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 Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2010 7:13 pm
Uranophane had noticed the trinkets, and just how many of them there were, the faint light making them an ordered collection of stars in the shadows her adversary was standing in. A human-shaped constellation -- she really had no idea what they might imply or indicate about him, lord knew how the sailor senshi could be festooned with baubles and jewelry of all kinds for seemingly no reason. Sailor Leo had been a trophy accented with half a human face.
"You act almost as if you're ready and willing to talk about anything," the Lieutenant called back. Neither of them had the most smooth or regal of voices: Uranophane's was murky and scratchy, a contralto that trying to claw its way down into the tenor range.
"That's promising. But I think we need to start talking faster."
And then without another word or thought, her hand cleaved way into her hostage's chest -- and stayed in there, fingertips imaginably brushing up against his star seed. She made no move to reach in further or pull her hand back out, just... kept where she was, while the poor man lost his footing and convulsed in her grip.
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Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 8:47 pm
Against the hammering of his heart and the bottom dropping out of his stomach, Alexandros let out a tsk. "That's not the behavior of a person who wants to keep all their blood inside their body," he said, "or organs without holes in them. You know, I don't really enjoy this threatening business. That man in particular," he blinked, "is there some reason you like his starseed better than your life? He's your only bargaining chip, stranger. As I've said. I have a multitude."
He sincerely doubted there was. She was threatening her only bargaining chip to prove that she could, so he didn't get any ideas about using his -- but, if he was right, she wouldn't kill him (at least not on purpose) as long as he was the main thing she had over her opponent. And he wouldn't go after her as long as she had him, or so she probably reasoned, if he could guess at her reasoning -- which he probably could, if she was a reasonable person. This all being contingent on her being a reasonable reasoner in the first place, and ugh, this was getting a bit too Princess Bride for his liking. The man was convulsing. The situation was a bit immediate.
"Bad place to go fishing around in there," he said cordially. "You never know what kind of infections can crop up. Few too many hours in the OR and it's peritonitis, peritonitis, peritonitis all day long."
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 6:14 pm
At this point Alexandros's Dr. Horrible-wannabe adversary was wearing a s**t-eating grin and blatantly making no effort whatsoever to hide it. Her head was canted forward a little bit, tilted some to the side, as she listened to him talk, talk and talk and talk, talk while not really saying anything. More death threats, more unbackable attempts at intimidation. Uranophane had the look of someone asking him who he thought he was fooling.
"I don't think you're understanding how this is supposed to work," she said, shifting her arms a little bit so they wouldn't go stiff, twisting her hostage's position around a little. "When I suggested you start talking a little faster, I didn't mean that I wanted to hear you say more of the same thing you've been going on about for the past four or five minutes, that's just silly. Let's try this again, change the subject a little."
Another shift, this time to pin down the man's arm. "You know, we've been at this for a little while now. I'm starting to feel bad that I don't even know your name."
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 6:27 pm
Alexandros blinked at her for a moment or two and cursed the patron saint of underestimating the ******** out of your opponent's intelligence -- whoever it was, did he look like some kind of Catholic -- and reassessed the situation, though frankly there wasn't a lot to reassess.
"Touche," he said. "Mea culpa."
That bought him about ten seconds to decide whether or not he wanted to tell her his name. Nearing the end of those ten seconds he couldn't figure out any use for his name that was more generally harmful than ripping out the hostage's starseed. Finding none, he let out an audible sigh that sounded a little more like a hiss through his teeth and said, "Alexandros. My friends call me Alex, but I figured you and I might be better off reserving nicknames for less pointy and hostage-involving circumstances. Charmer like you have a name, or do they number you straight out of the Cauldron?"
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Posted: Wed May 05, 2010 8:53 pm
"There we go, now we're getting somewhere," said Uranophane, her grin glinting in the mostly-darkness. "That wasn't so hard, now was it?"
Her hostage had been making a fair bit of noise beneath the two of them talking, with shoes scraping against the concrete and his throat spasming in a series of disconcerting choking and gasping sounds. He'd become paler, somehow that was noticeable even though the light didn't provide very much in the way of color. It was imaginable that his mind was reeling -- far past the point of his life flashing before his eyes, probably no longer completely aware of where he was or what state he was in.
"Yes, my designation is CCR5 Delta-32. Otherwise known as Uranophane," the girl replied, with a somewhat surprising amount of courtesy given the situation. "Now for the next step: what is your quest? What is your favorite color?"
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Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 9:29 am
Alexandros was a little charmed. It was, by all accounts, the precisely wrong time to be a little charmed, but he supposed that had never stopped him in the past. His eyes floated between the hostage and the hostage-taker, though, and he was thinking. "Uranophane," he said. "If I'm not mistaken that's a uranium compound. Tell me, what baby name book did your parents get that out of?"
The man didn't look to be dying just yet, but he was certainly in shock. It was imperative to determine what it was he had to say to -- Uranophane -- to get her to get her hand out of the poor fellow's chest. It was a decidedly sub-optimal way to hold a conversation, but it was also the greatest protection she had at the moment: in her position, he probably would have done the same.
"Starseeds," he changed the subject. "I've never understood why they're such a hot commodity. Did Nordstrom release them in limited edition?"
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Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 8:32 pm
The lieutenant shook her head, swaying it from side to side in a slow, theatric display of disappointment. If her hands weren't occupied with her hostage, it was easy to imagine that they'd be palm-upward near her shoulders in the classic smug supervillain shrug. As it were, instead she wrung her wrist into the man's chest a bit -- he spasmed a bit, and made an involuntary whining noise.
"You and hostage negotiations are like oil and water, aren't they?" she asked in her scratchy, pressed voice. "You're handling this all wrong, so let me educate: the next thing that comes out of your mouth that's an attempt at dodging my questions or stalling me with your charisma, I rip out this man's star seed." Uranophane wiggled her hand again, as if to emphasize. "So start talking. Who do you serve? What's your mission?"
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Posted: Fri May 28, 2010 12:47 pm
He'd made the first mistake of hostage negotiations, hadn't he -- making it obvious he cared about the hostage. Helen might've just strode forward and attacked the girl, pen and clipboard be damned: and maybe her enemy would've thrown the hostage aside, fearful of further angering someone enough set on murdering her as it was. Or the girl might've held her ground and killed the man, as she promised. But either way more violence would be happening at this particular moment.
Too damned cautious, Alex. Always too damned cautious.
"I'm a Cavalier," he said shortly. "I'm in the service of myself -- the best kind, I find. I was on the mission of going from that side of the construction site to this other one until I encountered you. Yourself, CCR5 Delta-32?"
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