being held hostage in a fight between two superpowered weirdos, which was not what anybody needed when they were just trying to do their job.
She stared, icily, at the Lieutenant.
"You. Delivery boy. What's about to happen is probably gonna be scary, but you're not gonna get hurt, I promise."
She brought her arm up. Drew her fingers down from the elbow, like she was striking a match on her own skin.
"Avernian Eruption."
Let this stupid ******** Lieutenant burn, maybe the pain would make her let him go.Quote: Sailor Asmodeus speaks the name of her attack and extends one arm towards a target within six feet, touching the fingers of the other to the inside of her elbow. She sweeps her hand forward, and a burst of flames flies from her hand. It explodes into a fireball with a radius of 8 feet, and enemies caught in it will experience the pain of second-degree burns for 30 seconds, with actual damage to exposed skin possible at player discretion. Asmodeus can use this spell twice per battle.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 2:03 am
Part of Vanya didn’t really trust what the lady in white was saying? Nothing against her, because she seemed very sure of herself and whatever she was doing, but—it was really hard to believe any claims of “this won’t hurt, I promise” when he felt little chills cropping up all over his chest and arms that all seemed to emanate from where the long-coat lady’s fingers touched him……where things felt increasingly porous and seriously not as solid as he wanted the thing containing his heart and lungs to feel.……
Whatever she was doing, that already hurt.
And for all he doubted the lady in white, he also realized that the pain her enemy was causing? It could easily get worse. If he didn’t suck it up, that pain probably would get worse, not least because the long-coat lady didn’t have any apparent compunctions about hurting him without warning. And she wanted to take something that lived in his chest. He had no idea what she meant by irreversible donations, but losing his heart and lungs would be pretty irreversible.
So, he took a deep breath. He nodded to the lady in white. And while she did……whatever she was doing with what sure looked and sounded like magic, Vanya shut his eyes. He didn’t need to see this; he just needed to hold still so he didn’t mess things up for the girl who apparently wanted to help him.That icy stare out of Sailor Firestarter probably wasn’t something Andesine should’ve felt a rush of satisfaction about seeing—but oh, she really did.
It didn’t last, though.
Before Andesine could properly enjoy herself or the momentary victory of having made the little b***h get so frosty, everything was on fire. Yelping, Andesine pushed the hapless delivery boy at the senshi. Maybe she’d catch him and wouldn’t ******** up the food he was carrying. Maybe not. Andesine didn’t care. It didn’t sound like her problem.
What she had to do now was run.
Make a break for it, out of this park, to the nearest Captain or someone who could take her to Negaspace. At the very least, a safe place where she could put out a page to find one.
Hopefully, she could manage that. Hopefully, the lack of burning flesh meant the pain was only in her mind.
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