It was an unusually muggy winter night. Storm clouds had hung low over Destiny City all day and the strangely green tinted sky led to speculation that bad storms were on the way. The stillness of the day had been unusual, but by nightfall, the winds had finally begun to pick up.
There was a heaviness in the air, too dense to be humidity alone. The city lights could have been to blame for the shift to purple clouds, clearly visible when lightning flashed through them. Sharp, jagged bursts of white seemed to carve through the night sky, and purple shadows lingered for a few seconds after each new sparking light.
By ten that night, there were maybe twenty seconds between each flash. Then, ten. Five. One.
Then, no break at all.
The lightning split from the sky, from the clouds, and it struck Destiny City.
The light was constant, blinding, and then–
Darkness.
The lightning had not only split the sky, it had torn open a hole in the fabric of reality along the way–
And it sent a few people tumbling through it:
General King Faustite, Corrupted Eternal Sailor Heliodor, General Benitoite, General Chalcanthite, General Aquamarine, General King Jet, Eternal Sailor Murikabushi, Transcended Eternal Sailor Kerberos, Super Sailor Solaris, and Transcended Eternal Sailor Encke.
The room they arrived in was in stark contrast to bright, humid Destiny City. It was dark and dry, but it was cold, and the same suffocating air felt like it was closing in on them. There was an overwhelming energy signature, and though its power was prominent there was little else to decipher from it.
There were no other energy signatures–not theirs, or each other's. It was too dark to see anything when they first arrived but the ground and walls were icy stone and the sounds of their arrival echoed. The room smelled stale but not necessarily unpleasant.
Wherever they were was simply untouched, and had been for quite some time.
Somewhere far away, a strange wind whistled.
Quote:
OOCly This roleplay will last for about two weeks and participation is limited to the winners of the Winter Holiday 2024 Raffle and their chosen companion. Chosen companions can either arrive with their companion, or separately if the players plot this. Prompts will occur every ~48 hours and while players have full freedom to act as they see fit and respond as often as they like, please also try to be respectful of your roleplay partners and give them time to respond as well. Everyone is operating on a different schedule. If you are unable to post in response to a specific prompt, there are no repercussions; this is a narrative RP and your characters can choose to focus on whatever aspects appeal to them. While there will be something uniquely special for the raffle winners, all characters are eligible to collect information and investigate.
Your characters do not have to get along and you are relatively free to do what you like, but you are in a strange location with unusual and unknown parameters; there are limitations to what can be done. This will be revealed through RP as needed to carry the story along.
Characters will find that they cannot access any of their normal skills–no teleportation, no weapon, no magic, no usage of tech devices; even Transcended markings will not glow and will only appear as faded ink. Half-youma features remain but access to those powers are blocked. They will appear as powered characters but functionally will find they are unable to access any of their magical abilities. They will retain physical boosts relevant to their faction and rank (such as speed or strength boosts). If attempting to access any magical features, including passive abilities or other enhancements, characters may find it feels like reaching into an infinite void; something should be there for them but isn’t.
The room is impossibly dark and it is currently impossible to make out any details. Light bearing magical and electronic items will appear faulty, making it difficult to illuminate the area with any consistency. If your character has any of those items on hand they may utilize them provided characters acknowledge oddities in performance; everything will appear strangely dim and the light doesn’t carry very far. Flames may appear dull and their light will not be bright enough to make out great detail unless standing right next to something.
ICly, this event takes place on the evening of Friday, February 21st and does not last for more than an hour.
If you have any questions, please feel free to PM The Space Cauldron or message Xigglet on Discord!
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 8:33 am
“... the ******** was that?” Aquamarine swore, low in the dark.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been unceremoniously whisked away from Destiny City, nor was it the first time he’d found himself stuck in a creepy dark room. In fact, similar oddities occurred with enough frequency that any prolonged lack of them made him antsy. He blamed desk work for it. The less time he spent in the field, the less prepared he felt for the scenarios that seemed to come out of nowhere. He grew to expect them, but couldn’t always predict when he would be unfortunate enough to suffer the indignity.
He’d been out wandering the city with Jet when the lightning escalated. Thus, Aquamarine’s first order of business was to ensure that Jet remained close by. He neither sensed him nor heard his voice through their earrings. Aquamarine reached for him through the dark instead and, finding the warmth of his body and the familiar features of his uniform, allowed himself a moment of relief.
Then he reached for his weapons and found them missing.
Attempting to summon them produced no ******** weren’t alone. A strange power seemed to bear down on them, though Aquamarine couldn’t begin to guess at what it was or where it came from, and though he couldn’t sense any others the way he normally would, a prickle of awareness at the back of his neck told Aquamarine he and Jet weren’t the only ones to find themselves abruptly misplaced.
“Well, it’s not the worst way I’ve ever ended up on my knees,” Muri quipped out into the darkness without remotely pausing to consider whether or not that was a good idea.
On the list of things that made a b***h (Muri) feel distinctly uneasy, crash-landing into some unknown location where he could hardly see anything ranked……not quite around the middle? Higher than normal discomforting situations like forgetting someone else’s name when they remembered his, but lower than getting called out in stereo about how it was hypocritical as ******** on his part to insist that Faustite manhandling his starseed in a busy combat situation was super fine actually because Muri had lived, when he never would have let someone else say the same. Still, the sense of unknown power overwhelming Muri’s aura senses, and the fact that he could barely see Kerberos beside him, left Muri’s nerves itching with anxiety.
Hence, the impulse to be snarky without knowing who or what could hypothetically hear him.
Kerberos, at least, was easy to find. They’d been together near his bench in North End Park when everything had gone a bit tits up. Made sense, then, that Muri didn’t need to struggle or look too far to find his friend as his eyes slowly started adjusting to the darkness around them. Rocking back—so that he was sitting seiza, rather than doubled over and bracing himself with his palms on the cold, hard floor—Murikabushi kept focused on his friend, on the current source of more or less stability-adjacent feelings in an uncertain and potentially volatile situation. Paying so much attention to Kerberos, though, soon made Murikabushi frown. Offhand, he couldn’t say if Kerberos was or wasn’t injured, not without more evidence that showed or spoke to how Kerberos felt after that unexpected trip and rough landing. Yet, all the same……
“Blossom,” Murikabushi said, lowering his voice somewhat, “the ******** is up with your sparkly glowies?”
Insofar as the marks of Kerberos’s Transcendence could so be called at the moment, when they neither glowed nor sparkled. Rather than clearly showcasing how much Kerberos had made his home-world love him, they looked no different from his normal tattoos—which really didn’t help ease Muri’s nerves about the situation.
Looking away from Kerberos, Murikabushi found his eyes drawn to Faustite next, which almost made him roll his eyes at how predictable he was. He’d probably get some kind of earful about it later, from Yuki when he heard about this if not from Kerberos, who was already here to witness everything that might or might not happen. Under normal circumstances, Murikabushi might have tried to point out that Faustite was literally on fire as a means of getting out of criticism for his extremely questionable taste and how much arguable bullshit he tolerated from Faustite (for example, the choice to rough-manhandle Muri’s starseed in a volatile combat situation, which Yuki had yet to calm down about). At the moment, though, something seemed distinctly off about Faustite’s flames.
Sure, they still existed more or less normally, as far as Murikabushi could tell. But they didn’t feel nearly as bright as they usually did in the middle of darkness. Hardly anything was illuminated, and even with his eyes getting more used to where they’d all found themselves, Muri couldn’t tell very much about where they were or who else was here from Faustite’s flames.
His sense of smell was giving him what felt like the best clue, at the moment, and even that didn’t really count for much. Taking a deep breath filled Murikabushi with a strange sensation. Distantly, it reminded him of Kyoto—or, more specifically, of his maternal family’s estate with its old rooms full of old curiosities, eons of unspoken histories lurking around every corner, waiting to catch you off your guard because talking about them would’ve been impolite, so nobody could prepare themselves for anything. Further specifically, Murikabushi felt the same poignant heaviness he’d always felt when, prior to purifying and losing all official right to access that place, managing to find some room or other at the estate that no one had wanted him to find. Like the room with all the letters his grandparents had traded while young, horny, separated by circumstances, and generally acting like the complete opposite of the prim, proper, perfectly composed public image that his grandmother had cultivated for them.
Somewhere old and probably untouched, then. Very possibly somewhere that nobody was meant to be (though that was, admittedly, just based on Murikabushi projecting his own feelings onto the situation, and as with most instances of him doing so, there was likely a good chance that he was wrong). But if Muri was right, then he and Kerberos had found themselves here with at least one agent of the Negaverse. While Muri couldn’t feel any other auras—he couldn’t feel any magic aside from the overwhelming presence that, as yet, didn’t feel like Order, Chaos, or anything but powerful—it seemed irresponsible and silly to think that nobody else was here.
“Who all’s here,” Murikabushi spoke into the darkness, his tone earnest and concerned as he pushed himself up to his feet. They’d all have to deal with each other sooner or later, he figured. Better to approach the situation with an open mind, in good faith, and a willingness to cooperate regardless of who all was here. “Is everyone alright after that? Is anybody hurt?”
Not that Muri could actually do anything to help them if they were, given his total lack of healing magic. Still, if Faustite was here, then there might have been other Negas around as well. Maybe expressing genuine concern for their wellbeing would help show that Muri didn’t have any ill intentions or blame them for the situation. The possibility that they might have had something to do with this did occur to him, but he banished the thought, intent on ignoring it because unfairly casting aspersions wouldn’t help anybody right now.
Noir xxSongbird
xxStrickenized
Muri is generally addressing the group!
xxKolina
Sleet xxTempest Snape
Sara Draconiaxx
xxSunshine Alouette
Guinexx
xxKaefaux
Seiana_xxZI
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 10:18 am
Jerking forward, biting back a noise which sought to pass his lips, the blond had stepped back and hit into a wall or at least he thought it was a wall. Taking a slow, deep, breath the general took a moment to collect himself as he took note of the lack of injuries. That was good, really good, if they had to break out of here it would be good if he wasn't having to make up for any injuries. He'd heard the other voices, and knew he wasn't alone, and he hoped whoever else was here wasn't hurt either. One of the voices was asking if anyone was hurt but he didn’t answer, wanting to first hear how many other voices responded, it was best he remain as silent as he could for as long as he could.
From what he could tell the room was large, he couldn’t sense any walls around him aside from the one behind him, but there was his inability to sense any energy signatures which grated on his nerves. It could be that whoever else was here, assuming it was more than the two people he’d heard, were all civilians but he highly doubted that. The odds of him being the only powered individual in this room was not possible, not given the history of these sorts of incidents over the years. It meant his ability to sense energy signatures was down, it was as useless as his eyes were right now. His eyes were adjusting though, slowly, but when they had adjusted just enough he caught the sight of a rather specific person - General King Faustite. That was good, even if something seemed off about the flames coming from him, it was good to know there was someone else with power here.
So he wasn’t the only powered person, just as he’d thought, and while that was good it also wasn’t the best feeling either. It meant he was likely part of a mixed group, some order and some chaos, and it could really go either way depending on who was involved and if everyone was willing to work together. At least one seemed interested in that but he’d wait, and listen, and see whoever was here and willing to work together.
He’d been out tonight gathering energy, enough to handle his quota and a good portion of Kafka’s as well, the other had been home doing some work in his office, when the lightning storm had started. He’d called, on a burner phone he kept when powered up, in order to let him know he’d be home soon but Rene might need to close any open windows if it started to rain before then. There had been no rain though, despite all the lightning, and the wind whipped his hair about his face as he’d watched the lightning storm increase in intensity. There had to be something more to this, he’d known it, and he’d managed a fast text to Rene - to warn him. Whatever was to come he could handle it, he was certain of it, but he needed Rene safe.
Now as he stood there, unable to see anything, he hoped Rene hadn’t been pulled into this. This wasn’t anything new for him, though it had been awhile, he could handle this where as his partner could not despite being an eternal now. Something was here, aside from the people, there was something he felt…something strong and oppressive but chaos or order…he couldn’t feel that.
He was almost certain this wasn’t something any faction had managed to do, not with this energy signature, being neither chaos nor order but the only options he could think of was it being the city's own magic or something from beyond this planet and potentially beyond this solar system. Weren’t there other things out there? Things that were dangerous and just being kept away from them all? Was this a taste of what else was out there?
The Space Cauldron
Strickenized
Kolina
Sleet Tempest Snape
Sara Draconia
Sunshine Alouette
Guine
amorremanet
Noir Songbird
Kaefaux
Seiana_ZI
Sleet Tempest Snape
Noble Vampire
Offline
Sara Draconia
Wheezing Loiterer
Offline
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 10:44 am
It hadn’t looked good out, something that had him on edge not just for his own patrol but for any of the lieutenants on his team if they were out tonight. Partway through Chalcanthite pulled his tablet to let his team know to be careful if they were out, letting them know it was better to be safe than to meet quota this evening.
When the strikes of lightning came more rapidly, he thought to let his fiance know that he’d be turning in early. But then something had happened and he didn’t have any time to really process it before he found himself surrounded in darkness.
The first knee-jerk response was to reach out to Liam through the earring but it didn’t feel the same, nothing felt the same. It was like he was cut off and the thought didn’t settle with him very well even as he heard at least two recognizable voices. Was one of them the hostage? That senshi he could remember being nearby Faustite at some point during that mission at the house? Maybe he could make out a few others but it wasn’t easy with how dark it was and he knew it took more time than he liked for his eyes to adjust.
But he couldn’t feel any signatures and more troubling was the fact he couldn’t call for Voce or his bow. It was oppressive in here, that other energy source, but it wasn’t one he could recognize.
Staying with his back against one of the walls, he thought for a moment before speaking up.
“Disoriented but otherwise fine. Just a captain, I was on my way home truth be told.” He wasn’t quite ready to provide a name but he was relieved that if there was an order member here, they couldn’t feel him.
There was that feeling his medallion might not work if the earrings didn’t but it wouldn’t matter for now if there wasn’t a signature to be felt. Still, he had it tucked in his breast pocket from his patrol.
Sleet Tempest Snape
The Space Cauldron
Strickenized
Kolina
Sleet Tempest Snape
Sara Draconia
Sunshine Alouette
Guine
amorremanet
Noir Songbird
Kaefaux
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 11:04 am
Jet clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He was growing tired of his increasing familiarity with unknown, mysterious dimensions, but at least this time he wasn’t in his pajamas.
The lightning had been concerning on its own, but the way it carved out the night sky pulled a similar image to the forefront of his mind. Ominous, distant lightning. The sensation of weightlessness. A sinking, existential dread growing in the pit of his stomach as he stared out into eternity.
At the time, he’d shared the image with Aquamarine, and later filled out his report as dutifully as he would with any other. The image never really left him, but what else was he supposed to do? He didn’t even know if this was related. If it was, well… he didn’t want to think about it. On his own, he could only do so much. Waiting for orders from the Queen was the priority.
Just a General on patrol to keep a low profile, Jet was relieved he decided to shift into his full power as a General King when the lightning started getting bad. Right before being pulled into the void.
The touch of Aquamarine’s hand on his arm was familiar and welcome, and he placed his own hand over his to acknowledge his presence.
It was too dark to see anything. He tried pulling out a flashlight from his subspace, since he kept one for emergencies like this, but frowned when he couldn’t even open subspace to retrieve it. The next attempt was using his pen to communicate, which he thankfully kept in his pocket.
“Kitten, you there?” His voice was low and quiet as he held the pen up to his mouth. He didn’t want to draw attention from anyone else around them, just in case. Just like he didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to Cymophane’s name, opting instead with a code name.
He was hoping for some kind of response, but the pen itself didn’t look like it was working, much less any signal that would connect to Destiny City or the Dark Kingdom. Attempting to open the tablet also resulted in nothing happening.
“Can’t contact the dog either,” he said quietly to Aquamarine after a few moments of closing his eyes and trying to reach out to his personal youma.
It seemed like they were stuck there, and while he was fairly certain he recognized the two voices calling out to each other, the low burn of anger kept his mouth shut. One he knew from a mission they'd been on together in the Rift. The other was a known traitor of Chaos. He hadn't seen the result of betrayal in person yet, but he'd read the reports in the database.
Getting pulled to strange new places, Kerberos supposed, was just a fact of magical life. Sometimes, some mysterious thing needed assistance, or you got unlucky and tripped into a rip in reality, or....
Well. At least he and Murikabushi weren't alone. On the flipside, they were Not Alone in a dark place with an alarming number of Negaverse officers. And they were no longer in a storm, but the weight of humidity still seemed to bear down. And so did some strange kind of power.
He'd landed on his a**, which was not the most dignified position, but dignity could go to hell in a place like this. He narrowed his eyes at his own, glowing arms--the gloom seemed to swallow the light from his Transcendence markings, and he could just barely make out Muri next to him, never mind anything beyond that. The darkness was complete, and beyond the weight of the air and the strange aura, it was its own kind of pressing.
There was a voice--a Captain, apparently, which meant the Negaverse was here. But hopefully, no one wanted to pick a fight. Particularly because generally, if one found themselves yote into a weird magical dimension with such a motley gathering of people from both sides, that meant something very weird was going to happen.
Especially with that lightning storm.
He remembered what he'd sene outside Almadel's museum, in those moments he'd floated in space. Remembered how uneasy it had left him. If this was connected to that....
"None of us are here on purpose, yeah?" He called into the darkness. "Think we can call a truce for the sake of figuring out what's going on?"
Quote:
addressing the group!
xxStrickenized
xxKolina
xxSleet Tempest Snape
xxSara Draconia
xxSunshine Alouette
xxGuine
xxamorremanet
xxKaefaux
xxSeiana_ZI
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 1:08 pm
Getting transported to new, odd locations was a relatively recent development in her life. She'd dealt with it a few times since arriving in the city, sure, still had the pretty dice from that odd game board... dimension or whatever it was. Her most life-altering transport had been to Earth in the first place, so why wouldn't more weird s**t happen since then? This was... very, very different, however.
Reaching out to Encke for a wander and discussion, alternating light-hearted and contemplative, hadn't been a real divergence from her forming habits. Patrols alone weren't safe, and though her mind was... whirling, a bit, on what to do about that, the push to actually reach out to others wasn't a bad development.
The storm, however, was a whole other story.
Solaris had watched the sky uneasily, skin prickling at the weight of the air. She'd felt dragged by it, humidity and pressure making it even somewhat uncomfortable for her to breathe, though had chocked it up to the simple readjustment from Solarian to Earth weather and gravity from her last trip to and fro. The lightning hadn't looked typical of Earth storms, though. Perhaps it was just her own grudging familiarity with the violent weather back on her world, but she'd been on edge. She expected this sort of s**t back on her planet.
Especially the whole... threat from above aspect...
Not that lightning strikes were the same sort of phenomenon as island drops, but hey. Both were levels of the ********>, in her mind.
Getting dumbed into a pitch, old-smelling, cold place joined that list of the ********>, stumbling from blinding light and the overwhelming smell of ozone, into nothingness and cold rock digging into her arm and leg as she leaned on the solid surface that was just there suddenly. The cold felt better to her, at least. There was one upside to this. Whispers of her native tongue slipped from her lips in an exhale as she tried to reach out for... uh. Something. Anything? She couldn't sense anything like normal, and the sound of voices definitely through her off since one said Captain, which meant she should be feeling energy signatures and nothing. Felt right.
She could at least see the neon cloth in the gloom, after a bit of adjusting. Her eyes felt like they were straining just to really see that, though, and she kept a palm on the wall as she crept over to Encke and put her free hand on his arm. "You alright?" Solaris kept her voice low, not entirely sure she wanted to announce herself. She kept trying to reach out for subspace, wanting a source of light here--which. She squinted at the human beside her, who was far less of a glowbug right now than they usually were. A gloved finger poked curiously at the just... dull tattoo looking streaks that usually glowed vividly on his skin. Somehow, she doubt the lightbulb broke.
Gritting her teeth, Solaris did push through the... the wrongness in the air. She couldn't feel energy signatures, but she could feel something powerful out there, and it didn't seem to like her trying to magically shove and force her way into the magical subspace she stored some of her things in. It felt like forcing a bunker door open--heavy, impenetrable metal, heavier than anything she could hope to really budge, but finally cracking it open a few centimeters to reach in a hand and yank out the closest thing before the weight of the door snapped shut again.
The smooth, blue-hued light-weight metal tube with simple patterning carved into its design and connected portions, felt like a trophy in her hand. A lighting crystal was already inside it, and turning the top section with a glass lens in it opened the compartment to let the light hit the glass and be both condensed and strengthened. Or it was supposed to. Solaris just stared at the faint light that peeked out of the glass, not even a damn beam, carefully tapping the device against her thigh like jostling the crystal might kick up the light being emitted. For a quick moment, it seemed to, a slightly stronger glow hitting her lower leg and a little of the floor... but then it jerked right back into its previous dull state that offered a little light but... nothing really helpful.
"...pretty sure that's the only real option here, unless someone's got a trick for teleporting out," she finally called in a dry voice out to whoever else was out there, in agreement to the suggestion of a truce. She did tilt her head slightly, though, brows furrowing. Was that... wind she heard? The distant whistling again made her think of her world, but it still wasn't a soothing correlation. Where where they..?
(Just noting did get confirmation that accessing subspace was possible, just feels mega wrong/weird AF and wtf difficult)
There were White Moon there. A few of them, at least, judging by the number of voices. They were the only ones stupid enough to call out, the only ones naïve enough to think their current circumstances should necessitate an immediate truce, or the appearance of one. There would be no truce, as far as Aquamarine was concerned. Nothing about a strange, dark room called for one. If he got his hands around any of their throats they’d be dead here the same as they’d’ve been dead in Destiny City. The only difference was they’d have to die slower.
One Captain responded, but he gave few other details so Aquamarine didn’t feel the need to stumble through the dark to shut him up.
He shuffled closer to Jet instead, feeling around until he located Jet’s face—and, more importantly, his ear. Aquamarine leaned close enough to whisper directly to him, conscious of his voice traveling now that he had a rough idea of their company.
“I already want to stab them all.”
Alas, a second attempt to summon his weapons offered the same results as before.
Aquamarine stepped back, urging Jet along with him, until he found a cold stone wall. He could see next to nothing in the dark and only knew where anyone was if they decided to speak out; at least with the wall at their backs no one would be able to sneak up behind them. He had no idea where they'd appeared; nothing about the room felt immediately familiar, but he thought it likely they were no longer in the city. Their weapons were missing. They couldn’t call their youma to them, couldn’t communicate via earring or tablet. Aquamarine didn’t even bother trying to teleport since it seemed unlikely that would be the one thing that actually worked.
Even as he became more aware of their numbers, Aquamarine could still only sense the one overwhelming aura. That he couldn’t even sense Jet, who should be overwhelming in his own right, unnerved him.
Guine
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 7:26 pm
Somehow, these things happening had stopped being a surprise so much as a frustration and annoyance.
Destiny City was somehow a concentration of unsafe bullshit, and this felt like the latest addition. Storms causing nonsense wasn't necessarily... New. This kind of teleporting to some unknown space? That was also not necessarily the first time he had experienced this. Both in conjunction? Perhaps, but not quickly associated with what was happening here and now. Subspace felt murky, even if the first thing he did was reach for his burner and also a flashlight.
After smacking the flashlight against their hand a few times, they shined it first against the ground and then ahead. Still dark. Great.
Encke leaned toward Solaris, because she, at least, was obviously there unlike so much else. They couldn't necessarily tell who else was there, though their heart rate quickly increased when they heard captain. Son of a--
Wait. Was someone seriously calling for a truce? "Oh ******** no," Encke murmured, quietly, to Solaris. "The quicker we get out of here, the better, sure, but literally over my dead body. If we're stuck here, they are too."
Encke was willing to make that gamble. If the Negaverse was stuck here with them, that was fine. They would cause less harm to the planet if they were stuck here. And what could they do to him? Kill him?
Wasn't any worse than anything else he'd experienced.
They wouldn't stop anyone if they insisted, though. They clearly didn't have power to. They never had.
Not enough.
Never enough.
Kaefaux
Strickenized
Kolina
Sleet Tempest Snape
Sara Draconia
Sunshine Alouette
Guine
amorremanet
Noir Songbird
Seiana_ZI
Codebreaking Conversationalist
Offline
Sleet Tempest Snape
Noble Vampire
Offline
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 10:24 pm
There! A voice he knew and to hear them call themselves a captain...how amusing. It would work, for now, since no one could see who was speaking and no one could sense what energy signatures were in this room. But Chalcanthite would be family, if his sister had her way, and so Benitoite would keep his mouth closed and not call out to the other by name. He'd look for him, search for the 'captain' but he was going to try and refraine from speaking himself.
He had an idea of which direction the voice had come from and shuffled that way, moving slowly as he gave time for himself to sense if anything was too close. He still couldn't see well, couldn't see what was in front of him, but he wanted to get close to his fellow general. He didn't know who else was here, aside from a certain general king, but he was looking to be near the one he knew well and could depend on once hit inevitably hit the fan.
He knew it wasn't smart moving about this room, not knowing what else might be in the room with them, but he took his time and took shuffling steps in case the floor was weak and couldn't hold his slight weight. He reached out every so often to check for anything within reach of him. So someone wanted a truce...how interesting, and it wasn't a voice he knew though that didn't say a whole lot, he did wonder if it wasn't some senshi or knight. It sounded like something one of them might very well say, he didn't know any officers or corrupt senshi who would say such a thing.
While working together might be a good idea, as it might benefit them all, he didn't see that as happening. He could see how it might be a good idea up front but he also knew it would fail, he wasn't interested in working with order really himself. If he wasn't interested in it he doubted other officers would be either, especially a certain general king. Now if only someone, or something, would turn on the lights and they could all see each other...and whatever enclosure they were in.
The Space Cauldron
Strickenized
Kolina
Sleet Tempest Snape
Sara Draconia
Sunshine Alouette
Guine
amorremanet
Noir Songbird
Kaefaux
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2025 2:51 am
Helio had only been graced his newly restored henshin pen mere days ago. So he’d been eager to erase some pent up energy from the past two months. The evening had been a peculiar one with the storms. While late February storms weren’t that remarkable, it was how intense the storm had grown to. It more resembled a summer system or at least a proper spring storm. So when the lightning increased and the world shifted around him, Helio chastised himself for not thinking more of the weather anomaly. As darkness settled over him like a heavy blanket, he was forced to rely on other senses as the blindness of the flashing had ruined what night vision he’d had.
The only thing that stood out to him visually was the glow of a very familiar flame next to him. An ornate grate was shadowed against the fire that seemed to be lacking it’s usual oomph. Helio stepped a foot closer to Faustite, reaching out to the other with a hand to let the General King know someone was beside him. “Any idea where we are?” He hissed quietly.
The other obvious thing was the aura that seemed to fill the space around him. It pressed heavily and oddly enough, Helio couldn’t feel Faustite’s own signature. What the hell is going on here? Could Almadel be up to another one of his tricks?
As it was, he didn’t need to wait long for other voices to reach him. Some (Jet, Aquamarine, Muri, Encke, Solaris) he was familiar with to pick them out immediately. In particular, two of them (Solaris and Encke) caused the Eternal to go on high alert. One a recent enough run in and the other a constant problem. Both, he’d be happy to rid himself eternally of.
Muri’s familiar lilt questioned who was here and how people were. “Alive and well.” A short quip, and nothing more.
Someone had suggested a truce. A funny notion, that. The only truce he felt like making was one that ended with order six feet under.
Strickenized
Not alone, touch.
Guine
mention
Sunshine Alouette
mention
Amorremanet
Hi. Hello!
Seiana_ZI
wishing death upon Encke <3
Kaefaux
Also wishing death upon Solaris <3
Kolina
Inquisitive Agent
Offline
Guine
Crew
Lonely Explorer
Offline
Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:38 am
In the darkness, Jet snaked his arm around Aquamarine’s waist when he moved closer. Close enough to lean up to Jet’s ear and whisper his bloodlust desires. Jet couldn’t quite help the small smirk that tugged at his lip. He gave Aquamarine a squeeze of… approval? Reassurance? Whatever Aquamarine wanted it to mean, really.
While Jet was still guarded and cautious in the face of the unknown, he had confidence in his and Aquamarine’s abilities, if no one else.
There were obviously others there. A voice he recognized as Heliodor spoke out through the silence. The company Heliodor kept (Faustite) likely fed his boldness.
It didn’t seem as though everyone (Encke) agreed to a truce. Some were clearly more on edge than others, and for good reason. Some of them had more reason to be afraid.
“It’s okay!” he called out into the darkness, his voice soft and clearly with the intention of easing any confusion or upset. “You’re right. It seems as though none of us are here on purpose. We can figure things out and return home. We can help each other with teleporting back, too. That’s an excellent idea,” he said in response to the two who had called out to the others (Kerberos and Solaris).
Under the shroud of darkness, he pressed his hand against Aquamarine’s chest. There was a slight give, where his fingers pressed into him. Just for a few moments. Just testing the limits. It was more difficult than normal but… when he pulled his hand back he gave Aquamarine’s chest a gentle, affectionate pat.
“We should all gather closer, just to be safe. When we escape, it should be together,” he offered warmly, straining his ears for any response. And the location of the response.
Strickenized
Kolina
Sleet Tempest Snape
Sara Draconia
Sunshine Alouette
amorremanet
Noir Songbird
Kaefaux
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2025 3:22 pm
When Chalcanthite felt a hand brush against his shoulder, he tensed and immediately went to grab at the wrist of whoever it was. At least with them close enough he could see a swath of blonde hair and he sighed. "You too?" He whispered.
He decided not to move in too close, at least for now even as he heard Jet's suggestion. It wasn't for lack of trust, he'd worked with them on that mission years back in the rift, and again with that mess in the museum. But the lack of visual information on top of the lack of magic left him erring on the side of caution. At least not before letting the smaller blonde (Benitoite) general go start trouble.
"I agree, I would prefer to be home rather than wherever we currently are." Speaking clearly, if not with that slight practiced anxiety that went alongside that lie he was used to at this point with order, he still kept the information he provided to a minimum. At least with a few variables getting added each time someone piped up, he had an idea that there was a decent amount of experienced people on the right side of things versus those in order.
Leaning towards Benitoite for another moment, he lowered his voice again. "Can you reach anyone? Or anything?"
Most of the voices Muri could hear, besides his own and Kerb’s, he either didn’t recognize (Solaris, Chalcanthite) or didn’t mind (Heliodor). What he did mind, however, was how quickly the ranks of the Negas were adding up. Faustite and Heliodor would probably vouch for him at least—or anyway, Muri really hoped that they would, after Muri had done what he could, first to help Tama last summer and then to help Heliodor back in December—but there wasn’t any guarantee that people would listen.
In addition to those two, there was the self-professed Captain (who apparently just wanted to go home, which was a #Mood), and for all Muri knew, very possibly the first person who’d called out to agree to Kerberos’s truce (Solaris). However many people were hypothetically here but not speaking, all of them might well have been with the Negaverse. (Maybe a Mirror senshi had snuck in too, but statistically, Muri doubted it. Plus, if any of them had, there wasn’t really reason to fear. Plus, most of them would’ve either cooperated by way of following the path of least resistance—Muri thought of Remarque, and how he had kids to get home to, and would never abandon them to be stuck in this place until TBD o’clock—or sat on the sidelines to eat popcorn and be obnoxiously unhelpful.)
But then came the second voice agreeing to a truce, and……oh.
Oh, no.
In the back of his mind, Muri felt a twist of relief that (hopefully) nobody could see him cringe as he realized that Jet was here with them.
Which he did feel guilty about (both the expression and the relief), since in his own personal experience? Muri had only known Jet to be intelligent, reasonable, devoted to his work, and (at least ostensibly) deeply concerned with the mission of intra-Negaverse harm-reduction, trying to prevent junior officers and senshi who probably looked up to him from being exploited and abused like Faustite and Kerberos had both been. Maybe it had only been the one conversation, but Jet had left a distinctly positive impression. He seemed, to Murikabushi, like the sort of leader whom the Negaverse needed. He could only hope that the other General-Sovereigns and the Witch Queen of Rift-Space (or whoever she thought she was) would see that and reward Jet with a promotion to General-Sovereign like Faustite had gotten.
(Murikabushi didn’t know how General-Sovereign promotions worked aside from what had gone down for Faustite. Or who the General-Sovereigns actually were other than Faustite. He just felt like Jet probably would have made a good one.)
One problem: all of Muri’s experience with Jet had happened when he’d still been with the Mirror.
Without really thinking about the present circumstances—beyond a brief thought that he didn’t mind if Faustite hypothetically saw anything (if anything, Faustite might have been glad for Muri displaying a semblance of self-preservation instinct)—Muri edged closer to Kerberos and started moving his hands through different Signs. All of them circled around the general point of “Look, I trust Jet to be reasonable but that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid”……and all of them were about as useful as a bicycle to a deep sea jellyfish.
Only after a moment, when Muri realized that he could barely see his own hands, did he remember that Kerberos probably couldn’t either.…… Also, he didn’t know if Kerberos actually knew any ASL (and considering Muri had learned primarily for the sake of helping make his old family-friendly drag shows more accessible to (D/d)eaf kids, there was a not insignificant chance that at least some of his Signs had been muddled).
Trying to push into his subspace for a little notebook, Muri quickly abandoned. That idea wasn’t idea-ing tonight—or at least, the effort that subspace wanted in order to pry it open felt like more than Muri wanted to spend on such a task—and……right. Reading in the middle of Advanced Darkness™ like this. Probably not the most happening thing.
Finally, he worked himself around to the idea of using his senshi phone. Letting his inner monologue drift away from coherent thoughts and into Chappell Roan lyrics, Murikabushi pulled up his ongoing chat with Kerberos (the most recent message being a photo he’d sent Blossom of some more technicolor teacup pigs he’d found up on his home-world, these ones taking naps inside of literal teacups). After tapping out one message, Murikabushi hit the button to send it……and nothing happened.
Great. So they were in some messed up and probably deeply unfabulous Hell-pit and they couldn’t even text each other to avoid exorcising messy feelings in ways that might have jeopardized the truce being discussed. Time then, Muri supposed, to write down all of said feelings and to then hand Kerberos his phone.
unsent texts tapped out on Muri’s phone
afaik, Jet is smart, competent, reasonable and I trust him to act like himself 🥺
“Himself” here meaning “smart, competent, reasonable AND devoted to the Negaverse ☠️”
Last time I saw him was the shindig at Almadel’s museum last summer
I ran to a side-room with Elsa & Helfeng to avoid anything remotely Consequences-shaped wrt purifying 😩
like, Jet does not afaik want to wife me up, so??? significantly less safety than with certain Faustites who shall remain nameless 🔥
so, I trust Jet to be reasonable rn, but a b***h is scared, ykwim? 💅🏽✨
like what happens AFTER we get out of this vantablack shithole, right??? 🌟🌱🍉💔
While the light from Muri’s phone follows the same lighting rules as listed above (dimmer than normal, doesn’t illuminate very much, etc.), other characters can still notice it in the darkness!