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 Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 12:42 pm
"Great big jugs, great big jugs, serve me the wine from your great big jugs."
Vesuvius walked down the avenue through the park singing a jaunty tune that was equal parts double entendre and innocent fun drinking song. The happenings of the last two weeks of his life were surprising at best but now that he'd had a chance to get used to this "powering up" thing he kind of liked it. The sword, which he could only assume was supposed to be a talisman of some sort, was jammed into his belt. He liked fencing but the blade he had was more like a child's toy, make of plastic and more in the shape of a short sword than a fencing foil like he was used to.
He didn't know much about this war yet or why he was fighting or for whom. The only impression he got was that it felt important. Two weeks in town and already he was playing superhero like something out of a Bruce Campbell movie. It was enough for him to puff his chest out in pride and walk straight and tall, carrying himself like the dashing rogue he hoped he was.
He hadn't met anyone in the way of comrades or enemies yet, only monsters which lead him to the mistaken impression that he was the only one there was. He felt auras but didn't connect those auras to people and since they didn't directly cross paths he never investigated. So tonight he was out for a stroll, thinking this superhero gig was cool and why did they always complain in comics though his symbol could have been cooler than a toy but oh well.
"Great big jugs, great big jugs. I keep dreaming about your great big jugs."
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Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 5:21 pm
Camelot looked down over the city, in search of the aura he had felt before. Not too powerful, likely a Page, and as he got closer he became certain about it. It was a Page, and he was interested in seeing who it was.
It was always a nice surprise to see a knight he had never met before.
And soon enough, he saw the pirate-looking page that was strutting down the street. Arching an eyebrow, the Knight of Earth watched him for a bit and grinned. It seemed this one was not meek or confused. He leaped down from the roof, landing near, though slightly behind, the Page.
"Not much for being subtle in your patrols, hm?" he said, trying not to sound too chastising right off the bat. Instead, he smiled jovially. He did not meet male knights too often, and he kind of wanted to start off on the right foot, and not by insulting the other's pride right off the bat.
If he could help it.
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2012 10:07 am
There it was again, that nagging feeling. Something big was closeby and, maybe, related to him? No, that couldn't be right. But there was something familiar about it. So far Flynn wasn't very sure what he was looking for when he was out and about but on instinct followed the "bad" feelings he got that seemed weaker. So far, though, mostly nothing. However, the "big" feeling was getting closer and Flynn turned as Camelot landed, on guard immediately.
What. The. Hell? He gave Camelot a look that suggested the pot was calling the kettle black.
"The guy in full armor and a cape is asking me about subtlety?"
Luckily for Camelot Vesuvius was not the type to take much personally, let alone jests about his demeanor. Flynn enjoyed the man he was and apparently the Fates got it, too, by the weapon (if it could be called that) on his hip and the costume he wore on powering up. He was a swashbuckler through and through. Oh, if Pappy could see him now!
"So I'm guessing you got caught up in the gig. Maybe you're a knight in shining armor?"
He kind of hit the nail on the head, being a knight, but Flynn was better at going with the flow than concerning himself with what he was officially. He was more concerned with what he could do. Beating up bad guys, drinking beer, singing songs and finding a lady to cuddle up to. That's all he really cared about. What else was there in life? Money? Trivial. So long as he had food to eat and a roof over his head what did money matter? Nope. Being brave and doing good deeds were what counted.
"Vesuvius is the name. Well, not really but it sorta came with the gig so I guess I'd better use it."
Since he didn't really know what he was doing keeping to secrecy and instinct seemed the best course of action but he was by nature a jovial fellow and gave Camelot a smile. He really was just out to have fun and started whistling great big jugs again.
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Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:56 pm
Camelot frowned.
So maybe his attire was not the most easy to blend in with, but that was not his point. He could still hide, and still move relatively quietly without giving himself away and he certainly did not sing at the top of his voice or yell for youma and negaverse soldiers to come and get his starseed.
He was often called over protective and maybe a little paranoid. He had been at this a long time, and his nerves were a little frayed. He tried to catch himself, though, when he got into moods like this. Playing the father to people who very obviously did not need it, or did not want it.
"My name is Camelot. It's nice to meet you, ah, Vesuvius. Yes, it's better to use your powered name and keep your civilian identity secret, so no one unsavory comes hunting for you." He knew how dangerous identities could be, from a long history that reached back before he was even Camelot.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 9:40 am
"Camelot," he repeated.
Nuff said.
"That sounds ominous."
And ominous was not something Vesuvius did well. In fact nearly everything that could be construed as important or serious were things best kept off his radar. He liked being the guy to sing a tune and dash in to save the girl. He did not like being the one to bear any sort of burden and this guy, in all honesty, was ruining his fun.
"You realize you'll never get out of life alive no matter how serious you are, right?"
But still, he was ignorant of what or who he was fighting. He hadn't actually run into anything on these little jaunts of his and was mostly just patrolling cause he liked the look of his costume. It made him feel more like a swashbuckler than ever. And hell, who knew? Maybe he could have a secret romance as his powered self like Batman or something.
"But if you're the expert maybe you can answer some things for me. Like why you call them civilians and what's up with the costumes and just what is this," he gestured to all around them, "all about?"
As far as he was concerned Camelot was the welcome wagon and would answer all of his questions, if he was so keen on interrupting his tune. He knew that whatever Camelot was, it was like him and maybe he was the Captain of this whole operation. Maybe a bit square but that didn't matter. They weren't going to be partners or anything.
"Tell me the ladies love a guy in costume." he pleaded, the one upside to this gig.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:01 am
"I'm not serious all the time..." Camelot said, though it wasn't defensively. It almost sounded as if he was trying to convince himself of that idea, just as much as he was trying to convince Vesuvius.
There was a time when he had fun, right?
"Well," he began, focusing on the questions at hand rather than his creeping concerns that he had somehow become the old man he always feared he would turn into, "I call them civilians because they are helpless, they have no powers, and they need us to defend them."
"The costumes," he looked at himself again, patting the emblem on his chest, "are what keep us safe. Kind of like super heroes and their secret identities, they allow us to live our normal lives without putting our families and friends in too much risk."
That was the theory, anyway. There were always matters that complicated it.
"And ah... well. I suppose some do? My wife certainly does." He grinned helplessly. He could easily imagine anything he said getting back to her, and he did not think he wanted to start a fight by saying the wrong thing. Anyway, it had been a while since he was hit on in costume.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:25 am
"You're married?"
Ok, he didn't actually mean for that to come out nearly as surprised as it did. But, hell, the man looked older so Flynn guessed if he wasn't married by now he wasn't gonna be little knowing this marriage was a recent occurrence. Holding his hands up in premature surrender to whatever payback that comment had coming he grinned.
"Is she hot?"
Hell, maybe there was hope for him after all if Camelot could find costumed love. Still, the longer he carried on the atom bomb seemed to drop in Vesuvius' mind when he realized what Camelot was saying. It took a bit to process, civilians and identities and such. It really was like a damn superhero movie.
"So, what am I protecting them from?"
Again with the heavy and the serious. Normally this would be the point in the conversation where he'd figuratively put his fingers in his ears and sing a song to block out the words and part of him was just tempted to power down and go home. The other part, though, the one that had a strict sense of justice and wanted to be a hero like he saw in the movies made him stay where he was listening intently to his Yoda.
"The word civilians always reminds me of war."
Bingo!
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 10:36 am
"She's the most beautiful woman in the world."
True, every husband thought that, but they hadn't seen his wife and had no real basis of comparison. Clearly. To him, Kyndall was the world, and she was all he could see. All he could think of. He loved her with everything he had.
He was smiling dumbly just thinking about it.
"Er. Ah." He snapped out of his lovey daze and cleared his throat in a profound effort not to look like a sappy goof. He was a knight, after all, not a lovesick puppy.
"You're protecting them from the forces of Chaos. The Negaverse, and the Dark Mirror Court, as well as monsters created by Chaos called youma. This is a war, in the most literal sense. Order and Chaos are at war, over this planet and every free soul on it. I believe it is the duty of a knight to find a road to peace."
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Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:06 am
"Oh, Christ!" he muttered, rolling his eyes.
Camelot was one of those, the few men on Earth that get married and stop looking at anyone else. Probably because he was old. This was not Donovan's philosophy and would not be Vesuvius' either. Life was a banquet and most poor suckers were starving to death with self imposed rules to tie them down. Tragic way to live, that. He even looked dopey, his soft look like taffy melting in the sun.
"I'm sure she is." he offered, kindly in his opinion.
What he said about war stuck, though, and Vesuvius listened to that. That monsters bit sounded fun. He was itching for a good fight just now, boredom suffusing his limbs. Sap and fluff, he needed none of that but he was wondering how useful this whole costume act would be for getting ladies. Obviously it worked with old guys, why not a catch like him?
"Peace?" What the hell fun was piece? "I want to kick a little a**! If they're beating up on innocent people they don't deserve peace!"
Like any young and enthusiastic new guy his idealism hadn't been crushed with brutal reality. He didn't see the cost of war, only pictured the heroics of being in it and saving lives.
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Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2013 2:08 pm
Camelot saw nothing wrong with getting married and settling down. In truth, it had been the best decision of his life, though he had not seen it coming until he was suddenly head over heels in love and already bound to the woman he was destined to spend the rest of his life with, anyway. So marriage seemed the reasonable step.
He'd stopped looking at ladies for a long time before even meeting Kyndall. Maybe it was a lack of confidence, or a string of embarrassing failures, or maybe he really had just been waiting for destiny to find him. Whatever the case, he was happy with the way it worked out.
But he knew better than to think it was for everyone, so the look he got from Vesuvius didn't shake him, and he smiled patiently with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Well, you'll have plenty of chances to kick a**. It is part of the job, after all. I want nothing more than peace, but there are things out there that strive for the complete opposite. Not everyone is working to the same end, on any side of the war, and that will always mean fights and the need for us to protect the innocent, and each other, by any means necessary."
He was sure that Vesuvius would get all the fights he could handle, and probably more.
"Are you patrolling right now? Maybe we can find a youma and you'll see what I mean."
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Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:04 am
Vesuvius purposefully, and kindly he imagined, overlooked the irony that the big guy dressed as a knight with a huge a** shield was talking about wanting peace. Weren't people who wanted peace supposed to be dressed in tye dye and hugging trees? With all that metal armor he didn't look like he was prepared for peace but just the opposite. Just another of the strange things about this whole new world thing.
"I guess I'm patrolling. I don't know, exactly. I'm just prowling around to see what I can see. The little boost this costume gives me is great!"
And would get greater in time. At least now he knew why he was powering up and what those tingly feelings meant. It also meant that there were bad guys to look out for, too, and people he needed to protect. His sense of morality, sometimes skewed as it could be, flared to life at that thought - protecting innocent people. Hell, he wasn't a pirate: he was a superhero off to save the day!
"What the hell is a youma?"
He could take any response now, he was sure of it. Camelot could have come back with pink fluffy bunnies and Vesuvius wouldn't be surprised by it. But he was game for anything the knight had in mind especially if it lead to something fun!
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Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2013 12:32 am
That answer did not fill him with confidence. Just out because it felt good to be powered up? He supposed that was true: it did feel good. He had to admit, though he never did, that the feeling of strength that came with powering up every night was rather good.
It made him feel young, in its way, and needed. Heroic.
Maybe it was different for Vesuvius. He clearly got something else from it, since he was not too interested in patrol just yet. Maybe he just needed more information.
"A youma is a, ah... a monster. That is made of Chaos, the same thing that powers our enemies. I believe I heard that they were once humans, that were corrupted too far." He frowned thoughtfully. He was told that in an effort to get him to stop fighting the youma, but he could not bring himself to sacrifice innocent people to those who had been consumed by Chaos. It was nicer, in his mind, to free them of that curse.
But, really, he did what he had to do, and as he had learned to do it. His views really were colored in that way, though he was trying to expand them.
"They feed on energy and kill people. It's out jobs to make sure they don't do that."
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:07 am
"You mean these monsters were once people?"
That was just way too creepy for words. This guy was really bringing him down and who the hell said he was allowed to do that? People dying? It was his first real night out and already he was caught in a war and people were dying. What the hell, man? Just what the hell? He knew this Camelot was bad news - he knew it!
Then again, he guessed every super hero needed a villain to face otherwise what's the point?
"And they feed on energy and just kill random people? Why aren't the police dealing with this?"
True, he'd just been transported to bizarro world by all this conversation but it seemed like something the police ought to be handling if people were being killed by these so called youma. And hell, why wasn't it in the papers as sort of a 'don't move here' warning? People had the right to know just what they were getting into stepping into this town.
"What made this our responsibility?" a word foreign and hateful to the young man's ears.
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Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:11 pm
Camelot arched an eyebrow thoughtfully at the other man's questions, trying to think of a way to explain things that did not sound as severe and horrible as he had so far laid them out. But how else could they really talk about their duties? They were serious, they were vital to civilian lives. And knowing how important it was just became part of the job.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"The police can't handle these monsters: they would get themselves killed before anything came of their hunting them down. In any case, most people in this town live in willful denial of the creatures and villains that haunt the streets at night."
He sighed.
"We were given our powers for a reason. We were awakened for a purpose, not just because it seemed cool at the time, or something, somewhere, thought we could do with something a bit more fun in our lives. Our powers are meant to protect those that can't protect themselves, or those that don't even realize they need to. We help each other, and we... I don't know. I suppose we simply serve. We're knights. It makes sense in my head, though sometimes it's difficult to find the right words for it, without sounding like some kind of zealot."
That was as far as he could really understand it though: he did not know what exactly decided to give them their powers, or why they were chosen, though there were plenty of theories that seemed more than reasonable.
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Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 9:44 am
"Look, I'm not Superman. I'm happy to be Clark Kent 100 percent of the time. I like the bounce in my step but I'm not about to stick my neck out for people I don't know in a fight I didn't choose!"
Vesuvius grew increasingly agitated as he spoke slamming his fist into his palm when he finished. There were plenty of fights he did choose and plenty of time he was worse for the wear in them but those were things he chose to do and causes he chose to support. Just because some unknown thing decided to make him a protector of the masses didn't mean he was one. If he wanted that he would have joined the army or something. Seeing as he hadn't done that, and in fact did just the opposite of that, meant he didn't want to be in a war.
His sense of honor and pride tugged at him for a few moments and he was reminded of what Pappy would say if he could see him know and hear the words being spoken. He'd be ashamed is what. Pappy believed in fighting for good and had been in Vietnam. He was also a police officer for nearly three decades before cancer finished him. Thinking of his grandfather's stern and disapproving face the page was forced to stop and sigh.
He relented.
"How am I supposed to beat monsters up with this thing?"
He held up the plastic rapier and waved it a little. The thing wasn't good for much of anything defensively or offensively, not like the mondo looking shield his companion was carrying. Of course, in the heat of the moment Don knew he probably wouldn't think about his sword anyway.
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