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 Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2023 3:30 pm
Prompt 18: Insidious Insects In the first week of July, the area around the tree is just buzzing. The call of the cicadas is loud and droning, and it’s constant. You start to hear it all over town, too. All sorts of insects seem attracted to the strange pods, and it’s not uncommon to find nearly any species curiously investigating. If you listen closely, you notice something else strange–it’s not just the bugs that you see making the familiar call of the cicada. It seems like it’s coming from inside the pods, too. Any pod that wasn’t leaking sap suddenly begins to snap open, and giant cicadas, crawl out. Their full wingspan can reach up to a foot and they’re hungry–and angry. It seems like the pods that were leaking sap were slowly rotting, but the ones that didn’t leak were being eaten from the inside out–and now that the cicadas have run out of food, they’re out for anything they can find. Though there are several notable differences between these insects and the common cicadas, their low, chirping wail makes them easy to find–as well as the fact that they spit acid. These bugs are incredibly hostile and will attack indiscriminately, powered or unpowered, human or alien, day or night. They have a protective shell that makes them easy to crush but they’re hardly the most menacing foe you’ve faced–but if they reproduce, you could be in some real trouble. Better to crush them now before they become Destiny City’s next invasive species…
Eventually the infernal buzzing got to such a fortissimo that the ancient senshi had to believe this was unnatural even for this world. She observed multiple types of insect all travelling in one direction towards so she decided to follow them. She could also feel the aura of a knight in that direction. She rolled her eyes at the inevitable social interaction. She rather keep to herself but she also wanted to get to the bottom of this interminable noise so she would have to accept the unwelcome company.
The ancient woman spotted the knight she had felt, a cosmos knight with purple hair, next to strange pods. "Greetings knight of the stars." She spoke dispassionately only going through the motions of a formal greeting her attention far more captured by the pods. She could tell they were not of this world, she wondered if some alien had planted them here and if so too what end. "Do you know what those are Cosmos Knight?" She asked her eyes not moving as she watched the large pods.
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 11:57 pm
Casablanca had run into many strange things in her time as a Knight. Honestly, bugs behaving oddly around the strange fruit that the charming mysterious merchant had asked for was nothing all that weird, not for this place. Not after she'd Awakened into Knighthood being assaulted by a reindeer. So yeah, weird animal behavior? Par for the course, all things considered.
Weird people, though, that was. Well. That was new.
This woman--this Senshi--who walked up to her was, clearly, not human. No one had skin that color, not naturally, and there was no way a Senshi getup came with full body paint. That seemed ridiculous. So...this was someone like the merchant. Someone from very, very far away.
"Uh," she said, "I don't think anyone's ever called me a knight of the stars before." That was weird. New. Not inaccurate, she guessed, all things considered, but bizarrely formal.
"Anyway, no, I don't know what's up, but it's definitely weird." She sighed, heavily. "If I had to bet, though, it's probably not good. I'm Casablanca, by the way."
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Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 4:56 am
"You are a knight in service to the Princess of the Stars are you not?" She questioned. In truth despite seeing plenty of them in her younger days Sterrennacht had never really bother to learn much about knights. She preferred to be on her own during her travels and even when she had to interact with the guardians of planets she tended to spend her time with other senshi so she didn't know much about knights beyond surface level information.
But furthing her knowledge of knightly customs was not on the mind of the ancient senshi at this moment, no she was instead focused on the pods and the insects. 'weird' a disgusting trite word but not all together an inaccurate description of the situation. "I am Sailor Sterrennacht, the Senshi of Hatred." She returned the other's introduction. Not taking her eyes off the pod. "Why are only some of them leaking that viscous substance?" She observed. "And why do I hear the same damnable noise those blasted insects were making coming from those pods.
Suddenly the pods that were not leaking sap snapped open, giant insects began to crawl out. The huge insectoid monsters began to fly at the two in a frenzy. Sterrennacht tried to bat one of the sky as it spewed a substance onto her arm that began to burn. She quickly knocked the substance off her arm but it left a minor burn. "Their secretions are acidic!" She informed the knight as she leapt back trying to create some distance. "Sterrennacht Hostile Sonata!" She called and was very thankful her magic worked in this instance as blood colored shadows formed in her hand and tendrils shot out impaling some of the insects. "We have to kill them now!" She yelled to the other as more the creatures appeared to attack them. While she would normally welcome such a violent infestation on this retched planet they fact the insects were so noisy combined with the fact they dared to attack her meant they jumped to the top of the alien woman's kill list.
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Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 6:31 am
"Huh, when you put it that way, I guess so," Casablanca said. "I mean, I don't know all that much about Cosmos, just that she, like...exists, I guess? But she's not really around here in Destiny City, doing things, so...only so relevant to me, y'know?"
Maybe she didn't know. What did Casablanca know about the priorities of a weird alien Senshi from outer space? Weird-cool, in this case, rather than weird-gross, like the fruits and the bugs.
"Cool to meet you, Sterrennacht," Casablanca said, "and that is a boss sphere. I bet your amgic is super wicked, yeah?" She soudned genuinely excited aobut it, too. "But I dunno," she said. "I was here not too long ago, because of, you know, the signs? There's a merchant dude who wants to collect these, he'll trade stuff for them? And some were leaking then--it's super gross, don't touch it--but they weren't, like. Buzzing."
Ugh.
And then, because of course it would, it got worse. They hatched, and Casablanca yelped.
"Ew ew ew ew ew!" She swung her flag-staff, and it managed to smack several out of the air, but it wasn't exactly effective. So, instead, she planted her staff in the ground, and called on her magic. "Go, I'll heal you!"
It seemed like a good enough plan--as long as the cool alien woman could do some serious damage, but she totally looked like she could.
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Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 2:30 pm
Sterrennacht bit her lip in frustration, it was just her luck that this knight had healing magic rather than offensive magic. She despised healing magic, it was magic that encouraged weakness. Any magic that couldn't kill or at least torture was useless and magic that did the opposite was worse than useless. So it seemed that Sterrennacht would have to do the bulk of the killings. She prayed that her spells would kill enough of the insects before she ran out of energy.
"Sterrennacht Hostile Sonata!" she called out again trying to will the shadowy tendrils to pierce as many of the monsters as possible. She called on her magic a third time and was thankful she had wiped out most of the monsters. She was breathing hard, she knew she wouldn't be able to cast her magic again with it knocking her unconscious. "I think that's my limit, kill the rest" She huffed as she backed away from the remaining insects.
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Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2023 11:01 pm
At least the Senshi's magic was powerful enough to kill most of the bugs. That was the ideal, because Casablanca was not exactly a skilled fighter, and when the Senshi handed it off to her, she let go of her magic and swung her staff--but it was clumsy, not exactly cleverly coordinated.
Obvious that she was a beginner at any kind of fighting.
Still, it was enough to knock down the last bits of the swarm, and she flashed the Senshi a pleased smile.
"That was awesome! Your magic is super cool, I wish I could do something like that!"
And then, all at once, it hit her--it was late, and she was supposed to be up to open at work. A groan passed her lips.
"Oh, crap, I gotta go--but you're really cool it's super awesome to meet you keep kicking a** byeee!"
She ran off into the night, leaving the very cool alien Senshi and a lot of dead bugs behind.
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