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 Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 4:35 pm
It didn't take Zia long to think up her first target. Or maybe it was less practical and more needing someone to vent to in addition to safety concerns. She hadn't moved from the spot Orpheus left her, but she'd gone through most of her cigarettes while she thought about so many things and not one of them was how cold it was in November in the middle of the night when all you had were ripped jeans and an almost equally ripped tank top. God, tonight was taking too long to get over.
It took her a while to figure out her plan of attack. She couldn't go to his apartment, even if she knew where he was living these days. Her little research area was also off limits and powering up herself was 100% out of the question. Because with as confusing as Orpheus' bullshit was, the one thing that was absolutely legit was he had been following her. Two encounters and a variety of intimate details spewed off as threats more than confirmed it.
She fished out her phone. Zia usually communicated via text and couldn't remember the last time she made a phone call that wasn't for work, but she looked at the smart phone and scrunched her face in annoyance. Cracked screen, probably from when the son of a b***h bucked her and pinned her down. Luckily she could still push the call button, probably for the best since her shredded fingers weren't up for typing out text messages.
"Hey," She wasn't expecting to sound so hoarse and tired and paused to try and adjust her volume so she didn't sound so beaten down. "I need you. Bring your car."
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 1:16 pm
Chris had answered his phone with a distracted ‘hello’ when it started vibrating against the kitchen counter. He had the research for a paper he was working on spread out there, as Paris was busy using the only desk in their small apartment. Had they been in his original apartment, they would have both had plenty of space to work, but that wasn’t anything for him to be upset about.
But the distraction of his homework quickly disappeared at the sound of Zia’s voice. “What’s wrong?” he asked quickly, practically knocking the counter stool over in the process of clambering off. “Are you hurt?? Should I call the cops??” he asked, stumbling around as he attempted to speak on the phone and shove his feet into his shoes, and his arms into his jacket at the same time.
Even if he was still a bit upset with the turn of events in Zia’s life, he wasn’t about to ignore any call with her sounding distressed as she did.
“Paris, I’ll be back,” he announced, hurrying into the bedroom to grab a kiss goodbye before hurrying towards the door. He knew he was probably leaving Paris to be upset over the fact that he’d run out without a word as to where or why, but he hoped his boyfriend was distracted enough with getting ready for his own exams to give him even more anxiety.
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 1:49 pm
Zia was not okay, but she didn't answer Chris one way or the other. She gave him directions and waited impatiently and the second she saw him pull up, sluggishly pushed herself up to her feet and brushed herself off.
She'd been chain smoking like a fiend during her wait, and smelled like it. But mostly she'd been sitting there, leaning on her knees and trying to stop shaking from adrenaline, anxiety, and the cold. So the second she could, she flopped into the passengers seat and rubbed her arms, thanking god for heaters in cars, even if i took away some of the numbness in her sliced and diced hands and she could feel the sting again.
There was no greeting. Save for a flat, "Drive. Somewhere, anywhere, I don't care."
She was quiet, dazed and in her own little world for an awkwardly long moment before she finally furrowed her brow and looked at Chris with bubbling and not quite present guilt and grief. "Oh god... Chris... I ******** up bad."
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 2:00 pm
He wanted to fuss over her. He wanted to ask her what happened and if she was okay and all those nagging kinds of things his mother would do...
But he didn't.
Chris gritted his teeth together and did as she told him to. He glanced over at her every now and then, but focused more on stop signs and traffic lights as she collected herself. He knew she wouldn't have wanted to say anything right away, and as much as he would like to force it out of her, he didn't...
He didn't even comment on how she smelled like lung cancer, or nag at her about how it was bad for her, and everyone else's health. But he didn't. He just drove. After a while he realized that he was heading back to his apartment, but that didn't really matter. He didn't want her out of his sight after she'd called and how she looked and was acting now.
"What the hell happened?" he asked as calmly as he could, practically forcing himself not to explode in a frenzy of worry and concern. He couldn't see her hands, but he could tell she was shaking.
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 2:30 pm
"Youma fight, Kind of rough, nothing I couldn't handle," Zia started off slowly, from the beginning, "But then this guy showed up. Dark Mirror, and I've seen him before. I thought it was fluke, but he showed up again and it was weird. We fought. I had him down but then..." Zia faded back into her daze and rubbed her wrists, trying go back over and analyze how their fight turned. Over and over and over again. She had been in control, she took him down, she could've killed him at any second, and then she was being pinned and straddled and forced to look up at his creepy predator smile.
And all she could do was mumble, "He was on top of me," as the color coming back into her face drained all over again. "Stop the car," She demanded, barreling out to go vomit in an alleyway.
And after what she felt like was way too long, flopped back into the seat of the car, limply leaning against the headrest, even though she tried to laugh it off with a vapid, "Well that was embarrassing," And sift through pockets for gum or something, only pulling out her shattered phone to toss on the dash for later. It'd have to wiped to clean and tossed, but she wasn't going to deal with it now.
She sniffed and hugged her bare arms again, trying to play it off as doing so to warm up.
"He's been following me. For a while now. At least two months. He knows my name, he knows my dad, he knows..." She was trying to keep her breathing steady, but she wanted to hyperventilate and put her head between her knees so badly. And she tried to get a grip, and keep it, she really did, but the last bit she had to say ended up making her voice break. "Chris, what if he knows you're Valhalla?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 9:28 pm
"Right," Chris mumbled warily not entirely believing her but not forcing the subject. Sure, she could take care of a youma, but there was more to it... he could tell... And as she continued, his concern grew more and more.
"Water?" he offered once she had made her way back into the car, having pulled out a bottle he kept in the back seat for emergency reasons... He shrugged in response to her comment about it being embarrassing, quite used to vomiting by now. It had been a while since Paris had an episode, but it was enough to last Chris a lifetime.
His worry for her was growing by the second, and while he hadn't interrupted her before, he couldn't remain silent forever.
"Did he hurt you?" he asked, his eyes dark, asking in a way that she would know he meant not just the typical violence, but in any other way as well. If he did something to her... Well, he didn't know what he'd do, but he'd at least get the cops on his a**.
"Calm down," he said, trying to get her to not have a nervous breakdown in his car as he tried to get to a safe location. His apartment seemed best by this point. An Eternal senshi and a Knight to keep watch was better than nothing. "I don't know why he's been following you, but knowing your name and your dad is just a matter of looking up public records. From school or even the internet... He wouldn't know I'm Valhalla. Does he know you're a guardian?" he asked, doing what he could to keep himself calm.
He doubted anyone would know he was Valhalla... well... anyone he hadn't powered up in front of, but he'd trusted those people, so... it was okay...
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Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 9:51 pm
Zia nodded and chugged down that water. While a nervous breakdown still seemed entirely possible, she was trying to click back into her coping mechanisms of just pretending it was no big deal.
"He... hm," Zia stared at the dashboard intently trying to go over the sequence of actions. "He didn't... well, I mean, he got on top of me, there was some creepy smiling going on, and he pawed at my legs a little when he took my pocket knife. And my belt. And he took both with him. So that was... that was something. But it was mostly threats. Like, 'you can be nice and it'll go easy or I can break every bone in your body'. He didn't find out about my dad from a google search, he knew I'm not on good terms with him. He knew my boyfriend's name, he knew where he lived, he knew I'm afraid of hospitals, and I haven't even told you that," She said pointedly and tried to go over when she had ever said that out loud. "The only time I ever talked about that was with Pascal in his... oh god he was watching us... eugh," She looked nauseous again. If he had been in a position to watch that conversation, he likely saw a lot more.
Does he know you're a guardian was a tough question. It was probable, but there were decent odds in the 'no' direction as well. But after a long, hard moment of thought she did eventually come to the conclusion, "No. He can't, otherwise he would've used corruption as a threat when he started going on about people he could have Ares take a bite out of. He was trying to scare me, it would've been stupid not to use that. He can't know. Which means he's not following me for Ares, he's--" She frowned, the fear that had been present in her from the start of the conversation had slowed shifted to rage. "Which means he's a creep all on his own and I don't know if that's better or worse."
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 8:14 am
"You're not...?" he blinked in surprise, and let out an ironic, humorless laugh over the fact that he despised hospitals as well. "Guess we have that in common," he mumbled mostly to himself as he leaned against the steering wheel as they came to a stop at a red light. He was really just driving around the city for now, giving her more time to collect her thoughts. He had a million questions, but didn't think that would help her in getting her to calm down. Her wellbeing was much more important than getting questions answered.
Besides, he had another source he could ask and was already planning on finding him...
Chris grimaced when Zia mentioned her boyfriend's name, doing his best not to judge him on that alone. And when she said she'd only ever spoken to him about it... Chris's mind automatically steered in the direction of... what if Pascal...?
No... that couldn't be possible. Zia would know better than that. She wouldn't put her life at risk like that. This Pascal guy was just some guy.
"Pascal's not a knight or senshi is he...?" he asked cautiously anyway, not daring to try and accuse her of anything. There was no way to prove anything unless she'd seen him power up. Even if he told her he was, Chris wouldn't believe it until he knew she'd seen it. "Would he have spoken to someone else about that...?" Chris was wary of how he was steering the conversation and knew that accusing her boyfriend of being just as creepy wasn't anything that would help her, so he quickly changed the subject. "I'm going to talk to someone I know... Maybe we can get this guy to back off..."
If Remarque couldn't do anything, then he doubted anyone could.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 8:41 am
The possibility of Pascal being anything but human actually brought about laughter. Laughter. The guy practically fainted at the mention of youma. "Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure he's just a human operating on rumors. He's terrified of mirrors. Hell, I had to get Lily to come pick me up at his place because there's not goddamn piece of mirrowalk-able material in his entire apartment because he's afraid of things grabbing him. Still thinks senshi are terrorist gangs. Been energy drained before, I'd assume, judging by the way he looks like he'll wilt like a delicate flower whenever s**t gets brought up, but yeah. No. He's just a dumb kid without a clue."
Zia had successfully achieved her goal of kicking back into a casual not-giving-a-s**t demeanor, though she still had a pretty iron grip on the water bottle.
"Don't make that face. I saw that face," She said with a bit of a point in his direction. "His parents have some sciency background." And then she wondered why she was making excuses when she was supposed to be not caring.
"I dunno. Point is, I've successfully avoided being in the same room as the Dark Mirror Court for over a year, and suddenly I get cornered three times in two months. I can't ignore that or pass if off as a fluke." And then she turned and gave him a 'look'. It wasn't a very good one, either. "Who?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 9:10 am
"Sounds like a keeper..." Chris muttered under his breath, not liking how easy it was for Zia to so easily switch from being upset to being nonchalant about the whole thing. It wasn’t something to just brush off, otherwise she wouldn’t have called him to get her. She clearly needed to get somewhere safe...
He rolled his eyes at her excuse for her boyfriend, not thinking it was all that important, or at least trying to convince himself that it wasn’t, but she knew him pretty well, despite the years of not crossing each others’ paths that much.
“I can’t ignore it either,” he agreed, his voice low with anger that someone would be putting her in danger. “What the hell does this guy want? Unless they’ve just got a bunch of creeps in their ranks,” he surmised with a small shrug, clearly willing to go with that.
The look she gave him was enough to stop his anger in his tracks and he glanced back at her with wide eyes, acutely aware that she wasn’t all that pleased with him.
“What?” he asked with a small squeak in his voice, which he covered by clearing his throat. He felt like he’d just been cornered, and suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything. “It’s... what does it matter? I’m allowed to talk to whoever the hell I want, Zee,” he said lamely.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 9:36 am
"Never said I was planning on keeping him," Zia said with a snort. And the question of what the hell the guy wanted made her shrug. "Well... I assumed it was Ares' doing."
She stopped to think again, drumming her fingers on the bottle. "It was a condition in the Blood Moon to put your civilian life on the table to show your investment. I knew Ares was Fallon and she knew I was Zia. So, I figured maybe it was retaliation for the stunt I pulled in mirrorspace when she gave me the whole 'it's all your fault I did this for you corrupt or die blah blah blah' speech. But then he didn't have any clue about that sooo..."
She pursed her lips, trying to keep picking apart the scenario. "I guess with the whole creepy touching thing and the stealing my s**t and threatening to kill other guys I hang around he's just a run of the mill creep who got senshi'd up. But it doesn't change the fact he's been creeping around and I've seen you, Camelot, Shangri-La, and Maia power up in that time frame. And oh, god, Noah too."
She rolled her eyes at his assertion he could talk to whoever he wanted. "Oh please. Who do you know? Have you been making deals with those people? Really? Seriously, Chris? Really?" Though half of her indignation was in part to convince herself, because current thoughts running through her mind weren't nearly so adamant.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 12:46 pm
”Why the hell aren’t you in hiding then??” he grumbled, disliking the fact that she was more in danger than he’d originally thought. Why didn’t she move out of the city?? Go to New York or something??
Then again, he knew why he wouldn’t leave the city... There was a little too much at stake, and a little too much he would be leaving to be put in more danger than it already was.
He shrugged defiantly in response to her eye rolling and nagging. “I’m not making deals with anyone, Zee...” he promised, not wanting to get into the details of things. “And if I told you, how would I know you wouldn’t go and harass them later? Put yourself in danger by luring them out just to harp at them about this and that and who knows what,” he said with an indignant snort. He knew what happened when she got the information she wanted... when she felt like going the extra mile, of course.
“Don’t worry about it. But you’re not going back to your apartment tonight. The couch in my apartment folds out.” So there... she wasn’t going to be able to escape his supervision, anyway. And he would like to keep her away from any creepers.
He kept checking his rear view mirror, just in case there was any suspicious following, and did a couple loops around different blocks and backtracked some, as if that would shake whoever might be following them off the trail.
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Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 1:06 pm
"Uh. I am in hiding? Sort of. I'm working on it. Well. I'm working on something, I think," Zia said with an airy laugh and seemed to drift off into some other thoughts for a brief moment. She wasn't leaving, not yet. She wanted to get closer to Ares, not farther away.
"Oh, that's totally unfair, how would I even know they're harassable? I don't harass anyone anyway. Who have I even harassed?" She responded, playing innocent like she totally didn't go do stupid things like antagonize a Negaverse general with nothing but sarcasm at her disposal. Well now he was definitely hiding something and she wanted to know what. "Chris... what have you been doing?"
He mentioned his couch and she was one hundred percent okay with this. She didn't want to go back to her place, to either be alone or with Mags who was practically a stranger she had zero trust in. "Well at least it folds out," She said like that was the only thing stopping her. She had been facing the windshield the entire time she was talking, but only now did she seem to actually take note of just what was out there. "Oh... that's where we're going. Oh. Oh..." She had gone from dazy to suddenly looking at him with a teasing grin. "So, do I finally get to meet this secret boyfriend?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 2:09 pm
Chris gave her a skeptical look at her laugh, not thinking now was the time to joke, especially when her life was in danger. Did she not realize that she meant something to him? That despite her insistance on trying to push him away, he would have a huge hole missing in his life if she was gone...? He knew he couldn't control her and what she did, but he hoped she at least kept in mind that some people gave a s**t, and he happened to be one of them.
"Nothing," he breathed in exasperation when she persisted in trying to figure out what he'd been up to. He didn't really want to explain that he was on decent terms with a DMS and a couple Negaversers... Well, decent terms as in they didn't try to kill each other on sight. Which, to him, was surprising for a DMS, since apparently most of them wanted to kill knights. "You harassed Skye, and you better not harass Paris," he warned with a glare, the tension building behind his words. He wasn't yet at a snapping point, but if she did anything to upset his boyfriend, well...
"And he's not a secret!" he nearly sputtered, thinking it absurd how she could go from being terrified and shocked and... and puking everywhere to grinning and teasing and laughing. It was just... too much was cut out of her emotional process for him to understand. He'd always thought it was a girl thing, but... Zia took it almost to an extreme.
"Just because you haven't really met him doesn't mean no one else has! You're the one who practically dropped off the face of the Earth for almost a year!" he said, even more exasperated than before, but quiet as if he'd given up trying to figure her out. The important thing was that she was safe.
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