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 Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:57 am
School was going to start soon, which meant supplies. Most of it was provided by the school... But also most of it sucked.
Darryl knew how to fix that problem herself. She was carrying her loot back (as well as some tempting items from the flea market) back toward the dorms now, just as the sun started to set. The days were slowly getting shorter and colder - fall was imminent, and it have a certain crispness to the air that the young girl loved.
It wouldn't be long before the leaves started to turn.
She continued on, finding no reason to feel uneasy. There was power she could summon with a lightning-quick thought, after all - anyone who tried to mess with her wouldn't like was what gonna happen.
Or so she liked to think.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:54 pm
The numbers of the new dark parallels were still too few to be counted on more than one hand. This was unacceptable to Ares, but at the same time, she did not want to forcibly corrupt senshi. She wanted to weaken the White Moon morale until they all came running. Still, that conversion would take power -- power that was dependent on her ability to drum up warm bodies for her floating mirrors.
It was for that reason that she showed up near a busy shopping district in downtown DC, a shadowy figure perched on the edge of a roof. The torch in her hand was a familiar weight. Already it had become just as much a part of her as her own arm. The Dark Brimstone Crystal was suspended inside of it -- a piece of the senshi's soul for all to see.
The powerful gem gave off a low light, but Ares seemed utterly unconcerned. She had already nabbed three civilians and taken them back to rot in her mirrors. But she had a quota. And there were seven more people to abduct.
A dark-skinned girl with a shock of pale purple hair caught her eye, wandering off toward an alleyway. A middle aged couple walked just behind her. Three for the price of one? Why not?
With a deadly silence, Princess Ares extended her great wings, dropping like a falcon from the sky above on the couple. They both crumpled beneath her. The man let out a cry before slipping into unconscious, followed quickly by the woman. Ares let them sink to the dirty floor of the alley, cartwheeling neatly over both of them and landing directly in front of the shorter girl.
Ares gripped her by the throat and forced her back against the wall. "Well, hello there," she said quickly, tilting her head to one side.
Work could be fun too.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:04 pm
The screams from the couple warned her, but she still didn't get enough time to react. Didn't even get the time to head into the alley to power-up. Ares was quicker than her.
Much quicker.
She had no idea what was now holding her all too easy by her throat, sharp nails slowly sinking into her dark skin. She did not have her capacity to sense auras as a civilian, and even if she had, she probably would have been confused.
One thing was sure, though - Darryl was completely and utterly outmatched. The woman had wings... smokey wings ? She moved with the ease of a skilled predator. Powering up in front of her was probably suicide, since her gut instinct was telling her that whoever it was... if it was preying on civilians, it wasn't on her side.
Still, reflexes took over, and Darryl tried to break free - but the princess' grip was not something she could escape from with any ease.
She only hoped someone was around to stop her.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:18 pm
Princess Ares tightened her grip on the girl's throat, pressing until she could feel the bend of an esophagus. "Nothing? No words for me, really?" Apparently she was in no rush to move this process along.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:25 pm
Oh s**t.
Oh s**t, oh s**t, oh s**t, oh s**t.
Why was no one coming ?! And her headset was in her bag, too...
Screwed. Darryl was completely, utterly, screwed.
"What do you want ?" She managed to rasp. "I don't have any money." Clueless civilian, clueless civilian. You are a clueless civilian, Darryl.
At least the freaked out part came easy and with no effort on the teenager's part.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:34 pm
Money. It was just paper -- and Ares had a lot of it after cleaning out her bank account. "Civilians are always so fixated on material goods -- why is that? Is that all you care about? You destroy this planet for industry's sake. You tear down forests and build up Nike factories. You burn a field to put in a vegan restaurant." She stopped. "Do you realize how pointless your little machinations in the hamster wheel are?"
Apparently, the Princess of Smoke was in a taunting mood. Normally, she just knocked out the civilians and then swept them off, but all of the changes in the last week had built up some excess dark energy. Ares needed to get it out.
Her grip loosened on the girl's throat, though she still held her off the ground. "Well then? Speak."
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 6:50 pm
Somehow she hadn't really thought this was how those things went. The few energy-gatherings she'd busted had been very much hit and run - perhaps because of her presence.
But now there was only her and the dark princess, and with her inability to sense auras, she had no way to know who was coming... if anyone was.
It was a careful path to walk on. Say too much and risk revealing she knew more than she should. Say too little and she could easily snap her neck, through, if she'd intended to kill her, Darryl had the inkling that she'd have been dead a long time ago.
"No, lives are the most precious thing." The words came out before she could think about it, nervously, not daring to look at Ares directly. Every night, Hesperis fought to preserve lives, fought to keep situations like this from happening. They might not be lost, but an act like this could change one's life forever.
Civilians didn't need to be involved in this.
"Nothing else I own truly matter."
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 9:57 pm
"Wrong," Ares said flatly.
The Princess of Smoke took a step back and released the dangling girl, allowing her to fall to the ground before her. "A life is just the flame on a candle. Snuff it out, and it is worthless. But take fire from that flame, and you may heat your house." She stopped, pressed one clawed finger to her lips. "Oh, something like that -- who knows? I can tell you though, little civilian thing, that it is the firing synapses in your living, breathing body that are the commodity -- not the whole life itself."
Ares raised up her torch. "I'm not going to kill you. I just need to borrow you for a bit." There was a flash of golden and a sickening crack. The staff knocked the civilian from consciousness into the black ether of the unconscious.
With a smirk, Princess Ares tossed the pale-haired civilian over her shoulder, grabbing the other two with her free hand and then disappeared through the nearest mirror without a trace.
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2011 7:24 am
That answer was... upsetting, to say the least. How could one simply not care about life ?
Darryl didn't get to ponder this in great detail, however, before the world went black. She wouldn't turn up again for three days.
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