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 Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:50 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:54 pm
Solo Writing in his journal was no longer an option for Parker. It was a liability, a risk. For a time, he considered writing up some kind of code that only he could decipher, but that too seemed like an unnecessary risk. It would be foolish to think that no one would be able to crack it. And if they did? They would find out that he was Sailor Taranis. They would learn that his girlfriend was Sailor Magellan. They could learn any number of things that could end up with him getting killed. The Proletariat Provost, his beloved blog, had gone without an update for an entire month. He stopped logging into the account after reading the first few messages a week after his absence. Some called him a coward for quitting. Others wanted to know if he was arrested, or dead. The latter made him laugh. Did they expect him to read messages six feet under? At first, he thought about taking the blog in a new direction, one that supported the sailor senshi and garnered support for them. He still hadn't ruled that out. The problem was finding the time. All day, Parker went to school. Some days, he got saddled with detention or yard duty, as was typical of his position at Hillworth, and other days, he had a precious few hours of free time. This was usually spent down in East Heights hanging out in his apartment. The little gray kitten was fattening up nicely. He hadn't named it yet. A name was an important thing, and Parker wanted to dub the kitten something appropriate. Aristotle had come up. Copernicus. Einstein. Locke. Rousseau. There were plenty of options to consider. If he didn't go out to eat with Dani or Tate, he'd come back to Hillworth to nap until 9:00PM unless he had to report to GeekSquad. Jaimie would usually be milling about the room toward lights out. He'd feed the blond boy some excuse about sneaking out to see Dani and would be off of Hillworth's grounds by 10:00PM. Then it was patrolling until the wee hours of the morning. For a boy who scoffed at anything that wasn't perfectly erudite or logical, Parker loved parading around at night as a tiara'd hero. He was getting much better at his work, he was fitter, he was more confident. Becoming a senshi had done wonders for his self-esteem and even better things for his general disposition. Parker would always be a negative guy, but now he believed in good -- truly believed in it. And he believed it was his mission to help that good survive. What he hadn't counted on were the side effects. Parker was tired all of the time. He slept through classes. He was tasked with extra credit in almost every subject just so he could pass and graduate on time. His lack of sleep made him grumpy, his cheeks sunken. Yet whenever the moon rose in the sky, Parker felt compelled to rise with it, an addict to the moonlight, to the power. He never expected to feel so euphoric, so invincible. Even when he got his a** kicked, Parker returned home satisfied. He was special. He was unique. He was the ******** master of his own universe. At least, this is what Parker believed. Some of the administrators were convinced he had developed a drug habit. His sudden streak of spending time with one Dylan Rasmussen did little to dispel the rumor. And maybe it wasn't a rumor. Fighting crime was Parker's drug, and he imbibed nightly. As addicted as he was to Dani, he was just as addicted to Sailor Taranis. Sometimes, it scared him. He felt powerless to slow down, or stop. Even when his limbs shook, weak from overexertion, Parker could not spend a night without donning his fuku. Out of necessity, some nights he only patrolled for an hour or two, but that still cut into his sleep schedule. He chugged coffee and slammed caffeine like his life depended on it. Parker used his body like it wasn't worth preserving for old age. And maybe it wasn't? He could die any day. Any day. This wasn't the same as his philosophical ramblings about how death was a cruel mistress that could and would kill everyone, innocent or evil, rich or poor. By awakening as a senshi, Parker had increased the odds of his own death exponentially. So why wasn't he more afraid? These were things he would have written about in his journal, but he couldn't. That privacy wasn't private enough. The only solace Parker could find for his thoughts would just have to be in his head. That would have to be enough.
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:55 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:05 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:59 pm
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Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 8:15 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 8:16 am
Solo Parker had been in trouble frequently at Hillworth. 'Frequently' was probably an understatement. All the ******** time was much more accurate. The first day he moved in, his roommate stole all the headphones from the meager computer lab and hid them in the closet of their bedroom. When the administrators did a random room check, they found them there, stashed inside of the luggage that Parker Damhnait had used to move the few things he owned into the school. He was in detention that same day, and before he even got the chance to prove himself, he was labeled a ‘troublemaker.’ That label never had quite come off. Now, with his nightly senshi patrolling slowly turning him comatose during the school day, administration had another reason to be worried. He asked to go to the nurse all the time, but would just pass out on the stiff cot for the rest of the day. He skipped lunch to nap. He used bags of mulch as pillows during physical education. When it earned him detention, he said nothing. Detention meant nap time now. Hillworth Administration was very concerned. It was the school nurse who said something first, asking that they keep an eye on him. Then his hated history teacher stepped in to point out the multitude of offensive essays he had handed in recently. One by one, all of his teachers agreed that there was something wrong, and that they knew what it was. They called a meeting and gave Parker three days notice. At the time, he didn’t worry about it. He was probably just being evaluated before graduation. They did that from time to time with behavior problems, but as he pushed through the heavy door into the front office on the assigned day, Parker felt a lump rise in his throat. The secretary behind the desk eyed him warily and then waved him inside. In the next room, there was a chair for him. On the other side of the room, there was a table with his principal, his history teacher, and the school nurse. The principal smiled, but Parker did not feel comfortable. “Mr. Dammit, please have a seat.” “ Dev-NAHT,” he corrected, slumping into the chair. “It’s not dammit, as in: dammit, this is a waste of my time.” The principal stiffened. Parker added, “For example.” It wasn’t like him to be openly disrespectful, but he was tired. He was always tired. No need to spare them from his irritation. The principal steepled tense hands in front of a crisp suit jacket. “Okay, Parker. We’re here to talk about certain developments in your life, developments that we find a little concerning.” The nurse nodded, eyes wide. Parker waited, but they said nothing. He propped an elbow on the arms of the chair and laced his fingers together. “Well,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “don’t leave me in suspense. I’m sure you all have much better things to do to serve this fine institution than talk to the likes of a terribly irresponsible troublemaker like me.” There was no smile in his voice, or on his face. After failing to get into college, Parker decided that it was all Hillworth’s fault. Being a senshi was more important to him than school now too. So what could they do to him? They thought he was a smug a** who raised hell at the school. Maybe he should give them a taste of the person they thought he was? The principal frowned, but the history teacher snapped into action. A clenched fist slammed a clear hard plastic cup on to the table. “You’re on drugs, Dammit, and we all know it. Now piss in the cup.” The nurse looked shocked. Parker stared at the cup. Then the nurse. Then the history teacher. Then the principal. He addressed the latter, “Excuse me, do you know what the process is for filing sexual harassment charges against an instructor?” He flickered his eyes to the history teacher. “One of my noble teachers has just demanded that I perform a lewd act.” All three administrators began to speak at once, but it was the nurse who won the battle for verbal dominance. “Parker, just go in the cup, and then this’ll be over, okay?” Parker bickered back and forth with them. He demanded to see the documentation that said they could force a drug test on him. He accused the principal of profiling him for being intelligent and uninterested in the mindlessness of the school. He said that he would do it only if the three of them did it too. (This made the history teacher look away, Parker noted.) In the end, the principal threatened that if he didn’t pee in that cup in the next five minutes he would be repeating his senior year. So Parker peed in the cup. The principal explained that it would take a day or two for the urine sample to be fully tested. If he was found with drugs in his system, he would be remanded to a rehabilitation facility. Parker narrowed his eyes. “My father is a ******** drug addict,” he spat. The nurse bristled at his language. “You know that, you’ve read the damn file, as you’ve so kindly mentioned a thousand times. So do you have any idea what you are accusing me of?” His cheeks burned red. Parker would not accept being compared to his father, could not. The principal fixed him with a serious look. “Parker, studies show that the children of addicts are statistically more likely--” His words were deafened by the sudden squeaking of Parker’s chair against the floor. Parker was done talking. He was done listening too. He was ******** tired, and they had just crossed a line so deep it was racing the Mariana Trench for world records. They had his piss. Let them do what they wanted with it. The nurse looked worried. The history teacher started to stand, but the principal reached out a hand and stopped anyone from chasing after Parker. “Let him go,” the principal said. Then to the nurse, “Run the test. I want the results ASAP.” The little cup of urine was passed her way. Parker Damhnait was not on drugs. At least not the kind that a urine test would detect. They would learn that soon enough. And then what? Would they keep searching for skeletons in his closet? Parker refused to think about it, not then. He was blinded by rage and too weary to do anything but collapse in his bed and drift off to sleep.
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Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 10:27 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 10:29 am
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Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2010 8:42 am
Solo It had been one week since his Hillworth tribunal over their drug concerns. The test came back and -- surprise, surprise -- confirmed that Parker was not using drugs of any kind. He politely requested that they all take tests too now, as an apology to him. The principal told him that was inappropriate. The nurse blushed. The history teacher asked if they could retest him and put someone in the bathroom with him to make sure it really was his pee in the cup. Parker asked the principal again about what the policy was for a student to bring a sexual harassment charge against a teacher. Narrowly escaping a week of yard duty by offering a false apology, Parker had been set loose into the general population once more with a stern: “We’ll be watching you.” Big Brother, eh? As much as Parker wanted to slam them back with insult after insult, that last comment stilled him. Would they be watching his window? Would they notice that he was leaving every night? What if they saw him change into Taranis? What if they were enemies? The sprawling list of questions grew massive, each one more concerning than the one before. The more out of sorts he acted (and the more haggard he looked), the greater the risk of having his senshi identity compromised. So far, only Dani, Dylan, and Derp (sigh) knew that Sailor Taranis was also Parker Damhnait. He wanted to keep it that way, at least for now. If more people found out, he could be put at great risk. If he was going to be a super hero at night, then he needed to start treating his time spent as Parker like the secret identity that it was. The ‘terrorists’ running around DC were all teenagers. It was entirely feasible that someone could suspect him of being a part of one of the sides once the more logical explanations were weeded out. Hillworth already knew he wasn’t on drugs. What would they cross of their list next? No, Parker needed to be logical about this. If they thought something was wrong, then they would start digging. If they thought nothing was wrong, then they would leave him alone for the month or so left until his graduation. As much as it bothered him to do anything to appease Hillworth, Parker rationalized that protecting his senshi identity was far more important. What would he have to do? Well, for one, he couldn’t fall asleep in class as much. He needed to stop patrolling every night. That was a fact. Perhaps if he took off one or two nights a week, and didn’t stay out past 1AM on weekdays... It seemed like a start. As for his appearance, it was no secret that Parker had lost a considerable amount of weight from his lack of sleep and constant working out (thanks to running after youma). Taking a cue from a former meathead he lived with in his sophomore year, Parker darted to his computer. Protein powder. Muscle milk. Power bars. The thought of it turned his stomach, but if he wanted to put on fast weight, this was what he had to do. It would have the added bonus of making Dani happy. His weight loss had certainly not gone unnoticed by her, and she was constantly scolding him over it. Maybe he would even bulk up? No. Probably not. Parker felt like he was someone who was destined to be eternally lanky. All arms and legs, no abs. No rippling pectorals. Dani said he had a nice back. Parker was unsure how to take this. Pulling out his debit card, Parker purchased a MUSCLE MAN STARTER KIT GOLD STAR STRENGTH. The words jumped off the screen, and he could only conceptualize them in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME. The stuff was overpriced and probably tasted like lukewarm baby vomit; it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Regardless of what was going on behind the scenes, Parker was willing to play a part to keep curious minds at bay. He was protecting more than himself. He was protecting everyone who knew him too. Either way, a plan had been hatched, and now it was time for it to start rolling.
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Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 8:14 am
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Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2010 8:15 am
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2010 9:26 am
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Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 7:55 pm
Solo “Wait for me here. I’ll come right back.” It was cold. The voice was barely an echo down the corridor. The walls on either side were slick and black. Parker reached out a hand and touched one. His fingers sprang back unconsciously. Ice cold, like death. He turned over his shoulder and glanced down the hallway. It was more of the same, a neverending stretch of darkness. Who had been with him? Who was he waiting for? They said they would be right back. But where was this place? It was an unanswered question left hanging on his lips. Parker started to walk forward. It seemed like a good idea, better than standing in the bleak hallway. High yellow sconces dotted the hallway like fireflies, flickering on and off. The cold penetrated his t-shirt and sunk into his skin. Parker wrapped his arms around himself, but he was shaking within minutes. The cold made blinking painful and walking perilous. His knees threatened to give out with each staggering step. Something white glinted in the corner of his eye. He reached up to touch his hair. There was an icicle there, then another, then another. Snow gathered on his eyelashes, but he was inside. There was nowhere for it to fall from. Parker glanced upward, straining against the stiff muscles in his neck. His entire body grew weary, worn like an overstretched toy. There was nothing above him but a midnight blue sky dotted with glowing stars. His gaze dropped back down. The hallway was gone. He was standing at the bottom of a hole. It stretched a few feet over his head, too high for him to climb out. Not as Parker, anyway. He fumbled in his pocket for his henshin pen, but it was gone. The ground was hard packed dirt, and there were no roots weaving through the dirt walls for him to climb. Where was his pen? He dropped to his knees, feeling for a disturbed patch where the key to his transformation might be hiding. A shadow crossed above him and something showered down across him. Then another. Then another. Parker looked down at his hands, but he couldn’t see them. They were buried beneath a layer of dirt. No, not dirt. More rained from above, coating his bent legs. Parker yanked one hand upward and held it to his face. Sand. He was surrounded by sand. The deluge from above rained harder, stronger. Massive loads of sand pinned him down to the bottom of the hole. His legs were submerged, and the weight was too great for him to free himself. Next, his chest was covered, heart thudding against the pressing force. He groaned weakly, writhing to break out of the quickly filling hole, but it was impossible. The sand climbed to his shoulders, his throat, his chin. Parker tilted his chin upward. The shadow passed overhead again, shoveling in more sand. He clamped his mouth shut and squinted his eyes to avoid the impact as best he could. Sand filled his nostrils. He pushed air out to clear his airway. Another load of sand rained down before he could. “No, please, stop.” His voice was muffled and strained, choked by the growing weight on him. Parker waited for the next load to come, but it didn’t. He felt a heavy mass land hard over his legs. The impact was diffused by the sand, a small mercy. Someone was walking across his buried form. The figure crouched, reaching a hand out to brush stray sand from Parker’s eyes. Parker took a deep breath, willing his eyes to focus. The first thing he noticed was a red ascot gathered at the person’s throat. It was a man. No, a teenage boy. A brown collar circled a pale throat. Cerulean eyes cleared and focused on an identical pair. Sailor Taranis knelt on top of Parker’s buried form, expression blank. Parker’s eyes went wide. He was watching himself, or at least a version of himself. The two boys stared at each other for a time, neither one saying anything. Parker opened his mouth, and Taranis did too. They both closed at the same time. Then Taranis lifted a hand, wordlessly summoning a sand ball. He let it soften in his palm, raining down on Parker’s head until his mouth and nose were obscured. Parker wanted to struggle, he did, but his body went limp. Above him, Taranis laid layer after layer until Parker could only breathe in the granules of sand. He felt them line his throat. He felt them fill his belly. He felt them choke all the breath out of him until there was nothing left to do but succumb to asphyxiation. “I told you I would come back.”
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Posted: Wed May 19, 2010 6:26 am
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