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 Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 5:00 pm
And now Kent just felt like a jerk.
Of course he wasn't the only one who was upset about Tara. He knew that from talking to some of her friends. And because it was blindingly obvious when he bothered to look past his own tiny world. Her absence was a yawning void, and he was far from the only person to have fallen into it.
The necessary course of action was to apologize. And he might have done that, if Zia had stopped talking. But she didn't, and Kent found himself frowning, first in concern, then in disapproval, as the anger flared up again. "So that's it? You're done?"
He didn't really know what the nature of their relationship was- maybe they were just casual acquaintances- but he hated the thought of Tara being tossed aside because she wasn't convenient anymore. "Just because you couldn't help, you think it's all over? You tried, it didn't work, oh well? To hell with that!"
Then she turned, and Kent wondered if there was something about him that made everyone want to run away. Or use him as a punching bag. Which had already happened that evening.
"If you really want to help, don't stop trying! Tell me something I can use, or go talk to her, or something! Don't just run away!"
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 6:29 pm
Noah was still not sure what the ******** he should do. Zia ran past him, and he made an attempt to catch her arm that resulted in her cowering and holding her own head again as she tried to get away. But Kent was yelling, and she was fighting her.
"Can both of you calm the ******** down?" He asked as he body swung around and he grabbed on to both of her arms.
"Let the ******** go, Noah!" Zia broke into a screech and nearly spat in his face. He had to wrap his arms around her to keep her from clawing his eyes out and at one point both legs kicked up as she was lifted off the ground in the ******** you too, Kent!" He wanted fangs badly enough, she decided, since he wouldn't stop talking about things she felt like he didn't have a right to pretend he was any authority on. Which was wrong, she would realize later when she was calmer. He was Tara's brother and he cared but right now she felt on the defensive and he was an ignorant outsider who couldn't possibly ******** all of you, you don't get it. You don't have any idea what it's like, you're all ignorant ******** babies! You think I wouldn't be there if I wasn't s-... ss-stuck on this ******** rock?! You go get her, you're the one with any ******** power you pathetic piece of s**t!" Her screeching and yelling was halted only by the sobs fighting with her throat for air and the occupation of the struggle with a very confused Noah.
"Zee... if you know where his sister is why don't you jus--"
"I don't ******** know where she is, she ran away because I'm too defective to have any answers!" Zia screamed back, straining her lungs. "Y-you... you two ******** are the ones with the power to actually leave this shithole of a planet! Let go of me!"
Done with struggling, she shapeshifted down to a cat and bit a chunk of skin from his arm, finally released and able to jump away. The large cat stopped, and to prevent further assault or containment, blasted a beam of energy at Noah, who instantly collapsed and grabbed his face as the muscles painfully ********! Zee! That s**t hurts!" He bellowed, but she shifted back up to a cat girl, her had preoccupied with the scar tissue on her chest as usual when she was distraught and had lost her grip. "Sorry," She said to Kent again, but she spat the word.
She didn't know what else to say. She was tired, she had lost her mind, and Noah was currently on the ground trying to one up her in swears for the night. She shifted back down to her full feline form, and ran off into the night, unable to be ********!" Noah was more preoccupied with the intense pain in his face and gushing arm wound.
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 7:18 pm
As angry and ineloquent as he was, Kent wasn't sure how he'd let things get quite this out of hand. He'd never called Zia defective, didn't know her well enough to make that sort of claim. All he could see was someone who had the ability to help and chose not to, for reasons he couldn't even try to understand.
What was she even babbling about? Beyond the swearing, which he just tuned out, her words were bizarre. Her actions moreso, because suddenly she was a cat and there was a light show and Kent lost what ability he had to form coherent sentences.
"What the ********!?" Promise or no promise, he was starting to think this was all the result of a little too much to drink. Not that he could remember having anything other than coffee in a couple of days, but maybe it was a caffeine-based hallucination. That was a thing, right?
He didn't even try to chase Zia down this time, because she was a cat, or doing an excellent impression of one, and all he could do was stare. It took him several moments to shut his gaping mouth and look at Noah, wanting to ask if he'd imagined all that but not sure how to do it without sounding like a maniac.
The wound made him pause, then rifle through his pockets. There was a bandanna in one of them, a typical red and black design, and he offered it to Noah. "Here. I wrap it around coffee cups sometimes, to keep them warmer longer." And to save his hands from burning, but it wasn't manly to admit that. "It's clean."
Don't ask about the cat, he told himself sharply. Don't ask about the cat, don't ask-
"So, uh, what just happened there? Was that a cat?"
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 8:40 pm
Noah was still clutching his face, trying desperately to force his muscles to let him open his eyes, which of course only made it hurt more.
Eventually he managed enough sight to look up and grab the bandanna for his arm, and after some rolling and muttering, get up. The energy blast had left some ugly red on his skin, though. He was more preoccupied with his injuries than anything else, and so there was no time to tease Kent about his specifically specific excuse for having a bandanna in his pocket that otherwise would not have been questioned.
"Thanks," He grumbled, tying it up.
He didn't even look up from his work on it when Kent asked about the cat and just shrugged passively as if it were mundane. "Some kind of mirror-world s**t. Someone put a-- I uh... It was described to me as a parasite starseed in her body to keep it alive and since it was a guardian cat soul uh... anyway."
He tightened the bandanna with his teeth,thinking a little pressure would stop the bleeding.
"I should've known better and let her go but I guess I panicked when she started fighting me."
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Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2015 11:29 pm
The cut looked bad enough, but Noah's face looked worse. Like a really bad, really localized sunburn. There was nothing in his pockets to help with that. All he could do was try to keep his expression neutral, to keep Noah from worrying about it. And be grateful he'd gotten off with a punch in the face.
It was, however, really hard to keep a neutral expression when none of this made any sense.
Kent checked his mental vocabulary list. 'Mirror-world' wasn't on it. Ditto for 'guardian cat.' And while he vaguely recalled hearing the term 'starseed' before, he had zero idea what it was supposed to mean. The whole thing seemed like a word salad, but it clearly made sense to Noah, which just made him feel even more out of the loop than before.
"If I apologize for flying off the handle, do you think we could try that again in English?" Even with confusion reigning supreme, he knew he hadn't handled the situation in a respectful or even grown-up manner. And it bothered him that he'd found some relief, however slight, in yelling at someone else. That did not bode well at all.
So, a serious apology. "I'm sorry for going at her like that. I didn't realize she was your sister, and it just feels like everyone's only feeding me what they think I need to know, and nobody's helping, and-" And just talking about it was making him mad again, so he cut that thought off and took a deep breath. "Anyway, I'm sorry for losing it."
But not for what he said. Nothing Zia had told him made him think that she was doing right by his sister, and he was still furious about that.
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Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:27 pm
"Uuuh..." Noah just kind of shut down for a second, at first a bit irritated no one had been picking up the slack in Kentducation, but also kind of baffled about how to compress all of the knowledge into one statement.
Senshi and knight drama was for beginners. Zia's situation was kind of advanced class stuff.
"So... senshi get their powers turned on by these shapshifting aliens that mostly spend their time running around as housecats. Sort of. They have stars and moons on their forehead marking them. They can turn into people with the cat ears and tails.
"Your starseed is basically your soul? In your chest. And you should probably remember that because those Negaverse guys have the ability to rip it out of you with their bare hands. Zee let someone stick her with an extra starseed, though, and in addition to ******** up her head she's also got the weird alien cat powers."
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Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2015 5:15 pm
"Uh. What?"
If this was the "for dummies" version of events, Kent was in serious trouble. He'd just been patting himself on the back for being able to accept space travel as a possibility. Magical empowering alien housecats were still beyond him. Adding in vampiric villains and a sister whose soul apparently went into some cosmic blender was more than his brain was able to handle.
He tried, though. He stood there quietly for several moments, adding two and two on his fingers until he came up with something that almost resembled four.
"So one of those soul-stealers made her possessed by an alien cat? That is seriously messed-up. And these cat-things go around turning innocent kids into magic soldiers? What the hell, man? What gives them the right to do that?"
Considering that Kent was still struggling with the basic concepts, the fact that he landed anywhere near the right ballpark as impressive. Sort of.
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Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2015 9:09 pm
"I dunno," Noah admitted honestly with a mighty shrug. "I'm still figuring out how to be a knight, I don't have much of a clue about senshi politics."
He sighed and looked down at his wound soaking Kent's bandanna and tried to recover from the stinging in his face with a cringe.
"Well. I'm done for the night," He concluded. "I... uh... my vision is still kind of spotty. Help me home?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 8:12 pm
Even though Kent knew he shouldn't feel relieved that Noah was also kind of clueless, he was. It meant that he didn't have to be some kind of authority on a worldview he could barely accept, much less understand. Not that it was an excuse to stop trying to figure things out, but it meant that it was okay not to have all the answers just yet.
So even though he still had questions galore (what was the difference between knight politics and senshi politics? where did cats fit into the picture? and why did everything seem to revolve around a bunch of kids?), he offered Noah his arm. "Sure, lean on me. And unless you live in the diner, you'll have to give me directions."
This problem, whatever it was, hadn't been created in a single night. It wouldn't be solved in one, either.
Carneli Reminder to change the title label please <3
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