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 Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 2:18 am
[directly follows baby i'm the reason why hell's so hot] Asmodeus had not been quite so glad for her enhanced Super Senshi speed as she was when she ran forward to go catch the poor, hapless delivery boy. The immediate threat was gone, and that meant it was time for the part she was maybe a little less good at: checking in on the poor victim. Ugh, usually people were unconscious long enough for her to nope out, but this time, he was very definitely awake. "You good?" She asked, frowning. "Not injured?" As long as he was just a little scared, a little rattled around, that was okay. A little rattled around was something that could be recovered from. An extracted starseed was very much not, and she'd stopped that. So, you know, that was something. A little victory that she'd achieved tonight.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 2:35 pm
So many things wanted to be rushing through Vanya’s mind right now. Shock about what had just happened. Consternation about who the lady in the long coat had even thought she was, doing something like that to people. Confusion about what had even happened in the first place because he……did not rightly understand it? Didn’t feel like he could ever understand it? Magic had somehow gotten involved, he could see that much plain as day thanks to the fire thing that the lady in white had done, but as for the rest……?
All of it was Too Much. Stuck his whole head in a whiteout. As clear as he could feel anything, came the sensation that he should have fallen face-first on the pavement, and dropped Laurel Sutton’s takeout—but for whatever reason, he didn’t.
Took him a longish moment of blinking down at the hands on his shoulders, then at the girl with the golden goggles on top of her flaming cherry red hair, but Vanya……sorta kinda put some picture together about what had happened? Nodding slowly, he managed to say, “Thanks, I—? Saving me like that? I, uh.”
With the hand that wasn’t clutching desperately to the takeout bag, he gestured at his chest, around where the other girl had touched him. “…That was weird? What she was doing to me? Like, bad-weird? Weird like finding out someone who makes youtube videos about Dungeons and Dragons or the Fallout games is being accused of cheating on his wife and abusing the girl he cheated on his wife with. Not good weird like getting to show someone DragonHeart or Total Eclipse if they’ve only seen David Thewlis as Professor Lupin before.”
Under other circumstances, it might have occurred to him that she hadn’t seen the fantasy adventure film where Thewlis had played a tyrannical evil overlord, or Agnieszka Holland’s romantic period drama about the tainted love affair between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Arthur Rimbaud and Thewlis’s Paul Verlaine. But tonight had not been Vanya’s night, and he felt like retreating into the safe space of Cinema.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:17 am
Asmodeus let out a breath. Good, he was upset, but he wasn't totally incoherent or anything like that. This, she could handle. she could put a hand on his shoulder, and squeeze, and nod. "You're welcome. It's kinda part of the magical superhero job description. Saving people, hunting monsters, the Senshi business."
Yeah, yeah, a little bit of an aside to a certain show that had not been very good and gone on way too long but that she still had a certain level of fondness for.
"What she was trying to do to you," it only felt right to explain, since he had suffered the effects of the attack, and he ought to know what had happened to him, so she moved her other hand up to gently tap the center of his chest, "is steal your starseed. It's like...a physical manifestation of your soul, so, y'know, you wanna keep it where it is, generally speaking."
She exhaled. "So, yeah. Very bad weird. Very not like showing people actually good movies, outside the shitty wizard franchise."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:59 am
……Magic, then. Alright. This……was definitely happening to Vanya on his last delivery of the night. Awesome. Wow.…… Listening to the girl explain things, part of him could agree that the whole “magic is real and some people who use it are assholes” thing……did make a lot of sense, with some of what he’d seen around Destiny City since moving here. There’d been the fairies he could’ve sworn he saw all over the parks last summer, during the city Star Festival, not to mention all the people who’d gone missing. Then, there’d been the giant spiderwebs, weird shadow-people, and angry but unseen dogs showing up on so many of Vanya’s delivery routes around Halloween.
Hell, there’d been the s**t with his neighbors getting mail addressed to dead people or whatever, the sweet holiday drinks that Hana at work had treated everyone to one evening that must’ve been wildly alcoholic because they’d hit like a ******** truck with how quickly Vanya had gotten buzzed (but with a distinct lack of hangover), and trying to dodge around giant icicles coming down with the hail while also not spilling anybody’s food.
“Well, I don’t know what a senshi is, exactly,” Vanya said, palming off his beanie so it was a little easier to ruffle his hand over his hair. (Well, as easy as his ponytail and crown-braids let it be.) “But if that’s your business as one, then……yeah, I’d say you’re Winchester levels of good.”
Most of the time, Vanya preferred not to admit to ever having watched Supernatural. For every moment of decent cinematography, you had fifty more that were cookie-cutter boring and lacked any unique point-of-view, which made it even more of a let-down than most CW dramas. Plus, all of the best directing had died when Kim Manners had passed away. Some of the writing had stayed tolerable enough, but too many directors who’d worked on that show clearly had no idea how to get the best possible performances out of the cast, leaving the actors to do most of the leg-work on their own. And okay, Vanya heard you about all the “blah blah, story doesn’t make sense, blah blah, wasted potential of that plot point, blah blah, my fave doesn’t have enough screentime, etc.” points……but excuse him for mourning that show’s progressive loss of artistic integrity and unique visual identity.
With a small shake of the head, though, he agreed, “Soul-things.… Yeah, that—should be kept where it goes, for sure.… No question. Are…” A slight shiver. “Are there a lot of people around here who can do that thing? What she was doing, where she tried to dip her fingers in my chest like a french fry in rémoulade?”
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 1:29 am
Asmodeus exhaled. Okay, he wasn't calling her crazy or rejecting what had happened. That was a thing she'd seen once or twice, where people didn't want to acknowledge what had happened to them, rejected the idea that it could have been magical, and got mat at her for existing and confirming that it had.
But, well, this was going pretty well.
"I'm gonna be honest with you, trying to explain what a Senshi is would take way longer than we have right now. But, uh, short version: magical girl from outer space. Kind of. Super reductive, but that's not really the point. Anyway, here to fight evil, and also make sure you're okay and that takeout gets tot he right place." She smiled, wryly.
"Anyway, there's enough people out there who can do the thing that I'm pretty comfortable asking if you want a bodyguard to make that last delivery." She was pretty sure he wasn't an officer in disguise waiting to kill her when they were alone, anyway, so she could offer to walk him to his destination. "Quick guide: it's boringly colors based. Black or dark colors, predominantly? Stay away. White or light colors, probably safe. Not perfect, but generally a good way to keep things straight."
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 2:09 am
Vanya nodded along as the girl explained things for him. A lot of it still didn’t make sense to him—for example, where did colors like all her reds and yellows fit into the mix? because he felt like he might’ve seen people around town with black uniforms that had bright colors on them for accents? but then again, maybe he’d just imagined them or gotten them confused with something he’d watched—but……well, she had said that there was too much to explain in any kind of short-form way, and the whole “from outer space but not exactly” thing seemed to bear that out.
“Yeah, uh, I’m supposed to be looking for Miss Sutton out here somewhere, since I guess she’s used to people having trouble finding her place,” he said to her offer of a bodyguard. That had distinctly never happened to him before, but……it felt kind of nice? Not the idea that he needed protecting—even though in the face of magical weirdos who could steal people’s souls, he felt it was safe to say that protection from someone else with magical powers wouldn’t hurt—. “The text she sent said two redhead girls, one of them in a long coat, so……I mean, I saw you punching the soul-stealy lady? But I thought ‘I don’t know their lives, maybe they were coming to meet me but had a fight and I could at least break it up temporarily by……making sure they get their food’?”
Did that sound kind of corn-fed and idealistic enough that most of his online personae would’ve been mocked to Hell and back for saying it? Definitely. But……oh well. Vanya was in meat-space, he was allowed to sound like a weird loser.
Peering around the park and meandering in search of the actual takeout recipients, he looked to his rescuer. “……I’m Vanya, by the way. I, uh. Didn’t ask your name, either, though, so……that’s pretty rude to do to someone who just saved your life?” Or maybe it wasn’t? Maybe they had different rules in the magical weirdness underground of town?
He shrugged, but went on, “And, uh, for what you were saying about the colors? Where do the people who have a mix of colors fit in? Or, like, there are a couple I’ve seen around the DCU campus—we, uh? The place I work is actually way closer to DCU, so I’m over there a lot? And there are some of them running around there, where they’ve got the black outfits like you said? But they throw magic around like you, and they’ve got these like……”
Making a confused sort of noise, he traced his free hand down his side, vaguely in the shape of something that might’ve been a dress. “They’re, like, the colorful transparent fabric that you’d use to make a veil for Salomé, or to make the sleeve-poofies on Princess Jasmine’s outfit? But attached to the black outfits? Some of them are, like, green, or orange, or pink? But the fabrics all seem pretty bright. And I dunno, those guys mostly seem to keep to themselves and the one I’ve seen around who doesn’t is, like……”
Vanya hrm’d, nibbling his lip as he tried to describe the guy. “I mean, he’s a lot like you, honestly? Doesn’t look like you—he’s tall with legs for days and high-heels because you really need them when you’re already six-four? Long black ponytail. Glasses. Those long gloves that go like, almost all the way up? Had some Marie Antoinette-looking outfit with some red accents, purple for the transparent part, and frilly pink stuff underneath it when I ran into him over the summer? He swooped out of nowhere and yanked me away from this gray spot in Ramsett Park where everything was just dead?
“But then I saw him a couple weeks ago—jumped into an alley where I was trying to take a short-cut because it wasn’t safe and? I don’t know why, but I did hear weird growling noises and it sounded pretty nasty? Anyway, his outfit looked different that time. The transparent violet part grew sleeves. Skirt looked different. Seemed like he had more of the frilly pink s**t underneath it? But…I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy? Like, aside from the height, and the hair, and everything? He, uh.”
Vanya wrinkled his nose. “I don’t wanna sound like I’m dissing some guy who’s saved me before? But he talks like he was raised in the wilderness by a pack of wild drag queens. And maybe like Professor Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective was his babysitter? Not—not like he says anything about, oooh, being the world’s greatest criminal mind or crashing the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee? Just……flair. And drama. He has a lot of both. And it’s……distinctive.”
By way of wrapping up, Vanya shrugged. “So, like, what would your read be on someone like that? ‘Cause he’s got the black outfit, but then some of the bright colors, and he acts like he went to Camp Gay-Coded Villain Finishing School? But then he does things like I said before and tells you to get home safe? So that’s……a lot of mixed messages going on, yeah?”
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 3:00 am
Asmodeus nodded, and spared a glance around the park. She couldn't see anyone with a quick look, but that didn't mean anything; probably the person this takeout actually belonged to was pretty nearby, because the park was only so big, and he'd ended up here for a reason.
"I'll stick with you until we find Miss Sutton, and walk you out of the park, and then we'll go our separate ways. Sound good?" It seemed a pretty fair offer to her; she'd keep an eye on him long enough to make sure he got through this, but she wasn't gonna hover over him all night. "And that's not a bad impulse, wanting to see if you could maybe slow down a fight by delivering food. Kinda sweet, actually."
She fell in step with him while they meandered through the park, paying attention to her aura senses to see if that Lieutenant came back--or if anyone else showed up.
"Anyway, call me Asmodeus." She quirked her eyebrows. "Sailor Asmodeus, that is, but, you know. Asmo works, if you don't wanna go with the whole thing. Nice to meet you, Vanya, wish it were under better circumstances."
The description he gave, of the people he'd seen, gave Asmodeus cause.
".....That's the Dark Mirror Court," she said, and she felt a fissure of fury at the reminder of her former Court. "They're Chaos--that's what we call our particular nemeses--like that woman? But like....kinda a different form. They can't do the thing with the hand in your chest, and mostly, they just kinda exist. Used to be in bed with the Negaverse--that's our soul-stealing collective worsties--but that stopped a while back. Now, Court's too small to make any move for themselves, so they're constantly scared that one side or the other is going to wipe them out." A cowardice that had become exhausting for Asmodeus, but he didn't need her whole tragic backstory.
She considered his words. Sounded like there was a do-gooder in the Dark Mirror ranks. Too bad, he'd been pulled into exactly the wrong place to do that.
"So, for Senshi, like him or me? It's the chest area that'll give you your answer." She gestured to her bright, white bodice. "White or cream or such for us, black for Chaos. The floaty transparent drapes are Dark Mirror. Super long hair and holes here--" she tapped her forehead-- "and here--" she tapped the center of her chest-- "means Negaverse Senshi, means bad news, means ******** run because they can do the starseed thing. Sounds like your extremely fabulous rescuer is Dark Mirror, and probably safe for you to trust. They can drain energy, but that's mostly not too bad, you'll just feel like you need a really long nap after."
Still justifying her Court's actions, even after she'd left them. She wondered if she;d ever entirely stop. But they'd given her a home, for a while, even if that particular home had never been quite right, and it wasn't like she hated them or anything, just...
She couldn't stand around and let shirt happen around her. She couldn't plan to run away and hide. That had never been her way.
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Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 4:04 am
Wasn’t often anybody had occasion to call Vanya “sweet.”
…Frankly, wasn’t often that anyone in his life had said that and meant it genuinely, rather than saying it in the same condescending bullshit tone as “Oh, well, bless your heart.”
Which, he didn’t know, maybe Asmodeus did mean it like that, actually? But nothing that she’d actually done or said so far tonight gave Vanya any reason for thinking that, so he really really hoped that Asmodeus wasn’t like that.… If not for the part about her being a magical superhero and probably having a secret identity, this almost would’ve felt like making a friend, just……walking with her, listening to her explain how the magical girls running around town worked and which ones to stay away from (that the Dark Mirror ones could drain energy kinda sounded Not Great to Vanya, but if the energy was a renewable resource, unlike soul-seeds or whatever, then……maybe it was less bad, at least?), just having a nice conversation with somebody, for once.
Unfortunately, it was all……rather a lot, from the sound of things. And when she’d finished, aside from nodding that he understood, he……wasn’t entirely sure what to say.
“Sounds like you and the others like you have a lot going on to balance,” he offered. “And, uh. As a wiser man than me once said: ‘That’s rough, buddy.’ …I hope you’ve got friends or something to work with in all that, too? Because man, doing it alone sounds like Hell.”
But—oh! Spotting another pair of redheads over by an oak tree—one of them wearing a long jacket, like she’d said—Vanya perked up a bit. “I think…? Maybe we have found our Miss Sutton, Asmo?”
If nothing else, Vanya was still going to check. Had to be sure.
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