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Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 8:26 pm
Thuban screamed, and nothing in the world could have pleased Tanzanite more.
Thuban had been the first senshi to slip through her fingers, but he had not been the last. He had done so before she had become so well acquainted with the Senshi's aptitude for escape. Back when she was fresh to combat, tagging along with Nova on what should have been a very simple, effective mission. It seemed so long ago, when in reality it had only been a matter of months. For that, he held a special place in Tanzanite's heart, creating a tiny hole there that would heal over only once she'd watched his body shudder and convulse with one final, agonizing breath.
Simon's quiet, whispered 'No...' was a hushed echo of Thuban's screams, and it was ignored just the same.
As Thuban shoved at her hands with the crowbar, Tanzanite grabbed hold of it with her free hand. There was little she could do as he placed his foot against his stomach to push her away but to hold on to it and try to rip it from his grasp as her body was pushed back. Whether she was successful in obtaining the weapon or not didn't matter. The moment she was pushed back, she would lunge forward again. First for Simon, giving him just enough attention to aim a punch to the side of his head, spinning with one bony elbow out to attempt to bring it into contact with Thuban's nearby face.
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Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:16 am
Tanzanite was shoved away, safely, a few feet of space separating her from Sailor Thuban. He gulped a huge breath. His heart was racing at top speed and his muscles felt soft and weak they way they did after he raced through a marathon, though he hadn't done much. Their struggle had only lasted a few tense seconds.
She had the crowbar now, and he had the letter-opener -- though that was still lodged in his arm, the pain making his mind spin just slightly on its axis. But when Tanzanite lunged, it wasn't back at him: it was at Sailor Atlas, whom Thuban had all but forgotten about.
The words came calmer than he felt, ingrained into his head like a pattern now that he'd used them a few times before on youma. "Rust and Dust Accumulation!" he threw, to slow her down, and scrambled to get to his own feet. Some of his own blood wetting the floor made it slick, especially in the deep night shadows.
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Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:39 pm
Beautifully for Tanzanite, and, horribly for Thuban, the woman's fist met its mark. Atlas had had plenty of time to dodge it and leave empty air in the place of his head, but for some reason he hadn't. He just stayed there and allowed himself to take the hit, only making a small whimper as her knuckles whapped into the soft flesh of his cheek, and-- horribly enough-- the impact snapped his neck around and gave him a harsh face full of wall.
His previously stiff form crumpled into a pitiful slouch, his stance wobbling; it was as if the anticipation of pain was all that had been keeping him standing in the first place, and its realization had cut those strings away. He looked pathetic. He looked like he was sadly willing to let Tanzanite continue to pummel him out of some weak hope she would stop before he was dead.
There's more blood on the floor, he dimly noticed, as his unwitting partner yanked at one of his slack arms, prompting him to start running.
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Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:59 pm
Tanzanite cursed quietly., the sudden rush of joy provoked by the connection of her fist with Atlas' cheek dampened by the second senshi. Thuban's attack was one which she was all too familiar with, and her agitation set in the moment the words escaped his lips. There was a familiar flash of light before her limbs began to slow, joints moving as though they had suddenly rusted over. With her fist raised to land another blow on Atlas, she was all but frozen in time, and she knew better than to waste her energy on trying to continue pummeling the boy. Her fist lowered with that painful slowness, neck twisting to give Thuban a look that should have killed him right then and there.
Her smile was little more than a feral baring of teeth. There was certainly no joy in the expression, and only the slightest touch of amusement. It was a snarl that escaped her throat, a guttural sound that conveyed her anger without need for foolish words. It dimmed slowly, smoothing into a deep, mocking laugh.
“Tick, tock,” she hissed. In her pale face, narrowed at Thuban, were set the eyes of a corpse. Cold, emotionless, and glazed over with a violent single-mindedness that was directed at the Senshi of Antiquity. She knew roughly how long the slowness would last, and equated it to how long the pair of them had to live. They had a few minutes. A few minutes to either kill her where she stood or to run so fast and so far that no amount of searching would find them.
"Tick. Tock."
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 6:18 pm
The shine of Thuban's magic was eerie in the dark -- like standing in the aurora borealis. The sparkling dust fell through the air with impossible slowness, so slow that -- at times -- it seemed to fall not downwards at all, but back up again, little clicks of rewind.
Sailor Thuban stared only for a moment at Tanzanite with her 'tick, tock,' or at Atlas who cowered, probably concussed. Then he stepped into the haze of his own attack again.
He could feel it moving all around him, time slowly rolling backwards at the same time as it pushed ever forward, ever on. It was like standing at the edge of the ocean, an onrushing wave buffeting his ankles while an outgoing wave pulled backwards at his toes. This was what Tanzanite and Atlas were caught in -- but it let Thuban pass freely, unhindered by the drag, advanced by the past instead of drawn back to it.
Thuban grabbed Atlas by the arm and dragged him out -- he stood little chance of beating Tanzanite with a letter-opener driven through his arm. He couldn't win a hand-to-hand fight with a Negaverse agent and protect the apparently-novice Sailor Atlas and manage the extremely significant pain of his stabbed arm, especially not in the time it would take for his magic to wear off. They'd have to cut their losses.
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Posted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 7:10 pm
Where Sailor Thuban dragged him, Atlas numbly followed. Or at least he was trying, his panicked daze fumbling with his coordination and the effect of Thuban's attack making the lifting of each leg a momentous struggle. In the end, he wasn't running so much as he was stumbling and staggering along, a foot occasionally just dragging along the floor instead of moving at all while he was jerkily pulled down the hallway. He was moving far too slow and wasting precious time.
Thuban recognized this, and so, ever-so-slightly irritably, he ended up hoisting the taller senshi off the ground completely and slinging him over his shoulder - he could only be grateful that despite his tallness, his frame was relatively light. Atlas, unprepared, sluggishly scrambled for something like a handhold and ended up tangling his arms in Thuban's cloak.
It was an extremely awkward affair. He kept almost-sliding off of the other's shoulder, and his coattails kept whipping around unhelpfully and getting into Thuban's face. But at least they were moving, the black maw of the entrance to the office steadily shrinking in Atlas's vision, the stiletto-clad woman inside getting farther and farther away.
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Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2009 1:43 am
They were going to get away.
It was a plain and simple fact; one which ate at Tanzanite's nerves like a rabid dog. There was little she could do, standing there in the ethereal haze of Thuban's attack, but watch them go. She did so with a wicked smile, little more than a vicious baring of teeth that did not reach those pale irises. There was no way to follow, and even her short-lived attempt resulted in far too much effort spent for only a few inches of movement. If there was anything, anything in the entire world that Tanzanite hated, it was being unable to do anything.
Her scream chased the pair down the hall, wordless and filled with loathing. It bounced off of the slick concrete floor and the unpapered walls, growing until it filled her ears as much as it did her throat. Tanzanite's fists clenched at her sides, and she waited. Screaming her frustration and her outrage outside the boundaries of syllables or phrases, she could only stand there. Watching their figures vanishing. Waiting for the magic to wear off so that she could engage in what would ultimately be a fruitless pursuit.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:08 pm
It was a while before Thuban set Atlas down. It was after they'd run far enough and taken a few long leaps, after Thuban felt sure they hadn't left any sort of trail that Tanzanite could follow. He dropped him down to his feet and stepped back, red-faced and clammy from exertion.
At some point, the letter-opener had worked its way out of his skin and gotten lost; the blood was now running down his arm more freely, in a pair of rivulets that were staining his arm-band. Thuban rolled the cloth down to his wrist to examine the wound: bleeding, definitely, it was doing a good job of that -- but it was more painful than it was life-threatening. He guessed.
He rolled the long tail of his cloak around his arm near the elbow, a hastily improvised tourniquet. It was too thick to pull very tight. While he did this, he said to Sailor Atlas, "Don't you have any powers? Or couldn't you at least have bashed her in the head with the flashlight?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 12:29 pm
Atlas was understandably dazed, he weaved and stumbled a few steps before fully regaining his footing and balance. His head was swimming. Despite how hectic and frantic his evening had turned out to be, his body felt disagreeable and stiff, as if he'd just woken up from a long and too-deep sleep instead of seeing death, facing it and then being carried away from it.
His gaze trailed to Thuban's arm for a moment, as he examined the damage he'd taken from the letter opener. His brow furrowed with concern and guilt; he'd seen this scene before, or something like it. Sailor Iris had injured an arm in battle too.
This was the second time Thuban had saved his life, he dimly realized. Not only that, but the second time he'd allowed someone to get hurt while he stood there watching and did nothing.
He could have said, yes, I do, but I didn't want to attack indoors, but that was really no excuse, there were other options. Other things he could have done. So instead Atlas hung his head in shame, and allowed himself to sink to the ground, drawing his knees up and curling his arms around them.
When he finally spoke, his voice was very quiet.
"I... I'm really not cut out for this. I'm sorry, I know just saying that isn't enough, b-b-but..."
He swallowed thickly, clenching his jaw.
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 8:32 am
How did I get here? wondered Sailor Thuban yet again.
None of this had gone well. He'd found the boy that rescued cats, and that was good, but the boy had turned out to be sort of a sad, milquetoast creature who wouldn't be much additional help in a fight. Sailor Thuban had always imagined the most unhelpful sailor senshi would be someone like Charys, who answered text phone messages in the middle of a patrol, but now he felt like a bit of an a** for thinking ill of his best friend -- Sailor Nerissa was definitely useful in a fight, however much she liked to pretend otherwise. And he didn't mind the text messengering so much.
And then a woman had been killed. He didn't want to think too much about that.
And then Tanzanite had tried to kill them again, and nearly succeeded. Thuban had only managed to drag Atlas out of the fray and get them to safety, leaving Tanzanite to -- to do God only knew what. It bothered him to speculate about. Maybe plant a bomb. He'd find a payphone, not that many of those existed anymore, and call 911 to warn them, just in case. At least that would be something.
And now Atlas was -- was --
"Are you crying?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 9:37 am
He was crying. It was very quiet, and if Thuban hadn't been looking at him it could have been interpreted as him trying to catch and steady his breath, but -- there he was, drawn up into a tight ball on the floor, weeping. One of his hands had nudged his circlet out of place as he pushed it, somewhat shakily, through his hair. If he did this sort of thing often (and it was easy to assume he probably did) it did a lot to explain why his hair had such an unkempt look to it.
Atlas felt guilty, useless and ashamed of himself -- feelings that ran deep, and now he felt terribly exposed, as he unraveled further in front of another person he really didn't know at all about besides his name. He wanted to go... he wanted to go back to his dorm at Hillworth, at least there his roommates took the courtesy of pretending to ignore him, most of the time.
"I..." he tried, and ultimately failed with, voice gumming up to uselessness under his shaky breaths. This was probably going to take a little while.
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:12 am
Thuban had no earthly idea what to do now. His instincts were stop crying this instant!, or, worse, just spit it out!, but even he had enough tact to know that these were both terrible ideas. Charlie was not a comforting person and never had been; he had a gruff, negative bedside manner and a tendency towards criticism. These things left him unprepared to handle a crying person, even when the reason for tears was fairly understandable: they'd just seen someone killed. Thuban wanted to cry a little himself -- but instead he stood by and wondered what he was supposed to say to the other boy.
Finally, seeing that Atlas didn't plan to continue speaking right away, Sailor Thuban shifted down into his regular clothes -- in this case, a red and white Meadowview tracksuit which was cozy and comfortable. "My name's Charlie Boyle," he said, digging his hands into his pockets. "I go to Meadowview." This likely did nothing whatsoever to reduce Sailor Atlas's flow of tears, but at least it meant Charlie didn't have to stand there ineffectually.
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:31 am
At least he was able to stop eventually. Atlas's cheeks were shiny and slick with moisture, and it only smeared over his face further when he ran the back of his hand over it for the umpteenth time. His gloves had gotten damp from repeated instances of wiping his eyes.
A good cry was supposed to be a cathartic experience, a way to lift away a bit of an emotional burden. Atlas really didn't feel much better at all. He still felt weighed down by the scene Thuban had dragged him away from, and now he felt awkward on top of it thanks to how he'd subjected the other boy to watching him coil up on the ground and weep for however long he'd been at it. His eyes were canted to the side, avoiding the other's gaze even as he was introducing himself.
Eventually, still sitting on the ground, his fuku gave way to his own civilian gear: he had the green plaid pants and black sweater-vest trademark of a Hillworth student, all looking jarringly more tidy than the boy wearing them. His glasses had reappeared on his face; their condition telling stories of being broken and cheaply repaired with tape on more than one occasion. "S-s-simon F-ferris," he replied, voice worn and melancholy. It had been a long night, he was tired.
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Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 11:32 am
For the second time that day, Charlie Boyle extended his outstretched hand to Simon Ferris -- this time to help him to his feet. The gesture was reluctantly accepted, which soon left Simon and Charlie standing across from each other, hands clasped, with not a great deal to say to one another. Simon was still a good deal taller than he was, Charlie noticed, even outside of their sailor soldier uniforms. They stood by for a few moments in awkward silence, till Charlie thought to zip up the jacket of his tracksuit against the cold. His arm was bleeding again now, with no cloak to staunch it -- just as well, then, that Meadowview had red in its school colors. "Well, Simon Ferris," Charlie blurted finally, the picture of social graces, "you owe me a flashlight and a crowbar." - {fin} -
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