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 Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 5:02 pm
Okay. it had been amusing and a bit frustrating to talk for awhile but Serandite was just sick and tired of talking. How many warning had she given them? Hell, she had even spelled it out for them and they had only gotten a fraction of it. And she didn't even get good reactions for her snide comments! (Argh, so frustrating!)
"The negaverse isn't exactly known for it's kindness if you get my drift." She said irritably, eyebrows creasing into a dark frown. Ordinarily, Serandite might take amusement in Atlas's fear but she didn't. His wimpyness annoyed her. SO BAD. "Do you know how insulting you're being by trying to pull this peaceful nonsense on me?! We're enemies!" She pointed a finger at the two senshi before her, an angry note in her tone. "Doesn't the senshi handbook tell you to have to fight negaverse? Treat your opponent with respect and fight!" Serandite was vastly irritated. You don't sign up to be a senshi and NOT fight. They were supposed to fight so they needed to deal with it. You dont simply shy from your duties and run.
Without any more warnings, she lifted her small bunny above her head and jumped forward, her bunny enlarged itself and could be seen in the air, attempting to jump on the cowering Atlas and Virgo, trying to squash them into the ground.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 5:30 pm
She had turned to look at Atlas, olive-green eyes searching his face and evidently finding something because she had grabbed his wrist and was moving towards Serandite--towards the mouth of the alleyway--kittens still trying to pounce on the back bow of her dress.
Virgo stared at the leaping bunny and yanked on Atlas's arm, just clearing the landing bunny rabbit. She'd pulled them in the wrong direction, further into the alleyway, and the bunny was... really, really big. Oh, if she hadn't screwed around and had just left, they wouldn't be having to fight off a giant bunny stuffy, would they? Poor Atlas.
That made him her responsibility, right?
That last attack was too close. She wouldn't be fast enough to do that again, that was for sure; she'd almost fallen over pulling Atlas back. "Virgo Immaculate Reflection," she said, and the green glow that surrounded her bled away, strengthening the light around the other senshi, but otherwise appeared to do nothing. Virgo looked... almost terrified, whey-faced and worried. Hero would be so mad, but this was her fault and she had to fix it, right?
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 7:18 pm
Well, first time wasn't always the charm. A kitten too near to the attack hat it's tail and fur up on ends, hissing at the giant bunny, threatning to scratch it. Serandite took a step back, the bunny following, to gain some distance between Loppy (the bunny) and the kitten.
"Virgo Immaculate Reflection!"
. . . . . .
UH. OKAY. She prepared herself for a painful attack as Virgo said her attack out load-- but several dumbfounded moments passed by between the three. Nobody seemed to know what to say. Uh.. What exactly had that attack done? Nothing. Serandite had no experience with what she would label as "support senshi" in the past. But she did know this. That attack had seemingly done jack s**t.
She opened her hands, bringing them together like a clap-- her bunny following-- attempting to trap and squash the senshi on the other end of the alleyway like catching a fly with both hands.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 7:35 pm
By this point Atlas had entered his fight-or-flight mode, which was really a grossly inaccurate way to describe his psychological state right then in there. Because Simon Ferris didn't really have a fight-or-flight mode, hadn't for many years. The concept had been crushed out of his mind a long time ago and now, he only had a surrender mode. That's what he was doing now, really, surrendering before the fight even started.
He lived on the hope that if he was quiet, if he made himself as small as invisible as possible, maybe it would end faster. Maybe he wouldn't get hurt as much.
Virgo grabbed him, he stumbled in the direction he was being pulled, he was bathed in green light and then they were cornered. Stuffed animals were meant to be a thing of comfort, not a thing of terror. Stuffed animals were also not supposed to be exaggeratedly large and mobile.
It was all so strange, and he was so petrified, he wasn't even able to wonder why he wasn't hurting when he was first slammed into the back wall.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 7:47 pm
The point and purpose of Immaculate Reflection became very, very clear when--although she, and her duckling trail of kittens, made it out of the way of the monstrous stuffed animal--she inhaled, sharply hissing as one arm went up to touch her shoulder. The shoulder Atlas had taken his hit on most harshly, in an odd turn of events. It could be passed off as nothing, except... Except, well, she was acting now like the other senshi should have been.
She hadn't even come near being hit by the giant bunny.
Virgo, rubbing the back of her head now, looked up to smile at Atlas. "You'll be okay," she said, kittens playing around her feet. But now she was dazed, and tears were leaking out of her eyes. Virgo didn't deal well with pain at all.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:03 pm
Atlas felt nothing. Instead, even as Serandite's magically charged weapon swung at him again, he heard a hiss of pain where he should have made one. Not from him, but to his right. From Virgo. She was -- she was clutching at the shoulder he should have been clutching at, and --
What was going on?
He thought for a fleeting, vain moment that maybe the assault wasn't hurting him because his assaulter was made from felt and fluff and fuzz. Large and mobile as it was, it was still a stuffed animal, and having one thrown at you didn't usually hurt too much. But that didn't make all of the pieces fall into place just right, more still stuck out in the form of Virgo reassuring him, crying, as Atlas took another hit he didn't feel.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 8:20 pm
Hit Atlas. Check. Hit Virgo. Not check. Have Atlas injured. Check-- Wait. Not check. Why was Virgo acting injured? She didn't hit Virgo--? Serandite scratched her head for a moment in confusion, her bunny abandoning the senshi for a moment to do the same. it was a pretty humorous sight.
Oh. Oh, that's how it was. Aha.
She ceased hitting them to step forward, walking past Atlas. Oh. Walked past Atlas. Yep. She stood in front of Virgo, taking Virgo painfully by the write. "Taking the attack for others? Is that what your wimpy senshi powers do?" She looked over Virgo's injured form with distaste.
"I hate senshi like you. You think sacrificing yourself is going to make your comrades any happier? That's just selfish." She threw Virgo at Atlas in dismissal, stepping back as if to resume the battle. "But if you take the hits, no problem for me since that'll make your starseed all that much easier to steal." She lifted her hand up slowly, as if getting ready for another attack.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 9:00 pm
Virgo was dazed, dizzy, but standing of her own will. Still, she seemed surprised when the pretty Negaverse agent grabbed her wrist. Her eyes--she was still crying--were riveted on the hand wrapped around her limb. She might not have even been listening, but then--
"Is that all your wimpy senshi powers do?"
That brought her back from whatever happy fairytale land was living in her head. She stared at Serandite, now, processing each word. Wimpy. Wimpy meant weak, worthless, and Virgo knew that Serandite was right. This was how it had always ended in Barren Pines, helpless and injured. Virgo never came out of a fight physically on top, not alone. Fallon had bitten her, concussed her; Grayson had tried to eat her. She would have articulated it, but something said no.
Virgo collided with the wall near Atlas with a soft cry; her head snapped back into the wall as something went crunch under her heel. It was glass. Who left glass bottles in alleyways? She could smell blood, which wasn't good. But it didn't matter, right? She was weak and useless.
She got up again anyway. How much longer did her attack last? Long enough for Atlas to get away, she hoped.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 9:55 pm
The sick answer to the mystery clicked into place even as Serandite was voicing it to herself. Virgo was... her attack...
"No..."
He was free to slide back down the wall when the bunny released him (the wall was brick, it must be scraping her back terribly) and for that moment he screwed his eyes shut, shoulders hunched, gritting his teeth. Atlas was shaking like a leaf, could hardly breathe straight. He didn't want to believe this. But as Virgo smacked into the wall next to him, and his eyes peeled open to look at her, crying, battered even though she had only been touched once... there was no way he couldn't.
He'd always hid, always shrank into the wall against violence, and that had worked for him. Usually.
But that was when he had been the only person around who could get hurt.
Here, now, he was only allowing the hurt to get passed along to someone else who didn't deserve it. He didn't even know her, and there she was, suffering because he couldn't defend himself. Couldn't defend her, them. He was afraid, always was, probably always would be -- but it wasn't fair, wasn't right to allow his fear to get someone else beaten up like this.
Atlas released the breath he was holding, took in another, as Serandite raised her arm to continue her assault. His arms were still shaking as one gingerly took Virgo's hand, and the other raised in front of him, gesturing in the direction of the lieutenant and her overgrown toy.
"F-f-falling Force S-snare!"
It was the most pathetic-sounding attack cry Serandite had ever heard.
But that did not change the fact that it made a terrible weight suddenly press down on the cramped space of the alley. Gravity had decided to be a harsher mistress than usual -- it was pulling on everything twice as hard, making everything twice as heavy.
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Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2009 10:10 pm
She was still getting up? For being such a weak senshi, she was quite troublesome, Serandite reflected with a grimace. She might have felt bad-- having experienced a similar revelation of just how weak she was at Kunzite's hands. But she had no sympathy for a girl whose purpose was to sacrifice herself -- taking the injuries of others. Whether she had chosen that sort of power or not, it didn't matter.
Both of them disgusted her. Atlas was no better than Virgo, in his weak personality that allowed Virgo to take the hits. Hell, he should be taking his own hits for himself. She was about to deliver what seemed to be the final blow-- until she felt this falling sensation.
It was as if she was falling off a cliff. Her motions stopped unsteadily, taking a few stumbles back. Sort of like when an elevator started to travel upwards. But what followed after was the incredibly heavy weight that forced her to fall down to the ground. Her bunny fell down in a mimicking manner. She couldn't even.. lift her arm. She struggled to but her body refused to listen.
Atlas. Did his attack affect just her body or.. Serandite tried to make sense of this strange attack. "Falling force." The phrase implied.. gravity? Damnit-- how did such a weak senshi have such a power? Serandite didn't have time to ponder that, obviously struggling to get up as if a 100 pound sack of kittens were on her back. Her slim and light frame took it more harshly than some others, wincing as her lovely kimono met the dirty ground of the alleyway. DAMNIT. HER HAIR. AND KIMONO.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 12:55 am
Whoa. What was happening?
Someone was holding her hand. Well, someone had picked it up, as Virgo was still trying to put her head on right and get up off the floor of the alley. The hand Atlas was holding was bloody; she looked at it and turned even whiter than before, a shade that looked rather odd with her olive-toned skin. She flexed her hand, pulled herself off the ground, and stared at Serandite. Come to think of it, everything did feel really heavy...
Virgo was panicking. If Atlas had been panicking before, Virgo was getting ready to have full-on hysterics, full-body shivers and possibly some fainting, too. She was bleeding. There was blood. It was all over her hand, staining her glove. Where she had been breathing normally, you know, for being slammed against a wall two or three times, now she was practically hyperventilating. As she stared in horror at her hand, the green glow slid back over to Virgo. Her attack, such as it was, was over, and she was pretty ready for a long nap.
And also for not trying to push herself back up with her hand on a broken bottle.
"We should go," said Virgo. As fast as she was breathing, her words came out pretty slow.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 10:01 am
Atlas's nerves were sparking over, making his breath stagger, he was trembling down to his very core. Even when his attack pulled Serandite and her weapon to the ground, he was still frantic, his heart was still racing, and Virgo -- there was a strained, horrified whine as he it dawned on him she'd been caught in the radius of his attack. He'd gone and let her get hurt even more.
The force of the gravity well he'd created had effectively shoved her hand straight into a pile of broken glass. She was bleeding, was taking her breath in heavy, desperate gulps. Virgo was every bit as horrified as Atlas was.
"C-c-come on..."
He knelt down next to the other senshi, and with a bit of coaxing he'd hoisted her up on his back, her delicate arms wrapping over his shoulders. She was getting her blood on his collar, over the golden apple clasping his tie together and onto his shirt. He tried not to think about it. The little entourage of cats followed suit, clambering up on the space their shoulders provided.
His gravity trap had given them a little less than half a minute to get away -- he had no idea how he knew this, the fact just came alongside him using it -- and so, he leapt up onto the rooftop Serandite had jumped down from, and started running.
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:23 am
You know what? The one thing Serandite had learned to tolerate -- just a little-- was failures. Sure, the General-King wasn't going to appreciate it but how would he know she let two senshi get away? She got a taste of failure the first time with Pegasus and Flora. It hadnt stung as much as Kunzite. But this.. Well, she couldn't always win. It was almost a normal feeling. Wow, that wasn't good.
HER KIMONO WAS DIRTY. The main point here. She was dirty and grimy from being on the ground, something that Serandite despised. She was going home to take a shower now. It's not like she wouldn't ever run into those senshi again. She would hunt them out if she had to. Just uh.. not now. She hoped they made it easier for her by staying in a pair.
Hm. Atlas and Virgo. Wasn't Virgo a zodiac name? Was that supposed to have.. some sort of meaning? Serandite stood up unsteadily, scratching her head. Her bunny returned to it's normal size and disappeared. No time to ponder that. Showertime.
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