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 Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2022 12:53 am
"She took a personal interest in me," Kerberos elaborated, flatly. If this General--Faustite--knew Schörl, he suspected that Faustite would be able to guess that it wasn't a pleasant personal interest. Probably he had already guessed, since Kerberos had named her specifically as the reason for his defection.
"True enough, though. The protection my planet grants....it's protection for the soul, not entirely for the body." And even then, there had been the incident with Chaos on his world, and how it had reverberated down the bond...But that was something Kerberos definitely did not want to talk about with a General of the Negaverse.
"Anyway, it's good to meet you, Faustite. The question I actually wanted answered, though, was: how did you come to be in the Negaverse?" It was always an important step, as far as he was concerned, to hear the beginjing of a story. What, or who, had made Faustite into Faustite, the very first time
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2022 2:32 pm
Strange to meet someone else that survived Schörl's personal interests. As far as he knew, the rest of her team vanished with her — thus there remained only Chrysocolla, himself, and now this one who had caught her eye. But why this one? What did he do to earn that kind of attention from her? And how had he survived it?
Faustite had begun to pace, whether he realized it or not. As he chased his thoughts, he became more and more certain that Kerberos had little to do with the disappearance of Schorl's team, between his explanations and the glowing marks over his body. It took time to earn such marks; perhaps he could have left and earned them at some point between Schörl's disappearance and now, but it wasn't truly worth grilling him, even if he was at fault. Truly, he would've done Faustite a favor.
That Kerberos conceded his point without sass earned a look. It lasted for a second, then two, then his attention meandered once more with the rest of him.
And the question he asked was just as strange as the entire conversation. How he came to be in the Negaverse was of little import to anyone — most hadn't bothered to ask about it. Trey was the only one. There must be a trick to this, he thought.
"Was conscripted. Wrong place, wrong time. What does that have to do with anything?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:03 am
"It has everything to do with everything," Kerberos said. "How these things start...they matter. It's not the be all end all, obviously, since I chose the Negaverse and ended up very much regretting that decision, and you look like you're thriving there, but beginnings make foundations, and I like to understand where people are coming from."
For a certain value of thriving. Faustite was half-youma, yes, but nothing about his bearing suggested a deep, abiding misery that Kerberos would find easy to pick apart. Whatever hurts he had that Chaos fed on, that Schörl had seen and wanted to pick apart, they were buried deep. At least in front of an enemy.
"Was it Schörl, who brought you in? I was never really familiar with her recruitment practices, but she seemed the type to not shy away from forced conscriptions."
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2022 5:57 pm
Faustite stared at him. He'd thought, initially, that this one was none too bright — surely he proved that by defecting to the White Moon, and telling a Negaverse General about it. But that was a no-common-sense type of stupid, which was an epidemic in their enemy. He hadn't expected this one to be ignorant enough to call it forced conscription. Surely that was no different from tuna fish, or ATM machine.
Faustite held his tongue on that one. He held his tongue on pointing out that Kerberos undermined his own argument for beginnings. Faustite knew he would pay the price for holding his tongue, in the form of overheating himself later, but that was Future-Faustite's problem.
"No," he answered as he doubled back on his pacing. He knew he should leave this one alone, but his stupidity was vast, and he was willing to talk. For that lack of sense, he'd bank on the boy slipping a few identities without realizing it. And if he was so chatty, he'd have a few connections he could avail to the Negaverse. They could turn him into a battery afterward, once they squeezed out what they could of his contacts.
This boy was a ******** dipshit. And he was cute. And that was disastrous to Faustite's efficiency.
"Was transferred to Schörl. Started with Umber. Different kinds of cruel. Who was yours?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2023 2:08 am
Kerberos nodded, idly. Interesting, that; Umber wasn't a name he immediately recognized, but perhaps if he thought about it he'd jog a memory around. Or perhaps it was before or after his time--it was always hard ot guess those things, since his stay in the Negaverse had been brutish but, in the grand scheme, relatively short.
"Zinkenite corrupted me. I went searching for answers, and I found them, and I thought I knew what I was getting into. I got assigned to Avalon, for a while, and she really believed in me, helped me flourish and all that lovely garbage, but when she purified, I ended up at loose ends."
A wry, bitter smile crossed his face.
"I wasn't even strictly under Schörl, just happened to also be Special Operations. But the direct chain of command never stopped her. Not when there was cruelty to be done and authority to enforce." He rolled his eyes, as if being sarcastically unimpressed with her now would undo the hurt and panic from back then.
It didn't, but it made him briefly feel better.
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Posted: Mon Jan 16, 2023 7:02 pm
Avalon. There was a name that sounded nothing like a mineral. Perhaps she was a senshi, then. One that went the way of Nectaris, likely leaving behind a whole slew of senshi and agents that then had to be reassigned, as if that would erase the demoralizing effect of their CO abandoning the Negaverse. Still worth investigating, seeing if she had anything to do with other Negaverse officers leaving the corps.
He hadn't met or heard of Zinkenite either, but knew well enough for that to be a Sovereign if they brought Kerberos into the fold. Another one that might've gone AWOL.
Faustite scoffed at Kerberos's comment. "Nothing did." She wouldn't yield to anything, unless 'anything' was completely mindless and had a gun. Neither rank nor raw power ever fazed her, not even injury or threat of death. It was all a game to her, and she was always looking for ways to get something out of it for herself. Strange and unsettling that he would run into more of her victims, though he had to admit it was paradoxically satisfying to see that one of them went so far as to spite her by branding himself an enemy of the Negaverse. She'd only ever aimed for efficient little officers, devoted to the cause.
"Careful how you speak of her," Faustite warned, though more for his own well-learned fear than any real threat to Kerberos. "Wouldn't want her catching wind of a good little soldier gone rogue. Shudder to think what she'd do to you, now."
It was enough for one visit. Faustite spared him a last enigmatic look before there was no more Kerberos, there was no more bench, there was no more forest. He was back in the drab trappings of his office, where combing the Database would claim his time in the hours to come.
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