[R] Dark Mirror Bootcamp [Leto & Deneb Kaitos w/Arsinoe] FIN

[Sylent Nyte]

After a few days of letting her new teammates adjust to their lives, Leto decided that it was time for training. She contacted each of them via compact mirror to inform them that she wanted some one-on-one time with them. She would go over mirrorwalking, teach them about their homemirror and their mirrowraiths, and give them some basic self-defense training as well.

First up for Dark Mirrors 101 was Sailor Deneb Kaitos.

Sailor Leto was pacing on the rooftop of her apartment building where she had decided would be convenient for her training purposes as she waited for Deneb Kaitos to arrive. She brought a few of her full-length mirrors up as well… However unlike her comrade Sailor Requiem, cupcakes and champagne were not on the agenda. Beer and pizza with teammates as Quinn was one thing, but as Sailor Leto she was ready to put them through Senshi Bootcamp and she had a very no-bullshit attitude.  

[A Wandering Esper]

The many emails Quinn had sent to Joshua had all gone unanswered, but it all started to make sense when she contacted him through his compact. (Still freaking girly, that.)

His computer was out of the country. No joke. At least, his parents didn't have his email password, so it was all good.

He'd agreed to come, and was on his way - well, the old fashioned way. He'd made a rather clumsy mirror-escape from the airport, but that didn't mean he was good at it. Really, half the time he smashed his nose against the freaking things.

Ugh.

He was just glad to be out of Veer's apartment for a bit. He had nothing against Veer himself - found they got along okay - but that apartment was... Well.

A dumpster.

Still, he arrived right on time, making his way toward Leto once he finally spotted her. "I didn't make you wait, did I ? I had to walk."

And senshi didn't carry watches. Only ridiculous heels. Really, he was certain he could have stabbed someone with those things...  

[Sylent Nyte]

She immediately sensed it when he was nearby, knowing full-well that he would have to walk as he’d never been to her place before and wouldn’t be able to mirrorwalk there. She waited as he made his way onto the roof before shaking her head.

“Nope, didn’t wait long. I live here, actually,” she said casually. “You really suck at answering emails, fyi,” she added. She obviously hadn’t had a clue that his computer would’ve been shipped back to his parents place in Canada. She tilted her head to one side, forcing it to crack with a loud ‘pop’, while she quickly cracked her knuckles.

“You won’t be walking many places for much longer,” she said with a big wide grin. If there was one thing she loved about being a Parallel Senshi, it was mirror-walking. She turned and motioned to the 4 full-length mirrors she had scattered around the rooftop. One was on the ground, two propped up against items (think A/C unit, heater, etc), and the final one was tied up and suspended in mid-air. That last one would be the most fun.

“Lesson One: Mirror-walking”  

[A Wandering Esper]

"Actually, my computer's a country away." He said, embarrassed. "I didn't think, when I gave you the address. I thought they might have kept my things at least... But it all got shipped back in Vancouver. Sorry... I made a webmail account but I have to use Veer's computer..."

And well, good luck getting Veer off his computer.

The pop made him wince a bit, and at the mention of the upcoming lesson, he looked at the mirrors.

...He didn't like the mid-air one. At all.

"I uh. Managed to do it. Once." Was kind of a desesperate attempt, really. "It is supposed to be that hard ?"  

[Sylent Nyte]

She couldn’t help but laugh when he mentioned using Veer’s computer, and they obviously had the exact same thought regarding the whole ‘good luck with that’ thing.

“Sorry, I had no idea. You could mirror-walk to Vancouver and get it…” she said with a wicked grin. Apparently in the last few days she’s gotten into the habit of helping her Senshi team with breaking and entering AND theft.

“But I guess we should get you good at it first. And it’s not hard once you get the hang of it, really. You just gotta remember that the speed you went in is the speed you’re gonna come out, so be ready for the other side. First few times will be rough… But eventually?”

She waltzed over to the mirror against the heating unit and without any hesitation, she walked right through it. A few seconds later, she dropped to the ground and landed in a crouched position from the mirror suspended several feet mid-air.

“Voila!” she said, as if it were as easy as breathing. “You just gotta envision where you want to end up.” She made her way back over to him and shoved him towards one of the mirrors.

“Try it. Think of one of the other ones up here and walk through them. The one that I just came out of and the one on the ground? I’ll take you through them with me to get you used to it, they can be trickier.”  

[A Wandering Esper]

He could... ? Well, that certainly would be helpful, he had to admit, through he certainly needed a place to put all his stuff first.

So far, he hadn't found anything suitable. A good lead had cropped up, but the landlord had refused when he'd saw him - too young.

b*****d.

But Leto certainly wasn't here to listen to him b***h and moan - and really, he had to admit the way she did was impressive. And it just looked plain cool.

"Yeah, I... noticed the speed part. I uh, had to run in the mirror to make it work last time..." It seemed safer to leave it at that. He'd had a very close encounter with a wall once he came out the other side.

By close encounter, we mean he pretty much kissed it.

He was pushed toward one mirror and it was pretty obvious it was his turn. From Leto's perspective, this was probably going to be hysterical. And sure enough, his first attempts were laughable - the mirrors, they did nothing.

Beside bonking Deneb Kaitos in the face, that is. Through finally, finally, he seemed to be getting somewhere - the mirror shimmered under his touch, briefly.

Progress !  

[Sylent Nyte]

Apparently Quinn needed to upsize her apartment into a house of some sort to fit all of her poor, homeless teammates. She thought that over for a moment, amused by the idea of them all living together.

When Deneb Kaitos mentioned having to run to get through the mirror on his first mirror-walking experience, Leto immediately knew what that meant. In running means out running, and that almost never works out well. In fact, she really couldn’t think of a time it ever worked out well.

Leto crouched down into a comfortable squat-type position, her hands clasped together and resting on her knees while she watched him repeatedly bump into the mirror. She desperately had to try to keep herself from laughing by remembering what it was like when she first learned how to do it. At one point, she clamped her right hand over her mouth to keep him from seeing her grin, so he wouldn’t know she was quietly laughing at the entire thing.

And then the mirror shimmered under his touch and Leto’s eyes lit up. “Now walk through it, don’t even think about it being a solid object. Just go.” She urged him on as she watched him touch the glass that seemed to pool around his hand.  

[A Wandering Esper]

Thankfully, Deneb Kaitos was too busy focusing on his task and getting the damn mirror to work to notice his mentor's amusement. Probably for the best, really.

He was started by the sensation, waited just an hair too long, and the mirror knocked his hand out, leaving the teen to frown in frustration. Really, this was like untraining a part of your brain and teaching it something completely new.

Mirrors were not just solid surfaces. Mirrors were gateways.

Now, through, he'd gotten it to almost work once, gotten it to do something when he wasn't frantically trying to escape the airport - and he remembered what he'd just done.

The mirror shimmered again, and Deneb Kaitos went - perhaps with more of a dash than he should have, as proved by how he came tumbling out the other mirror, very clearly a little disoriented for a moment, shaking his head as if to try to clear some vertigo.

Definitively not as easy as Leto's own mirrorwalking, but he'd get better with practice.  

[Sylent Nyte]

When Deneb Kaitos finally went through the mirror, Leto shot up to her feet with a huge, proud grin on her face.

“Again,” she said as she took a few steps towards him. She knew that mirror-walking over and over again would be exhausting, especially for a first level Senshi. But practice makes perfect and she needed her team to be able to mirror-walk like it was nothing.

She reached down and helped him to his feet, motioning at the mirror he came out of. “Then we’ll do the mirror on the ground.”

While her trainee was playing with the mirrors, Leto was keeping an ear out for any passer-bys. If anyone happened to come up to the roof, she figured it would be an opportune time to teach draining with a mirror-shard. But it wasn’t just that she was looking out for. She was concentrating on the surrounding area to make sure there were no White Moon auras nearby.  

[A Wandering Esper]

Her hand was accepted and Deneb Kaitos worked himself back on his feet, taking a moment to dust himself off and catch his breath.

Yes, he already had the impression that he was going to be quite tired once this evening was over, but it had to be done. Hard work had never scared him.

...Even if it meant he was going to fuse with Veer's couch for the next day or so.

He walked toward the mirror he'd just come out for, putting his hand forward once more. It was a matter of eliminating variables, one by one, pinpoint what worked and discard what didn't until he could invoke it without even thinking about it.

There was logic even in magic, apparently.

The mirror shimmered again, a little faster, and he stepped in - a little slower, closer to a walking speed - and came out another in a less... Well, crashing way.

They were getting somewhere, at least.  

[Sylent Nyte]

“Good,” she said quickly, walking towards him. “Now we go through the ground,” she said with a grin.

Sailor Leto took Deneb’s hand and led him to the mirror on the floor. She pulled him so they were standing on top of the mirror together, and melted under their feet. Almost instantly, they were in mirrorspace as Leto held them there.

“We’re going to drop, be ready,” was all she said to him before pulling him through one of the mirrors in mirrorspace and the two of them dropped out of the mirror that was suspended mid-air on the roof. At some point, Leto released his hand to allow him to come out of the mirror on his own and she dropped to the ground easily.

She had a feeling that his landing wouldn’t be quite so graceful.  

[A Wandering Esper]

The floor was a little more complicated, obviously - the lack of direct, true contact was throwing him off what little skill he had acquired so far - he could feel the surface of the mirror easily, since he didn't wear any gloves - direct contact to direct contact. On the floor was, obviously, a different story - and he still wasn't too sure how Leto had done it.

They stopped, midway, and he nodded in answer to the warning. Ultimately, it meant he wasn't surprised when he popped back out in mid-air...

But it didn't make the landing look any prettier. As a normal human, he certainly wasn't used to free-falling - he did land on his feet, to his credit, but the sudden end to his movement did make him stumble and fall, with a bit of an 'oof !'

"Damn..." Really, he looked like such a newbie, and some part of him wasn't a fan of it.

But the fact was that, really, he was a newbie.  

[TheMadHatter]

Everything was still a big foggy from dealing with the events that had happened up in the surrounding. He was still perfectly convinced that the Zodiacs were a bunch of pompous assholes and that this whole 'white moon' thing was a load of crap but he seemed to be the only one who thought that. They had gotten everyone to work together, he would give them that, but everything seemed to have just gone back to normal after that. Maybe it was because he was out of the main loop but nothing seemed to have really progressed.

One thing had been interesting though. There had been -senshi- working with the Negaverse and not the usual 'hole somewhere in their bodies' type either. They hadn't looked like the corrupt senshi and he had spotted the bitchy red-head among them.

Something had to be up there.

So when his usual patrol turned up two dark signals on a roof that kept winking in and out of existence he went to investigate. He knew they'd sense him, no one with half a brain got snuck up on anymore, but traveling along the roof tops meant that he had a better chance of spotting them as they spotted him.  

[Sylent Nyte]

She was about to take out her mirror-shard to teach Deneb Katis about mirror-wraiths and collecting energy. Sailor Leto stopped in her tracks when she suddenly felt it. “Deneb… Or Kaitos or whatever the hell you’re okay with me shortening your name to- stay where you are.”

She narrowed her eyes and turned to look in the direction that the Senshi’s aura was coming from. <******** White Mooners… Why do they feel the need to butt into everything I do?” Her teeth clenched in frustration and her hands turned into fists at her side.

When he came into view she crossed her arms over her chest, making eye contact with the male White Moon Senshi. Well, she wanted training for her newbie teammate, so at least now they had a Senshi to fight, right?  

[A Wandering Esper]

Something was wrong.

It was Leto's body language that warned him first, the tone in her voice when she told him to stay right where he was. It was only then that he seemed to feel the aura, through he couldn't quite identify it as what it truly was.

All that he knew was that it felt like little warning bells going off at the back of his head.

It felt like... danger.

Then finally he saw the male in the distance, and hazel eyes narrowed on reflex. He didn't recognize him, and it was probably better this way. He wasn't sure what he'd do if he had to fight Grus... Grus, so sweet but ultimately misguided.

There had to be a way to save her. He just had to find it. But for now, through, he seemed content to stay on-guard and watch what was about to unfold.