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 Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:36 am
Chaos in Destiny City was a strange and multifaceted thing, Corvina had learned that much since he’d landed here on Earth. Much and more did not yet make sense to him. He’d heard some explanations, and for the most part, they clicked in his head? But having the general shape of the theory did less and little to help Corvina understand what any of it meant in practice. As far as he could tell, Earth had been made an incubator for the very force that had ruined his world and so many others. The force that had possibly beyond the point of repair, because for all he knew, clearing the Chaos off of Sailor Daedalus’s homeworld had only been a one-time occurrence and everyone else’s homes were beyond all hope of redemption.
On top of that, Earth had been made an incubator for some particularly heinous and advanced form of Chaos that could corrupt individual people as well as it could planets. And it was not that the senshi and Knights who called Earth home were doing nothing about this (obviously, that could not be the case as that group would have included Lanting, who had never done anything wrong and deserved criticism for nothing). Yet, they lacked any semblance of organization and it made any larger-scale operations against the forces of Chaos impossible. As if those facts were not damning enough on their own, some people in this day and age didn’t understand the pure, straightforward, and elegant logic of “Why do Order senshi and Knights, the most populous magical group around here, not simply band together, storm into wherever the Negaverse is hiding, and beat their Chaos-infested parasite-queen into bloody oblivion until she stops moving and never resumes because she died?”
(The new Murikabushi talked like that sometimes when he was around Lanting and Corvina also happened to be present. Some absolute nonsense about how his magic was frightfully and terribly powerful, so much so that he was reluctant to use it on anyone ever and actively tried to avoid doing so? That sounded like one of the biggest lies that Corvina had ever heard in his thousand-and-more years of life. Nothing but a pathetic excuse for the senshi of hunger to be a weak, useless do-nothing, just as the people of his world had always been back during the Silver Millennium.)
But for all Corvina wished to take more actions, he didn’t have enough information. He knew that much. This was why he had decided to observe more. Whenever he caught any agents of Chaos—whether the flippity ones who ran away into mirrors or the ones with the auras that felt like cold, and knives, and horrible pointy things made out of destruction and doom—in the act of horrible atrocities like draining energy or stealing starseeds? He was allowed to punish them in the most violent ways imaginable, as they rightly deserved. Anyone who allowed the taint of Chaos to infect their souls like that couldn’t be trusted and deserved no mercy……but first, Corvina needed to catch one of them harming an innocent.
Without that necessary first step, someone was sure to make a lot of noise about “““ethics””” or whatever.
The agent he’d been following tonight hadn’t done anything yet. All blue hair and spindly limbs, he’d emerged on Corvina’s aura senses at another corner of the park they currently occupied, and perhaps having Corvina on his tail made the agent more inclined to behave. Or perhaps he was simply waiting for Corvina to grow bored and stop. Which would not work out for him. People on this planet had no idea how patient Corvina could be when he knew that he was right, and so, Corvina kept tailing the Lieutenant (or whatever the broken failure Knights of the Negaverse were called), crouching behind certain very tall hedges or peeking out from behind trees, waiting for his quarry to slip up and start harming the hapless innocents of Earth.He was being followed, which in and of itself was nothing new.
Unfortunately, he’d been noticing signs for months now, most often while out and about as Preston. He still didn’t have any conclusive smoking guns, but he felt like he kept seeing Brother Horace’s vintage white Bentley out of the corner of his eye, or lurking around a corner, lying in wait for him. Always, Preston ran into these potential pieces of evidence in public places that fell well outside the distance limit imposed on his alleged “brother” regarding Preston’s apartment, the university, and, as of the most recent renewal of the order of protection against the man in question, Lavender Haze. Nothing that he could actually report, in the event that he was right about these hints pointing to Brother Horace, because the letter of the order of protection had not been broken—but enough to put Preston’s hackles up regardless.
He couldn’t deny that it made sense for his alleged “brother” to have sought him out. Doing graduate-level research on Brother Horace and the flock had put Preston in contact with others who had left before he had, as well as with some of the people who had known Brother Horace before he had become what Preston had always known him as. Regardless of any precautions taken on anyone’s part, people talked. Gossip flew with the nimblest wings, moving faster than Hermes himself. And Brother Horace knew the locations that he needed to avoid in order to honor the order of protection; as much as Preston hated it, his so-called “brother” had every right to know these things, so that he could actually avoid the places in question.
Truly, the only new thing was that tonight, somebody had started following Cryptomelane instead of following Preston. All the more insulting: Preston had powered up after leaving the gym not for the sake of a patrol, but to make himself feel less helpless. Once again, he had seen a car that looked too close to the Bentley for comfort, and it had made his heart start racing. Had made anxiety claw at his insides like a cat at a scratching post. Powering up into Cryptomelane had been the only thing that worked to settle his nerves……and somebody with an Order aura had crept up on him, seemingly intent on following Cryptomelane as Brother Horace did.
Worse, the someone in question had to stand at least a foot taller than Cryptomelane himself. The pink skin, broken horns, elf ears, and tiger tail all said that his pursuer was one of the senshi who’d come to this world from outer space, and personally, Cryptomelane had no desire to deal with one of them. Especially not one who looked like they made sport out of breaking boys like Cryptomelane in half for fun—at least, as far as Cryptomelane could tell from the furtive glances he’d stolen, looking back at the senshi who tailed him while the other acted as though standing behind a tree actually made them invisible.
Chills twisted through the pit of his stomach and around the base of his spine. Bile threatened to claw its way up his throat and out. As he wove his way through Ramsett Park, trying to find a safe place to power down or some way to shake his erstwhile pursuer, Cryptomelane felt the tension wracking his body. The hand carrying his pumpkin bucket clung so tightly to its little handle that his nails—it had been a while since he’d clipped them—dug into the heel of his palm (hard enough to hurt, on top of everything). Neither of his hands wanted to stop shaking, no matter how hard he tried to will this into being. Hazarding a guess, he’d probably grown pale, that his widened eyes might have looked half-wild as they darted to the periphery and back again.
Only one thing offered him any semblance of relief: another Order aura, more powerful. If it took getting beaten up by a Squire or super senshi to make the one stalking him please go away, then Cryptomelane was ready to accept that. Fortunately, though, he didn’t need to, for as he closed in on the second aura, he noticed someone familiar—
“Sonora,” he said, rocking up to stand beside her and keeping his voice low. He didn’t mean to be brusque or rude—did he even sound that way? He couldn’t tell—“I’m sorry. For the tone. If it’s rude? I—please.” Voice dropping to a whisper that, in its desperation, felt endlessly humiliating, Cryptomelane told her, “I need your help. Please?”
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2024 3:10 am
Sonora had felt a pair of roughly-matched auras in the park, and her instinct had been to trey and find them. Perhaps the Lieutenant and the Senshi were far apart, and not engaged in a fight; but perhaps she would find someone she could assist, and save some poor Senshi from an officer who thought that it was acceptable to get grabby with starseeds.
That, she thought, was a worthy use of her magic--to protect someone who needed intervention. To offer sanctuary and break up an unnecessary, pointless fight. Maybe to convince the officer to give up on the doing of nefarious deeds for the evening. All well and good and perfect.
It all made perfect sense--until it was not the Senshi who found her first, but a very familiar Lieutenant, and Cryptomelane looked afraid. That didn't feel right, and it made Sonora feel especially like she had made the right decision coming out here tonight. Sure, he was misguided and messy, but he was....well, she hadn't been lying when she told Ida he was her friend. Or, at least, she thought so.
"What's wrong?" She asked, keeping her voice low, and she scanned the trees--there seemed to be a rather large shape among them, and her eyes narrowed. "Are you in danger? How can I help?"
If she had to get between Cryptomelane and someone on her own side, Sonora decided that she was fine with that. Maybe other people wouldn't have been. Maybe some of her fellows would have looked down on her for it, decided that it made her a poor Knight to protect her enemy. But she wasn't going to stand for any unnecessary violence, no matter who was committing it against whomst, and if the giant in the trees wanted to fight about it, then a shiny golden get-along shield would be all he got from her for it.
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2024 3:32 am
“That happened,” Cryptomelane whispered, casting another glance back at the large, pinkish-red tiger-elf and nodding his head in the right direction so Sonora would hopefully have an easier time seeing what he meant. Not that he doubted her ability, but clarity was useful. Just in case. Probably. “I—”
He swallowed thickly, and paused. As difficult as it wanted to be right now, he needed to breathe. Deep breaths. As deep as he could get. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be coherent and it could’ve triggered a whole episode. Similar to the one that had happened up at the museum with the kosopods, and the dragon-man trying to eject everyone into space through his probably deliberate ineptitude.
“I was going home from the gym. Something I saw……it frightened me. Unrelated to all of this.” As if it illustrated what he meant (and hoping that it distracted from admitting that he’d been frightened, even though his current emotional state was likely obvious), Cryptomelane held up his pumpkin bucket and gestured to Sonora’s fan. “I haven’t done anything. I wasn’t patrolling. I just wanted to feel safer while getting home……and then the alien senshi started stalking me.”
Unflattering comparisons to Brother Horace were not something that he liked to throw around lightly. Even now, Cryptomelane hesitated to outright compare his very large pursuer to his so-called “brother.” Using the same word that his lawyer had used while arguing for why he’d needed the order of protection felt bad enough……but it also felt incredibly accurate, given that the alien senshi had refused to break off following him.
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2024 2:13 pm
Sonora narrowed her eyes. This wasn't right--a SEsnhi following someone like he was prey, not a person. She understood that sometimes you had to fight the Negaverse, she really did, she';d gotten that through her head--and other people were allowed to choose violence however much they wanted.
But this? Scaring someone, for no reason?
"I'll protect you," Sonora promised. "If he's been following you, he's clearly got bad intentions." Maybe it wasn't fair for her to judge so quickly, but she felt like the actions she was witnessing told the story well enough. "I don't like bullies or creeps, and this jerk is being both."
Shameful, if you asked her. Not how someone who was ostensibly on the right side ought to behave.
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2024 11:31 pm
Cryptomelane sighed in relief and nodded. Frankly, he knew that he probably didn’t deserve this kindness from Sonora, and that she was probably taking on a considerable risk by standing with him at all. He had, not to put too fine a point on it, caused a great deal of trouble for her before and upset her quite terribly on at least a few occasions. That she would stand with him against a senshi on her own side—it wasn’t insignificant. And after they had already protected each other up at the space-museum, it……
It wasn’t right, the way The Code demanded its Knights serve without any support or pay. It wasn’t fair. Sonora deserved to see something for her efforts, and since she’d previously made it clear that she didn’t want to accept money—
Cryptomelane sighed softly, digging around in his subspace as quickly as he could manage.
He hated to surrender any of his stash of starseeds. Really, he did. But he also hated the idea of Sonora shouldering such a great risk to herself for his benefit and not getting anything out of it. So, when he held out a palm toward her, four starseeds glittered under the lamplight.
“Our commanders tell us to stash these,” he said, quickly, keeping his voice low. “I don’t know who they belong to. Their owners’ bodies might have died by now. But……” Biting down on a shudder of fear, Cryptomelane shrugged as though this was no big deal, offering up such power, contained in tiny, crystalline form. “I’ve heard that they return to the reincarnation cycle if left on their own? Better that they should have that chance, right? And that they be entrusted to a Knight who will do right by them.”
He nudged his palm closer toward her, hoping that she would take the hint and also the starseeds.As patient as he liked to believe he was, Corvina grew weary of waiting for this Negaverse Lieutenant to do something that would justify violence against him. Watching him approach some Ida Knight—some……oddly familiar-seeming Ida Knight—felt like it should have been the perfect opportunity. Although Corvina could not recognize which Ida Knight she was from this distance, he felt as though he must have known who she’d been before, back when Zhiheng had been the Knight of Lanting.
The bridge of his nose ached with the lingering memory of pain, as if someone had whacked Corvina with a folding fan. Reaching up and rubbing the spot, which otherwise didn’t feel sore, made shame and humiliation wind their way around his lungs. Distantly, he recalled being snapped at and told to leave the premises of………someplace or other, apparently.
Unfortunately, “Ida Knight, folding fan, hit Corvina once, probably while throwing him out” didn’t narrow down the list of suspects.
But very, very fortunately, when Corvina looked back toward his prey, opportunity glittered before him—just like the starseeds glittering in the Lieutenant’s palm. Righteous fury swelled in Corvina’s chest, burning at the thought of what must have been happening. Clearly, the smug Lieutenant had met a particularly naive young Squire, one who hadn’t heard about these monstrous little freaks and how they tore starseeds out of chests as easily as breathing. Without another thought, Corvina threw himself into running.
He roared, leaping at the Lieutenant, hoping to tackle him to the ground.
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2024 4:11 pm
Oh. Sonora couldn't believe the precious gift she was being offered. Four small, glittering souls, ones Cryptomelane had likely collected--and he was probably right that it was far too late to return them to their owners, and what was she going to do, try every coma patient in every hospital until they stuck? No, but she could....
She could take them to her Wonder, and bring them closer to the stars, so hopefully they could return to the Cauldron with ease.
"Thank you," she said. "I'll take good care of them, I promise."
She didn't have much time to take them, to pull them close to her chest, before the Senshi was launching himself at them, and he was huge--
But her magic didn't care. Sonora snapped her fan open one-handed, and focused, and the glittering shield descended over them, ready to shut the Senshi out, which meant she and Cryptomelane were safe.
"What, exactly, do you think you're doing?" She demanded of the giant pink tiger-elf in front of her. "Following someone around, just to scare them before you attack? What is wrong with you?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2024 11:21 pm
Part of Corvina really didn’t believe that anything would happen to prevent him from tackling the Lieutenant. This situation seemed incredibly straightforward: an evil Chaos rat was clearly threatening a Squire of Ida, and Corvina was going to provide a rescue. The Squire would then be grateful for his help, and he would tell her that it was fine and she should take care not to be so trusting because Chaos was a poison and anybody willingly tainted by said poison was inherently untrustworthy. Inherently deserving of violence. Naturally, then, Corvina would hit his target, tackle him to the ground, and rescue Lanting’s fellow Ida Squire.
Instead, Corvina collided, face-first, with the shield of shimmering golden light. Without a semblance of dignity, he crashed to the ground, ending up on his hands and knees in front of the Squire and Lieutenant—the former of whom was yelling at Corvina for having tried to help her. Who even did things like that?! Only when he looked up did things start making some semblance of sense again: the Ida Squire before him was too young to be the one that Corvina remembered, but all the same—
“Oh, Anita would be proud of you,” he grumbled as though this were a terrible insult (because in his mind, it was), rubbing his forehead where it had collided with Sonora’s shield. “She never liked me either. Always going on about things she didn’t understand, acting like my people and our culture were always wrong.”Watching the extremely large, very pink, exceptionally tiger-tailed senshi charge at him, Cryptomelane refused to flinch. On the one hand, he had faith in Sonora and her magical shield, having previously been stopped by it himself. On the other hand, though, people like this senshi didn’t deserve to see their tactics working. Never mind the fact that stalking him like that had upset Cryptomelane quite a lot; he didn’t need to let the senshi know that he’d been afraid. Giving him that sort of victory felt worse, idea-wise, than giving Brother Horace any room to maneuver or any leverage against oneself.
At the senshi’s pathetic excuse for something to say for himself, Cryptomelane frowned bemusedly and tilted his head. “Complaining about people not liking you seems an odd choice in light of tonight’s performance from you,” he pointed out, nose wrinkled and brow furrowed. Sure, a lot of people didn’t like Preston……but frankly, he didn’t like most of them, either, and he didn’t expect them to like him when he made very few efforts to go out of his way about endearing himself to them. “If you so deeply desire the approval of others, then why have you not considered manners as a means to accomplishing that.”
As Preston, Cryptomelane’s only real uses for them came at work, in court, or with the precious few people whose opinions he actually cared about. But Preston also didn’t care about getting most people to like him or not, very unlike the senshi before him and Sonora now.The Lieutenant dared to open his mouth, and Corvina narrowed his eyes. “Her magic pool won’t last forever, you filth,” he snarled, “and then, you’re all mine. Just because you managed to trick a foolish soft-heart like the new Knight of Sonora doesn’t mean you can fool—”“She has a mind and opinions of her own, you overgrown child!” Vaguely gesturing at Sonora as though this somehow emphasized his point, Cryptomelane added, “And if you want to insult her so badly, respect her enough to say it to her, instead of talking about her as though she isn’t even here!”
Brother Horace had loved to do that, insulting people whom he knew perfectly well could hear him. It was despicable and inexcusable behavior when he did it, and it was despicable and inexcusable behavior coming from this senshi.
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2024 11:50 pm
Sonora glared at the extremely oversized Senshi, snapping her fan closed but continuing to channel her magic. She had to focus--she wasn't going to hurt him, and she wasn't going to let him hurt Cyptomleane, and that was it.
"If your culture hunts people for sport, then I agree with her," she said, straightening her back. Honestly, being compared to her previous self, who seemed like a thoroughly no-nonsense woman and who had apparently not been interested in taking this Senshi's bullshit either? Seemed like a pretty flattering comparison, in her opinion.
Especially because this Senshi was a giant a*****e, obviously.
She gently put a hand on Cryptomelane's arm, and squeezed lightly, a silent thank you for standing up for her, and then moved herself to stand very firmly between him and the Senshi.
"Being kind doesn't make me foolish," Sonora said, firmly. "I am choosing to be kind, because I know my friend. And maybe my magic will run out, but when it does, I'll still be here, and if you want to get at him, you'll have to go through me first."
She hated the thought of it, but this was exactly what Murikabushi had been talking about. Sometimes, you had to use violence to stop violence, because people didn't want to listen to valid points like "you're being a complete jerk right now." And if he tried, well. She was much smaller than him, sure. But she was willing to risk that he had generally humanlike cis male anatomy, and there was one very good way to shut down people built that way.
"Make the smart choice. Turn around. Walk away."
Her insides felt like jelly. She was, in truth, terrified, and she hated every second of this. Conflict and confrontation and all these bad vibes--just absolutely not her thing.
But Cryptomelane was her friend. And she was going to protect him. Whatever it took.
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Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2024 1:30 am
Listening to the two in front of him, Corvina couldn’t help but roll his eyes. None of what they said really mattered in the long run. If both of them wanted to be fools, then both of them could be fools—though the New Sonora was clearly the worse of the two in that regard, if she actually believed that someone tainted by Chaos could be a friend to anybody. Glaring at her may or may not have communicated this sentiment—probably didn’t, if she was truly going to be committed to such foolishness—but it made Corvina feel better to do it regardless.
“Chaos filth doesn’t have friends,” Corvina told her, his tone dry and matter-of-fact as he shifted into kneeling before them. Maybe Sonora wouldn’t want to hear it, but clearly, someone needed to disabuse her of her idealistic We can all be friends and hold hands and everything will be lovely notions of befriending the trash on this planet who aligned themselves with the forces of evil and destruction. “All Chaos knows is how to consume and how to destroy. That’s in its nature. Putting any trust in the garbage like him who welcome it into their hearts? Is to invite the destruction of everyone you love and everything you treasure.”
Corvina knew that better than anyone (in his own perfectly uninformed opinion).
As he waited for Sonora’s magic pool to run out, he weighed his options. Lanting wouldn’t like it if he tried to push through her to get to the Lieutenant she was so determined to protect.… But Corvina could step around her.… Given his diminished powers, Sonora would probably out-speed him, but on the other hand, Corvina was larger than her and perhaps that could have given him an advantage.… But then again, Lanting probably wouldn’t like it very much. The last time Corvina had done something that involved another Knight getting hurt, he’d had to endure several days of torture and then, worst of all, apologize to Dunnottar for not particularly caring whether he lived or died.
Huffing, Corvina rose to his feet. He nodded to Sonora, then glared at her so-called ‘friend.’ “Get caught out here without her and you won’t be so lucky.”
Then, he turned on his heel and stormed off. Letting this situation go was better than risking Lanting’s disapproval and perhaps needing to apologize to somebody again.
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