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 Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2025 3:43 pm
If nothing else, at least Ilmari could keep up on his energy-draining quotient. Never in danger of getting behind on that, no matter what other nonsense befell him or how else he managed to slip up in his personal life. Hard to call him perfect about anything, or he thought so anyway, skulking around one of the alleys between campus and home. Same as everyone, Ilmari had to deal with Order senshi and Knights sticking their noses into his work, trying to stop him from meeting his quotas.
Hence the change in location tonight, actually. Personally, Ilmari much preferred the assorted parks around town to this. More space to walk around in, more opportunities to get in more steps (even if his assorted pedometers didn’t count them because Ilmari took them, not Baz), more room to breathe than the slim-fit little alley nestled between a pizza place and a “random eccentric curiosities and vintage-looking whatevers that may or may not have been pawned” shop on one end, facing out at Cherrygrove Street, then a used bookshop and an “assorted gamer stuff that Baz didn’t really understand” shop on the other, which faced out at Wolfsden Street.
(To be the most accurate about the situation: the parks in town put more space between Ilmari and anywhere that stank of food. Beguiling and atrocious, the pizza place’s odor chased him every time he got too close. Felt like those old cartoons, as if the stench was tickling his nostrils, trying to make him float over and indulge when he objectively didn’t need that in his life.)
But, still. Sometimes, it seemed that everyone in town who was even remotely magical knew to look for each other out in the nearest park. People always showed up there, ready for some kind of scrap, whether you had an energy draining quota to meet for the Negaverse or Dark Mirror Court, or you were meddlesome Order trash who’d chosen the objectively wrong side in this debate and deeply resented anyone else living their best life, working for an organization that gave people a purpose in life. Sue Ilmari, he preferred to avoid that tonight.
Yet, he was getting some good steps in, pacing back and forth from Cherrygrove to Wolfsden, through the shadows of the alley, draining from people he spotted. Almost enough steps to justify lurking a bit longer in the dark beside the pizza place, working people over. Even though he couldn’t justify it, Ilmari lingered anyway, taking energy from different employees and customers, trying not to collect so much that any of them got too suspicious of foul play—but still, pulling enough for them to noticeably flag.
Served them right, he thought, for either working or buying from a pizza place when literally no one ever needed that.
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Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2025 4:32 pm
Lianhua had noticed something very fascinating, on her way past one of her favorite pizza places near Shuangxu's. (Not that they'd ordered from there for a long time, not when they had chef-quality meals courtesy of A-Xu's Giant Alien Housewife and honestly part of Lianhua's heart was certain that bringing home takeout would break his ridiculous heart, but that wasn't the point.)
The point was that the people around the pizza place seemed really, unusually tired. And one or two, or just the workers, she would have understood. That was like, statistically likely working a crappy retail or retail adjacent job. But everyone? Yeah, no, that raised her suspicions.
And then she saw the weirdo in black with stupid long hair--just for a moment, out of the corner of her eye--and she was one hundred percent certain something was up here. So she found herself a place to tuck away, and in an instant, Lianhua was gone and Karakorum of Cybele was in her place. Now that she could, she felt the gross Chaos aura, and it felt about on her level, so unlike the last time she got into a fight, she was pretty sure she was gonna be okay taking this one on. Or at least more okay. Probably.
A n y w a y. She stomped back tot he alley near the pizza place, and as she stepped into it, there he was in all his stupid prettyboy glory: definitely some Nega Senshi, definitely the problem here, and definitely a problem she was willing to solve.
"Hey! a*****e! What do you think you're doing to these poor people?"
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2025 3:32 pm
As soon as Ilmari felt the Order aura flare up, he rolled his eyes at the brick wall opposite him, even though it hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t been paying attention to the nearby civilians, apart from deciding to drain them and occasionally moving on from one or the other. So, he hadn’t noticed anybody sneaking off to power up. He only noticed anything when that horridly offensive little aura flared up on his senses.
Watching the little Page storm over toward him, all on her self-righteous nonsense about calling him out. Ilmari let his head loll to the side ever so slightly, giving the girl a long, unimpressed look, narrowing his eyes and frowning like “Really, gurl? I mean, ten out of ten each for effort and ferocity, but tell me truly: are you serious?” Ilmari didn’t need to ask that question aloud, it seemed. She was perfectly content to answer him without knowing what was truly on his mind. Her demeanor and her snappy little challenge said everything.
“I haven’t exclusively been draining here,” Ilmari told her pointedly, as though this choice on his part exonerated him at all. Maybe he was thinking about Sailor Pumpkin Spice and how she’d taken such issue with Ilmari picking on the chubby civilian with the hot chocolate. But today, Ilmari didn’t want to deal with some baby Knight deciding that he was the problem here for doing his job. “Anyway, I’m not taking that much from any single person. Why don’t you cool off a little.”
Blowing a kiss her way, Ilmari summoned his magic. The sooner she stopped bothering him, the better.Quote: Chaste Decorum: Ilmari selects a single target within ten feet and blows a kiss at them. Instantly, they feel a slight, illusory chill wash over them; the chill itself deals no damage. This chill puts targets in a chaste state of mind and resets them to a pure, unblemished state by cooling their passions, making emotions feel less potent, and urging targets to exercise restraint in their actions. This can be distracting and can leave enemies feeling dazed, stunned, or without any drive. These effects last for 30 seconds, and Ilmari may use this attack three times per battle.
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2025 3:54 pm
Karakorum put her hands on her hips, drawing herself up as much as she could (not very much, unfortunately; none of her family was exactly blessed with tall genes, but that was just a thing they all had to deal with) and glaring at the Senshi and all his nonsense.
"Okay, but like, not exclusively means you still were draining here, and you're not winning points with me by saying you've been draining even more people. ********, are all you Chaos folks just totally brainwashed about the harm you do?" Probably, honestly. That felt like the only way you'd get any substantial number of people to go in on this whole "sucking the life out of people" thing, because surely most people had to recognize that was a shitty thing to do, right? Obviously? We were all living on the planet where that was bad?
"And I do not want to chill out, you condescending--"
She really was all ready to storm forward and show him exactly what she thought of him, especially with that sassy little blown kiss, like seriously who did this jackass think he was, but the cold chill that settled over her stopped her in her tracks.
Suddenly, it was hard for her to understand what she'd been so worked up about. It was just a little energy, wasn't it? And did she really want to get into a while fight? Make a whole thing about it? That seemed like....a pretty extreme reaction, didn't it?
"Ugh," she groaned, reaching up to press the heel of her hand against her temple, because suddenly everything felt very confusing and dizzy, like she'd been dumped in cold water and suddenly things just weren't as important.
"Whatever," she grumbled. "You should leave. Or I'll totally make you." It didn't come out sounding very convincing, because she wasn't very convinced herself.
Oh well.
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2025 4:26 pm
“I don’t know,” Ilmari quipped back to the Page’s accusations of brainwashing, “are all of you with Order uniquely addicted to self-righteousness? Or do you have some sort of hivemind out in space that tells you what to do?”
Given what he’d read from different officers’ intel database reports, it could have gone either way. Certainly, almost everyone from Order who’d met Ilmari seemed to have the same sorts of ideals and values, the same sorts of animating causes that motivated them to do things, and the same sorts of patterns in how they liked to make Ilmari’s life unfairly difficult. Fortunately, his magic did the job of getting her to calm down. Even as she threatened him, she seemed to lack the conviction to make her words stick.
“I do think I’ll move on, though,” he said, pushing himself away from the wall. He smirked as he drew nearer to her. Oh, but his magic was good, with the way it dazed people and left them unable to act properly. “I don’t think you could make me do anything right now. But I’ll leave anyway, just to be nice.”
As if making his point, he leaned closer to her, smirking like the cat who’d caught the canary and (unwittingly) well within punching distance.
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2025 5:01 pm
This dude was...annoying. Karakorum was comfortable saying that, even through the haze of not exactly feeling particularly passionate about anything. "Annoying" was kind of an objective marker in this case.
"No, that's stupid. And not wanting innocent people to get hurt isn't self-righteous, and it's sort of telling on yourself that you think it is," she said, though she still sounded....well. Less than passionate. Still felt less than passionate, though something seemed to be returning, just a little bit. Starting with mild irritation.
"Good. Go. Smart of you." That seemed a very easy assessment. And he would be gone, which was the point.
And then he got up in her face, with that stupid smug smirk, and--oh.
Oh, there was all the frustration she was feeling.
Given the chance, and the will, she swung her fist right at his stupid ******** face.
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2025 9:45 pm
Gloating was hardly becoming of him, and on some level, Ilmari knew that. But he desperately needed something that felt like a win right now. Too many things had steadfastly refused to go wrong not only for Ilmari himself, but also for his team. True, Ilmari himself had not been at the center of what all had gone wrong for Team Faustite—yet, even as a basic senshi with no real reputation to speak of, Ilmari should have done more to be there for the team. Maybe there wasn’t anything that he could do, but he still should’ve found something.
Lording his success over the little Page in the mint green dress wasn’t really what Ilmari needed to be doing. But still, it felt good to do……right up until her fist smacked into his cheek. Ilmari hated the ugly grunting noise that came out of him at the impact. When he righted his posture, glowering at her like the universe’s most sullen kitten, he was cradling his cheek.
“I was already leaving,” he snapped at her, shoving past her to do so rather than pivoting on his heel and storming off. Let her have the unpleasantness of his shoulder and hip crashing into hers, however brief it was.
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