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 Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2022 7:18 am
Most of Faustite's team was composed of senshi. Together, they were a multicolored buffet of treats on display, like a night's sky collected into a single room. Dazzling and brilliant in their own ways, but terribly taunting for how their shells were broken open to display the soul food therein. After Kamacite, he decided he could not trust himself with them.
Faustite took stock of the roster. Of those that were not senshi, he had Haymitch, Tama, Celadonite, and Jadarite. Haymitch and Tama were cats, and were often ten pounds of overgrown rat each, which was historically easy to overpower. He would let them be — someone needed to herd the senshi, anyway, and Albite could not be trusted to know what he was doing.
So, then, his choices were Celadonite and Jadarite. Celadonite already knew what had happened, why he was jittery, why he was painfully hyperaware of his own actions around others. Jada did not. Between them, it was only with Jada that he could pretend nothing was amiss. And he thought, perhaps misguidedly, that if he acted as if nothing happened, then he could slowly distance himself from his own relapse, and eventually, normalcy would be reinstated. Because surely, he told himself, this wasn't his new normal.
Jadarite was delightfully intelligent, self-sufficient, and bold. He knew she required little guidance to make her way to General, and she didn't need his help to establish her own competence. Likely, she'd find him a pest for bothering her. But, as far as he had seen, she lacked a youma, and that was both a safer space for him to be and a certain realm of his expertise.
A wave of his hand had called Headache into the room, and the creature gathered itself into scowling Aquamarine. Even though Faustite made a face about it, he supposed that was one of its kinder options.
Tonight, Headache was disinterested in practicing the fine motions of typing, for how terribly different it was from a human's hands. Instead, Faustite's message was recorded as video and sent off to the Captain. In it, the General's pacings were more feverish, but his voice remained steady. He spoke as he approached his office door, half-turning to watch the tablet pen as he walked.
"Meet me at the Hall of Shadows. It's time we found you a youma." The transmission cut after he looked away, and there was but a second of footage on the gaping hallway down which the General walked.
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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2022 9:35 am
The youma. Right. Logically, Jadarite knew that the opportunity to bond with a youma was one that she should have taken a long time ago. It could distract the White Moon while she went out for her quota, or give her an edge in fights she chose to take so that perhaps someday she could deliver more starseeds to the Sovereigns. Technically, there were logical reasons for her procrastination, too. While she was branching out, she was still focused on civilian interactions, and it would hardly do to have some unearthly creature following her around on camera. The truth, Jada knew, although she would never mention it, was a little different. There was a grimace on her face as she teleported into Negaspace towards the edge of the citadel and made her way towards where Faustite had asked to meet, because each footstep was driving up a small cloud of dust. It was disgusting enough here, and she was sure the Rift was worse, on top of being dangerous. She'd heard plenty of stories of people going in there and never returning, or people who returned as monsters. Not that she had anything against the likes of Faustite, but she had no intention of being one of them. She'd pay Chaos for its power with her time, not with her body. Still, obedient subordinate that she was, she showed up when Faustite called. "Reporting, Sir," was all she said, with a curt nod.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2022 6:44 pm
Oh. He realized, as he saw her appear, that this was a bad idea. Their differences in rank felt terribly obvious when they were the only two officers present. She was a step behind, which made Jadarite a much easier target than, say, Kamacite, though she lacked the obvious temptations. Still, he swallowed, and forced his hands into his pockets when he acknowledged her with a nod.
Felt terribly odd to have his hands in his pockets, but he felt them there, nonetheless. As he tightened his fists, his nails bit into his palms.
The doors were already open. He stepped inside first, expecting that she would follow.
Jada came to him as a Captain, but that did not mean that anyone gave her an introduction to this space or the one beyond. With Lieutenants, there was little reason to talk about it but to forbid the area, and Albite had botched that terribly when he brought Celadonite into the Negaverse. With Jada, it would be a different story — either she already knew the basics, or found out on her own. But, there were some things that weren't as readily written into the training manuals.
"The hall also keeps youma from entering the Citadel, just as it bars senshi and Lieutenants from the Rift." As he walked, his steps echoed over the raspy, otherworldly sounds of the shadowy creatures that dogged them with their attention. "Spirals down into the Citadel bowels, then exits into the Rift.
"Mind yourself there. Even as a Captain, they won't like you entering their space. Easier to search for a youma if they've no reason to pay us mind."
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2022 2:10 pm
The click of Jadarite's heels on hard surfaces was one of the things that kept her grounded while she was out looking for energy in the seedier parts of the city, places where she often wouldn't have preferred to be. Here it was drowned out by the voices of the creatures in the wall. As she moved forwards, a half-step behind Faustite, she had to listen to his voice instead. She could see why this place was forbidden to Lieutenants. Beyond the physical dangers, one look at the haunted faces in these walls would be enough to send any foolish, bright new recruit who'd been brought in under the pretense of heroism or morality running off towards purification. Although as an Infiltration Captain, she would never speak it out loud, in that moment, she had no doubt that purification was the right word for it. That said, Jada did not look away. Her gaze was cool, analytical. "What are the shadows?" she asked. "Are they youma, too?" She'd heard about the Rift some, but not much about this place. She hadn't known that it would be full of wraiths. "You don't have to worry about me doing anything reckless, Faustite," she added, staying close to him. He was the expert here. She could defer to him until more of her questions about youma were answered.
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2022 9:49 pm
That was a question he hadn't been asked before. It was knowledge he had seen secondhand, but hadn't shared. He was silent for a moment as he gathered his thoughts about the creatures beyond the glass. When he spoke, he did so to break up the monotony of the spiraling staircase — to give them both something to focus on, for while Jada was wary, Faustite was perpetually nervous for those that traveled with him.
"During the original war, Beryl amassed an army of disaffected people who detested and distrusted the Moon Queen, whose foothold on Earth grew firmer by the day. They'd been abandoned by the prince they trusted, had no one but their sorceress, backed by Metallia. Her command was unerring — led them to the very throne room they once served.
"Then the Moon Queen blasted them with magic so virulent and hateful that the only way they could survive — the only way they could be salvaged — was as those shadows. That would put them behind that glass for a millennium," he added thoughtfully.
"Suppose that makes them prototypical youma. Suspect our Rift, then, was built over time — as more and more of the weak and wounded were suffused with Metallia's power. Think the Moon Queen had cursed Metallia; since we each draw our power from the same well, we're all cursed to become monsters — and she's cursed to require energy to maintain that power."
As he finished, they reached the second set of ancient stone doors that bore them out into the Rift. Faustite opened one with the weight of its body, and it stood open until he had shut it behind Jada in the same manner.
Then they were at the mouth of the Rift — a terrible aftermath of a place with its violent sky. Faustite often stared up at the mottled, bloodbath sky and its gunshot of a false sun before stepping into the area proper. Now that they were beyond the whispers and rasps of the Hall of Shadows, their aural backdrop was that of the inhuman screams, shouts and yelps of the many inhuman creatures that called this space home. Jada and Faustite stood on a precipice of stone, and their main means down from the cliffs was a long, half-fallen staircase and a tier of platforms.
Below was the bitter ruins of a city, hardly more than ramshackle husks of the capitol it once was. Near it was an empty colosseum in similarly neglected condition. Faustite's interest lingered there as he leapt his way down the stone platforms.
"The friendlier youma stick to this area," Faustite yelled loud enough for Jadarite to hear. "If you have to come here, better to stay in the city. Beyond are the youma that detest and envy people — and the ones powerful enough to deny a General's command.
"We'll start in that colosseum."daekie they made it to the rift! feel free to let us know when you'd like to jump in! if it helps, he'll be calling youma in my next post heart
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 9:34 am
So the sympathetic explanations for the Negaverse's dark powers even came down this deep, to where there were tortured souls that had been trapped for a thousand years and crawling monsters that must have been around nearly as long. It was useful information, and Jada tucked it away with a brief, "I see." It wasn't like she could talk about the Moon Queen during the course of her everyday work, where her target audience was mostly civilian teenagers and young adults, but if she was ever assigned another recruit and they had questions, she'd be able to stay consistent with the Negaverse's story. The stairs were terribly long and boring, and not much better than the Hall itself had been. It was easier to think of what she would say to people when the chance came up than it was to wonder about what was getting on her shoes. Then the door to the Rift was open and it was nearly too loud for her to hear her own thoughts. Jadarite grit her teeth while she jumped and skipped forwards. She ended up a half pace in front of Faustite while he stared down at whatever he was staring down at. "How does this work, again? Give one of these things a treat without riling up the others and then bring it back up to my office?" She glanced around, too, trying to keep an eye out for any skittering thing that didn't look too weak so that she could bond with it quickly and then get on back up to her apartment.
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Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 7:53 am
”Mm,” Faustite responded after a beat, shaking his head. “Give it no room or reason to refuse you.” He started walking again, long trails of smoke behind him reached toward the sky. “They don’t need the social contracts and unwritten rules that people do. Show them unrelenting power, and they will bend.”
It made youma far easier to get along with than people, he’d decided. Punch a man in the face and he resents Faustite for an age, spreads the rumor of it, and turns his friends against the burning boy. Punch a youma in the face and it either fights back or gets back in line. Eventually, Faustite would always reach that vein of compulsory obedience, and there would be no more confrontation. There would be no grudge being held, and even if there was, it wouldn’t matter.
“Power can be brute force, or it can be cleverness. Depends on the youma. Depends on what kind of youma you want.”
He descended the rows of colosseum seating, then crossed over to the ruined stairs and their stubbornly resistant guard rail. Black claws closed over it loosely while he navigated each broken step. The sky was dark and wild, and the air around them ripe with youma activity; they were active enough to invite for scrutiny, then.
“My last youma picked fights — needed to be beaten enough times to acknowledge me as its master. My current only needed to observe me — thought me suitable after I survived in the Rift for a time.” And he’d heard of other, less violent means, but seldom had he the pleasure of observing that himself.
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