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 Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:46 pm
Sophie's "project" had to be put on hold for a while. First it was finals that got in her way, then the holidays. For weeks she felt like she was going to explode out of sheer desperation. Now, finally, she had a stretch of time that she could devote to unraveling the mysteries of Destiny City. The new semester wouldn't start for another week, and she was going to use her time well.
Though she'd spent more than enough time at the library studying for finals, she found herself back there again, leafing through old newspapers for reports on terrorist activity. There were plenty of those, which she dutifully made copies of, but with what little information she had, there wasn't much she could get out of them. All that she really found out was that the scope of what was going on was vastly wider than she had previously thought.
Which led to her nighttime activity: walking around unattended, trying to catch a terrorist to talk to. Or, better yet, one of those nice ninjas like Bazzite. Zia was an option as well, but Sophie didn't want to confront her just yet. Once she had more information, then she could try that again. In the meantime, she bundled up and strolled around, nowhere in particular, hoping that lightning might strike twice.
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 5:01 pm
Alfheim was still trying to figure out this patrolling thing, and whether he liked fumbling around on his own or going out with someone who offered guidance but was generally kind of...
No he definitely liked doing things on his own.
He didn't know much still, but being around other people didn't help. At least not so far. Maybe he needed to make connections with people outside of his sister because for some reason, being Zia's brother had a tendency to make people just not explain anything to him, which absolutely sucked when you had no idea what was going on an your ancestor was a screeching harpy of zero information.
So he took to fumbling, when he could. Every time he powered up he always felt like he should just turn right back around and go bake some break or something.
Spotting a girl bundled up and walking about like being alone in a terrorist infested city after dark was a nice distraction, though. "Uh, 'scuse me?" He asked, cautiously approaching. He hadn't gotten any negative attention for his page get up before, but he had been warned, and so that was enough to keep him a little bit wary. "Uh... should you really be out here this late?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 5:57 pm
It was cold, Sophie was tired, and she was almost ready to give up for the night. But not yet. Even though her strolls had yet to turn up anything useful, that didn't mean that they wouldn't. Still, it was irritating, having to deal with people thinking she was lost, or policemen kindly advising her to go home before something happened.
Which is why she replied "yes, yes, I'm aware that it's dangerous out here Officer," before she actually looked at the person addressing her. Once she saw him, she almost dropped the binder she was carrying. Finally, all of this wandering around after dark was paying off!
"I'm sorry, I'm just- well, you're not the first person to ask me that." Sophie shook her head. It was like these people were trying to discourage her from finding out the truth. "But here you are, just like I knew you'd be! This is fantastic!"
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Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 9:20 pm
Alfheim stopped in his tracks when she blew him off and called him 'officer'. And then she started this weird... behavior and he kind of awkwardly glanced to the side, cringing. He wasn't entirely sure how to react. When he was just a civilian he hated seeing these people show up in his general space, senshi, knight, nega, they all caused trouble or got people hurt.
And she was weirdly excited instead of... well anything he figured she logically should be.
"I... I'm sorry?" He ended up stammering out, tugging on his collar. "I mean, why is it fantastic?" He couldn't think of anything he could be out here doing a normal girl would find 'fantastic.' Or even a magical girl for that matter.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 1:10 pm
Sophie shook her head. "Oh no, don't be sorry! I'm the one who's sorry. It's just, a lot of people have told me to pack it up and go home. Said I would get in trouble if I was out late by myself." At that she rolled her eyes and shrugged. Just because she was female didn't mean she was a damsel in distress. She'd fought off a psychopath with a net (and fainted afterwards) and outran a monster while carrying someone else (barely). So she could totally take care of herself.
"It's fantastic because I wanted to meet you!" After the words were out, Sophie realized they sounded kind of stalkerish. "Not you you, you specifically. Just one of you." That sounded less creepy, right? "I mean, it's the whole reason I'm out here!" And they were back in creeperville again.
She studied him for a moment. No skirt or bows, so she doubted he was one of those "senshi" that Bazzite had told her about. Which meant that he had to be one of the good guys! Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a small notebook and flipped it open. "You're one of those neighborhood watch people, right? The, um." The vocabulary list she'd written was right in front, easy to find. "The Negaverse?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 7:27 pm
Alfheim just kind of stood there glancing to the side and hoping for something to pop out of nowhere and grant him salvation because he had no idea what was happening.
He'd been warned about dangerous agents of Chaos, he'd experienced dangerous monsters firsthand, and he had been told to treat civilians with care because they were under the impression they were all dangerous (A sentiment he could certainly understand.)
No one nowhere told him to watch out for stalker girls with notebooks and questions.
"Well uh... I watch the neighborhood?" He offered, running his fingers through his hair which unfortunately was not as well hidden as an uncomfortable tic when he had a girly headband keeping it out of his face.
"I'm not part of the Negaverse, though. We're called knights, I guess? Sworn to Earth. M'name's Alfheim," He said, still clearly uncomfortable, but he did hold out a hand in greeting.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2013 7:45 pm
Huh. Nowhere did the notebook say anything about knights. Zia hadn't mentioned them, and Bazzite hadn't either. As far as Sophie knew, it was a fight between the senshi, who were a gang of girls dressed in sailor uniforms, and the Negaverse, an oddly-named security force with ninjas. That there was a third group involved threw her for a loop for a moment, and she flipped several pages of her notebook before she was satisfied that they were totally new to her.
"Okay, knights then. Cool name. Makes more sense than the Negaverse. Seriously, what's that even supposed to mean?" Sophie shook her head. If she was involved, she would have advocated for a name that more directly explained their mission. Knights at least came with the imagery of protectors, so she supposed she could trust this guy. At least, as much as she could trust any guy.
She jotted his name down in her notebook, then stuck it back in her pocket and took the offered hand. "Sophie. It's nice to meet you, Alfheim." Then it was right back into question-mode. "So do you work with the Negaverse, or are your organizations independent? Do you have a more official name than just Knights? Because that's bound to get you guys confused with other stuff. And what does it mean when you say you're 'sworn to Earth' anyway?"
Her questions tumbled out quickly, and she had to catch her breath once she was finished.
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Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:38 am
Alfheim grimaced. "I... I'm actually pretty sure we're supposed to be fighting the Negaverse." Pretty sure. He hadn't actually faced them head on unless you count narrowly avoiding being youma food on a constant basis.
Actually he hadn't actually fought anybody. All of his interactions with corrupted senshi had been nothing but entirely pleasant!
"I mean, it's not really an organization. I didn't really ask to join, it just sort of happened," And after a pause he realized how voluntary that still sounded, "I mean, not a euphemism for it all happening so fast, I mean I grabbed this bottle and poof, it happened. It's literally magic, not a sign up sheet."
He cleared his throat, still looking uncomfortable and embarrassed.
"I mean, like, I guess all the knights are sworn to different planets. I guess. I don't know, I've only met Earth knights but my sister has a whole catalog of them."
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Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 12:40 pm
Sophie's smile faltered. "What? Why would you fight them? They're just trying to keep people safe!" That didn't make any sense! If the Negaverse and the Knights had the same goal, then fighting each other would just be counterproductive. Unless... "Is it some sort of internal squabble? Fighting over funding or something? I know that getting support can be difficult, but that's no reason to take things out on another group." Sponsors could be found everywhere, and anyway, judging from his crazy clothes, it didn't look like he was suffering from budget cuts. Though, once she looked closer, she could see that they didn't fit him as well as they could have.
The rest of what this guy said made even less sense. Even allowing for the fact that magic was involved- something Sophie was willing to believe, somewhat, because of Bazzite's demonstration- how could you be involved in charity work involuntarily? "Did someone enlist you? People can be very persuasive about causes that are important to them," and she was one of those people, "but you shouldn't join a cause just because you don't know how to decline. If you work with this group, but don't really believe in the work that you're doing, you're not helping them. If anything, you're harming their efforts."
The whole planetary thing went way over Sophie's head, and she decided to leave that issue alone for the moment. There was only so much information she could handle at one time.
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 12:44 pm
"Funding?" Alfheim's voice cracked and he continued to look bewildered. He could understand thinking this was a voluntary thing, a lot of people did even after accepting it was a magical process, but she was acting like they were some charity organization and he... he just didn't know what to do with that.
"No! No one enlisted me, I mean it, it just... happened. Like, poof!" He flailed his arms around a bit. "You think I dress up like this? No! It literally just poofs. Like... like..."
Yeah he didn't know like what. He didn't know anything.
He just kind of let his arms go limp, needing to remember to not drop his bottle in the process. "We fight them because... uh..." Oh god he didn't know. "Because of Chaos and that's bad I guess." No one explained this very well. "Oh! But, they're the ones that let the monsters loose in the city. And I've been told some steal... starseeds," And no one even bothered to tell him what starseeds were. "But I don't know, all the ones I've met so far have been very nice so I just... kind of... I don't know...."
"To be honest I've never actually fought anything but youma. The last corrupted guy I talked to was actually very pleasant and he didn't know much more than me so!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 9:59 pm
Even though she was the outsider in all of this, Sophie was beginning to suspect that she knew more than the guys on the inside. Or at least, more than this particular guy on the inside. "Of course, funding," she explained patiently. "I know there's magic involved," and that felt really weird to say, "but there has to be funding as well, or you wouldn't be able to get anything done. Any organization requires, well, organization. And that doesn't happen on its own, or for free."
She didn't know what to do with his claim that this happened on its own, because that didn't make any sense. But neither did magic being involved at all. There could have been some sort of misunderstanding, but she wasn't sure where the problem was just yet.
Then Alfheim began spouting off buzzwords that Zia had dropped, and Sophie hurriedly consulted her list. Chaos and starseeds were both on the list. "Why is Chaos bad? I mean yes, generally chaos isn't a good thing, but a little can keep things from stagnating. You don't want too rigid a structure or it'll become brittle. And what are starseeds anyway?"
The poor guy seemed confused, and Sophie couldn't help but feel bad for him. "So if they're all nice," she suggested, "and you're nice, maybe you have no reason to be fighting. Maybe you're only fighting because you think you have to. But if enough of you decide that there's another way, maybe nobody will have to fight anymore. How about that?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 12:42 pm
"Well I don't think they're all nice," Alfheim said with a frown. If they were they wouldn't have been told to go out and fight, now would they? And he'd seen his sister's scars, they had to come somewhere.
"I don't really know," He said with a sigh. "I mean people talk about it like it's a thing. Like a... like..." He didn't have the vocabulary to really say what he wanted. "Like a disease or something I guess? I honestly have no idea, I'm new!" It was said in a very 'leave-me-alone' and 'get-off-my-case' sort of tone, which he didn't mean, but still. e was caught frustratingly willing some other source of information to appear like Camelot or Zia or someone who actually knew what was going on.
"I told you, you don't sign up, it's just-- It just poofs and happens!" Wait, were they an organization? Did they have a leader? Because no one had said anything to him about that. What if all this time he'd been doing what he wanted while there was some unseen entity getting increasingly pissed off at him?
"Starseeds are... like... these very important... things?" Oh god he didn't know. "Without them people die."
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Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:20 pm
"No, of course they're not all nice," Sophie agreed. "Just like not all people are nice. You can volunteer for a good cause and still be a bad person. Look at most politicians." That statement was a bit more polarized than she had planned. Moving on. "The bad ones get most of the attention, but the bulk of people are really trying to help. Just like in everyday life- you meet way more ordinary folks trying to get by than thieves and murderers." She paused for a moment. "Well, I'm not sure that's true in your line of work, but it is for most of us average joes."
That bit of self-deprecation stung just a bit. No matter how much she wanted to help, to go above and beyond, she was still just an average joe when compared to people like Bazzite and this guy. They had magic. At least Bazzite had enthusiasm, but this guy seemed totally weirded out by the whole thing. Sometimes life was so unfair.
The mention of disease was another odd element that didn't mesh with everything else, but it wasn't what Sophie took most offense to. "Being new is no excuse for being ignorant," she scolded. "It's your responsibility to know what you're doing, or you're likely to make mistakes and just end up making the situation worse. If you're not ready to be doing this by yourself, you should find a mentor who can help you." With that out of the way, she could focus on the first comment some more. "If it's a disease, why would fighting those affected by it help in any way? They should be taken to a hospital, not saddled with more injuries. Do you know how hard it is to get healthcare if you have a preexisting condition? The last thing these people need is to spend more money on medical bills." Sophie couldn't help but feel like she was missing some key point, but that didn't stop her from talking like she knew what was going on. Clearly Alfheim needed instruction, and if nobody within his group was providing it, she would have to.
"Without a starseed you what?" Now they were just getting way too serious for this to be a random conversation between some newbie and an inquisitive average joe. Sophie consulted her notes again. "Oh man, I wonder if it's some sort of slang. Maybe this is like an organ ring? So when people refer to 'starseeds' they actually mean a kidney or a liver... or something even more vital." She shivered thinking about it. This was scary stuff.
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Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 5:13 am
"Maybe you should ask someone else?" Alfheim mumbled out weakly, entirely exhausted by this girl who didn't seem to get he didn't know anything.
"I know some much more informed people, they're--" He did a quick glance around almost instinctively. He had been babysat, stalked, followed, had bitches breathing down his neck against his will for ages. And after all that trouble trying to escape them, of course, he had only succeeded when he needed one of them.
"I... I don 't think... I mean," Holy cow she talked fast. "I don't think Chaos stuff is covered by your average insurance company?"
When she started going on about what starseeds were slang for he sort of gave up and closed his mouth in a straight, silent line. Made sense, and he didn't have any information to dispute it, but somehow, he figured starseed probably wasn't code for kidney.
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Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 8:07 pm
"Maybe you should ask someone else," Sophie countered, feeling a bit irritated. "If, as you say, you know more informed people, why aren't you more informed yourself? Even if you wound up in this situation by accident, if you're going to be serious about it, then it's your responsibility to know what you're doing. Otherwise there's no point to your being out here, and there must be other things you could do with your time."
That was harsh, but Sophie was frustrated. Didn't this guy understand that he had something she could only dream about? How could he treat this whole thing so carelessly? If she couldn't make a difference by going out and doing what these people were doing, she would make a difference by supporting them. Whether they wanted to be supported or not.
"Oh, insurance companies." She waved her hand dismissively. "Like they're ever on the ball about these things. But the police should really be involved- or are they already?" Maybe she had disregarded them too quickly.
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