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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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 Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 7:00 pm
Where were they? What were they? Who were they?For a brief moment, those questions lingered and then vanished, like the dust they had been turned into. The youma could smell something. There was them. And there was the Rift. Both scents they knew as if they had known them forever, even if, in reality, they had only known each for mere days. But there was something else. Something like fire and youma (all things they were and knew) and… else. Had they remembered their former life at all, they would have known the extra scent was human. They didn’t remember any of that, though. None of it. Well, mostly none. One head wanted to have an existential crisis. The other head wanted to follow the scent. The scent-seeking feral side won. For now. ✧
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Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2023 7:53 pm
There was no better place to sit out the following day's pounding headache. The Rift was a vuilent, frightful place with only the barest regard for officers of any caliber, but the sheer austerity of its energy gave Faustite a needed reprieve from his more human experiences. There was so much to reflect on that he wanted space from it all — wanted time to simply sit, and be, without having to perform his rank. Without being held to a higher standard than he could achieve.
He knew that youma didn't give a damn, didn't assign expectation to him. Theirs was a brutal, careless honesty with which Faustite could relate. He'd carried some of it with him when he left the Rift now years ago. Even now, he kept coming back to it.
A towering collection of crystals and pilfered pieces of human life had once made its home in the valley beside the ruined city. That was before he and Taenite descended into the Rift looking for solutions to Faustite's quickly decaying body. In their search, Taenite had blown off some steam with it and reduced the carefully constructed, if rickety, tower to smoldering crystalline shrapnel. It had been months since, and the youma who must have constructed it from the start had once again begun arranging those crystals and tattered scraps of memorabilia. Instead of a tower, it formed an unfinished wall. Faustite sat inside it, leaned against one of the great crystalline shards.
He didn't know how long he had sat there, mired in his own thoughts, as he watched a distant crystal storm through the gap in the fence. His own smoke wended idly up toward the bloodshot sky. It had been quiet; either the youma in the area distrusted those storms, or they didn't want to bother with the moody sovereign. Faustite wouldn't begrudge them the latter; he didn't want to bother with himself, either.
In his hands he held the tool that he used to end Cybele. The reason he gave himself for coming down to the Rift was to ask Forgemaster what it was, but he found no sign of the youma. That left him to contemplate the strange thing for however long, learning nothing from it, and slowly growing frustrated with himself and with the Negaverse for preserving him past his point of usefulness.
The sole distraction came in the form of a black shadow that crested the horizon. Faustite's attention swept to it, though it was too far to make out many features. It looked as though it was heading for him, so he stood, and waited.
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2023 5:45 pm
They put one nose to the ground, then two. They could smell so much now! It was as if their senses had been locked away before. As if their primal sense of scent had been ignored, thrown aside for more heady things like insight and reason.Their paws followed their nose as if honing in on the scent of ‘other’ so intensely that their whole form was in sync. That helped, but did not completely, blunt the questions. It was as if someone else had asked them. Someone that they weren’t. How had they gotten here? They were always here. What was this place? The Rift, of course. Where all youma regenerate. Why had they needed to regenerate? It must have been Her will. Who was she? Metallia, of course. She who made you. But I feel like I was somewhere, someone else before? Ethe has always been Ethe. We may be two heads, but we are one. There has never been anyone else.“What are you?” Howled the left head, no hesitation at all. No fear. Naive. “You smell like youma. You look like an agent. But you are not all Rift.” The right head looked over the general-king, as if answering themselves and processing further than the other head. “Your aura. It burns brightly.”The one eye on its right head that wasn’t behind the eye patch shined red and stared directly at Faustite. ✧
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 8:21 am
What are you. That was a question he hadn't expected to encounter in this part of the Rift.
When he spent years down here, dodging from cache to cache and wasting all those hours stalking the scaled youma, he only encountered questions like that when he reached fringe areas that seldom, if ever, saw an agent. They may have encountered agents when they visited DC for their energy, but the youma in those parts weren't guaranteed an agent sighting on any of their outings. And Faustite didn't know how theirs summons pulled from the Rift — if it was truly random, or if they pulled from specific areas that were more agent-friendly. Didn't matter, he supposed, for he was still faced with that question in a part of the Rift that was close to the Citadel.
"It's called 'being the worst parts of both'," he muttered to the two-headed youma. It was an interesting one, particularly so since both heads did not talk at once. He wondered if they thought independently, or if it was more like having multiple mouths for the same intelligence.
"I'm part-youma," he explained as he curled a hand against his hip. Not only did his hip ache from the gesture, but his knuckles screeched at the pressure on them and he immediately corrected. "Human enough that I do what I want and have feelings, s**t like that, but youma enough that I have power. Not surprised that you haven't seen one like me. We're rare and seldom similar."
It was certainly an isolated existence, if not a lonely one. And yet, there were the lucky few who might have been similar enough to commiserate. Celadonite's youmafication wasn't terribly different from Amazonite's, and both had seemed similar to the Lieutenant whose name he no longer remembered. Whether those similarities went beyond face value was unknown to him, however; he'd proved a failure on all fronts in befriending half-youma.
"Were you from the deeper parts of the Rift? Haven't seen you before." Not that he had a running catalogue on youma, but he had seen enough of them enough times that he'd grown familiar with a sizable group.
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 4:51 pm
The second head sniffed around Faustite, getting closer. It got a soft of smoke. It let out a low whine. “Worst. Is that the same as bad? Ethe was told they are bad. Then they were sent here. Were you also bad?” Their tail was between their legs and they whined and lowered their head. Then the right head spoke, more assured and focused as the other whimpered. “We do not know where we are from. Part of us believes we are from here. The other part thinks we are from somewhere else.” The one eye looked steady at Faustite, as if searching for something. ✧
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Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 7:02 pm
"You could say that." Faustite wore a half-smile, something partway denigrating. He supposed that, yes, he was bad. The difference being, he sent himself here rather than waiting for someone else to do it for him.
He was starting to like that head. It reminded him of Albite, what with its truncated responses and simple sentence structure. It was also honest in a manner that Albite often was — not duplicitous, and there wasn't an underlying meaning to its questions.
Now that he had heard them both speak a margin more, it was clear that the two heads had different cadences. Different grammatical preferences, though those were still difficult to pick out. The other head, the right one, that one was typically more precise in its language. But it was still a curious creature, for it referred to itself via parts and used either gender-neutral terminology or a plural form when self-referring. That was unusual; he hadn't heard it much when he roamed the Rift on his own.
"You're new, then? Just made, maybe. That sound right?" He squatted down to level with them, though it was just as much to stop himself from pacing.
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 4:57 pm
“Was just your youma part bad? Or your human part, too?”The left head was quick with the questions and continued to whine. But then they suddenly stopped and cocked their head to the side as if using every ounce of its will to think. “What does it mean, you have two parts? Is that like having two heads? Or…”The right head then spoke, continuing the question. “… something different?” The right head moved so that it was level with Faustite’s face. “We were made. Created. But we were made wrong.”✧
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Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 4:09 pm
"Both," he conceded. Umber would have agreed his human part was garbage. "Superior thought I wasn't committed to the cause. That he'd make me into a better soldier. Made me into a youma instead." He supposed, then, that he had Umber to thank for it. Because of his tampering, because of Schörl's abuse, he made it this far — farther than he ever expected. Farther than a human boy with expectations of a fantasy world would have gotten.
"Not like having two heads, but it's easier for people to think about it like two parts. Truth is, I'm different from a youma or a human. Got aspects of both. But there's only one of me."
He wondered what it would've been like if there was two entities trapped in his body. If he had mental company, arguing with him, telling him his decisions were wrong. Telling him what they should do instead, or fighting for control. What if it was someone with whom he could get along, or from whom he could seek advice? Might've come off better if part youma was more like that.
"How were you made wrong?" He asked. Then he straightened and started to circle the dog youma. "Seem fine to me." He patted the youma here or there, from tail root to crown. "Nothing seems damaged."
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 4:30 pm
“There is only one of Ethe.” The left head said this in a matter-of-fact tone. “Some people assume there are two of us, but there’s just one Ethe.”It cackled madly leaving the right head to finish the conversation. “We were also made by another. A human. He, too, wanted to make something better.”Ethe’s heads both fell silent for a moment and it was clear that something was going on in their heads, trying to remember something that was difficult. “We do not know what he wanted us to be… but we did not turn out to be that.” What had he wanted them to be? What had they been? There were no answers to that. “We only remember that they called us ‘bad’.” The left head started a low whine. “And then we were sent here. He has not come back for us. We must have done something wrong.”Their wings drooped and they stopped looking at the general-king but at the ground. ✧
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 5:47 pm
"we can both be disappointments, then." He hoped Umber rolled in his grave that he made a youmafied officer out of someone who was supposed to be addicted to starseeds. He hoped that, if there was any sort of interim afterlife for people whose starseeds were swallowed, Umber was living in his regrets without exception. It was what he deserved.
Faustite fidgeted with the metal bars in his grate as he spoke. "Think I know what happened." It was a story he'd encountered a handful of times, now.
"Guessing 'he' was an officer. Wanted to make you into a Lieutenant. Might've been someone inexperienced, maybe someone who couldn't control the flow of negative energy, or someone who couldn't recognize a latent senshi starseed. He pushed too hard, your starseed cracked, and you became a youma instead. Sounded like he couldn't face up to his own ********, but that's no fault of yours." Nor should a youma blame themselves for the mistakes of the people who commanded them.
Straightening up, Faustite continued. "You're better off for it. Humans are s**t. Their lives are full of mundane, predatory nonsense that slowly destroys the planet. Better that we take it from them while we can, and do away with their starseeds else they learn to misuse those, too."
He motioned for Ethe to follow. "Call me Faustite. I'll show you the Citadel."
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2023 10:59 am
“Both of us?” The heads spoke in unison now. Faustite’s description of the events had triggered something inside the youma. It had remembered, if only for a moment, what the man had looked like. They recalled the look on his face. It was utter disgust. He had lashed out then. Taken the sight from one eye. Trying to take everything that they were and mold it into something else had failed and he couldn’t even look at his creation… “We are not at fault for who we are.” It brought a paw up to the eye patch on its right eye. “We never were very good at being something we were not.”If they remembered anything about their past life, it would be this — that trying to be something you were not would only end in heartache. “Faustite, you may call us Ethe.” They said as they followed where the man led. “E.T.H.E.”They recalled reading it on a small piece of paper so it must be their name. ✧
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Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2023 6:51 am
"My General wouldn't have liked that I became part youma," he explained. "Wasn't the result he wanted."
Mapping his way back to the Citadel was second-nature by now; he knew the way without looking for the spire cloaked in its distant fog. They would cut through the ruined city, past the skeletonized remains of houses and gathering areas, the defunct paths and their dusty offshoots. They would pass by the Colosseum that still stood defiant against the Rift's crystal storms, then up the grand steppes to the double doors of the Hall of Shadows. From there, it was a matter of negotiating the spiral steps and placating the ghosts beyond the glass that Ethe was, in fact, allowed to be entering the Citadel.
He'd never met a dog-shaped anything that struggled with negotiating stairs. He had little reason to think they couldn't make it that far.
"No one is. Much as they like to tell themselves otherwise." It was a sobering thing to say, an eminent reminder that he couldn't be the leader that he expected himself to be any more than Albite could be the scientific brilliance of the Negaverse. Or that Taenite could be a guileless pauper. Or Alkmene could be perpetually warm and bubbly.
The gesture toward the eye wasn't missed. That was a curious thing, too; normally, a damaged youma regenerated everything. What could have happened that was powerful enough to stop that process?
As he surmounted the steppes, he spared a question for the youma. "Do you remember the agent's name? Anything about him?"
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 2:29 pm
“No. We don’t. Only that we were not what he wanted. He lashed out at us as we were changing. But he could not stop what we became.”The heads looked to each other. “Whatever we were before, we only had one head. We remember seeing through only two eyes in that moment and then… through three. We’ve always referred to us as they, though. Did we look more like you before? With just the one head?”✧
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 8:11 am
"He isn't worth respecting," Faustite replied matter-of-factly. "If ever you find him again, tell me. Be interested to meet him."
Upon reaching the apex of the steppe, Faustite threw open the double doors to the Hall of Shadows. The ascent was steep and tedious, but he'd gone both ways enough times that the matter was no longer a physical challenge. As he found his way up the stairs, he spared the occasional glance toward the glass walls framing their passage. Much of the Hall remained quiet, to his relief.
While Ethe spoke, Faustite's hand shot out and pointed at the wall. "Don't," he cautioned the creature that sought to reach beyond. Seemingly dismayed at being caught, it slunk away from the edge.
Faustite sighed. "******** tilted his head to and fro before responding to Ethe's question. "Probably. Never met a person with two heads. Met people that used 'they' for pronouns, though. Gender-neutral, I guess." It was all a realm of which Elex had seldom encountered. He didn't often get to sit down and talk with people, let alone about their pronouns or why they chose them.
Finally, they reached the second set of doors and Faustite pushed them open. Thereafter, they were in a great room seemingly dedicated to the very doors through which they passed. "This is the Citadel. Most officers spend their time here. Includes their personal youma, too, sometimes. Mine's babysitting my office right now, hopefully scaring the s**t out of people."
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Bishoujo-senshi Mahou-shoujo
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:37 am
“Ethe does not want to meet him again.” The left head, which til now had been either in unison with the right or silent, spoke and growled. “He hurt Ethe.”Then the right head spoke and what it said was savage and the most inhuman they had sounded up to this point. “If we ever see him again, we will burn him to the ground til there is nothing left but ash.”It was becoming clear now that the two heads shared the same thoughts, but often housed different emotional states. One was impulsive and often spoke first, but the other was more calculated and what it said was often the result of sitting with the thought for longer. They would have thought longer about what Faustite had said and what it may have meant for them, before and now. But their attention was now on the place they were walking through, so much different than the Rift. “Why are the youma in the walls?” The hair on their back stood up and their tail was alert as they passed the hall. There was a look in their eyes that was both equal parts awe and fear. “Who are they?”✧
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