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 Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:35 pm
There was something… wrong... with her weapon.
Alright, so there was something wrong about a lot of this, weapon issues notwithstanding. When she’d left Destiny City there hadn’t been any war, or magic, or strange creatures wandering around (at least not that she’d been aware of), and now that she was back it was like everything had gone to hell. On the surface, it seemed like a normal enough city to someone who hadn’t been there in eight years, but the skyscrapers, traffic, and pollution was where that sense of normalcy began to end as soon as one turned on the news or happened to find themselves face to face with a youma.
To Palatine, it seemed like a sick joke. As right as it felt to be Palatine, there remained something inherently wrong with all of it. Perhaps she needed time to get used to it, to see and experience and find some level of understanding, but for now she remained as troubled as she’d been the day she'd awakened, struggling to accept what she was now when for thirty-seven years she’d never spared a thought for knighthood.
Presently, she looked at her weapon—if it could even be called that—as it rested innocently in the palm of her hand. A teapot wasn’t much of a weapon in her opinion, but it was all she had and she supposed she could learn to make the most of it, provided it stopped feeling so… strange.
“Useless piece of crap is what you are,” she muttered, tempted to banish it back to subspace or drop it on the ground to let it shatter into a million pieces since it didn’t do anything anyway, but the sense of wrongness it inspired in her staid her hand, and she continued to consider it as she walked, in the midst of a half-hearted patrol.
Half-hearted not because she didn’t care to do it, but because she remained partly distracted.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 2:53 pm
Camelot felt the aura of another knight nearby, though not a Knight in the sense of rank. A Page, maybe. He even baffled himself when thinking about being a knight Knight. Or Knight knight? It was a simple distraction though, to keep his mind off of other things.
Like how strange he had been feeling recently.
Camelot was on patrol and trying to keep his mind on anything other than the nagging feeling of tension and the way it put him ill at ease. He was sometimes paranoid, even he could admit that, but it did not feel like this. This was new, and the only thing he was absolutely sure of about it was he did not like it.
He wasn't alone in that, either.
"Are you alright, my lady?" he asked when he drew closer, hoping she had sensed his approach and he wouldn't startle her. She surprised him, though, when he realized he was not talking to a teenager as he usually was. She was an adult, near his own age if he had to hazard a guess. Younger, as he was pretty sure no one was his age.
He blinked, then tried to hide that surprise. Not the best first impression to make.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 3:17 pm
In her distraction, Palatine hadn’t noticed the energy signature nudging the edge of her senses until she heard the voice and glanced up to see a fellow knight.
And a rather powerful one at that, by the feel of him; once she was brought back to awareness and actually paid attention to that mental or spiritual sense that apprised her of other powered individuals in the area, she could only meet his presence with an expression of slight awe—and a less noticeable relief that she had not run into someone much more nefarious, for although she did not consider herself defenseless (despite her useless weapon) she doubted she would have amounted to much in a fight when taken by surprise.
For a moment, Palatine stopped to stare, and her eyes swept over the knight’s figure until she’d had her fill. White surcoat, and a red… was that a cross? Perhaps not. But there was armor as well, which together brought to mind images of long-dead crusaders, or Richard the Lionheart sailing from Corfu.
It was all very…
“Quaint,” she said, almost amused by it, and her lips twitched up into a little smirk.
When she realized she’d unintentionally spoken her thoughts, Palatine cleared her throat and evened out her expression in an attempt to recover, responding to his question with as much grace as she could manage when speaking of something she thought was a bit ridiculous. “Yeah, it's just… this damned teapot. It’s been a useless piece of junk for the most part, but for the last day or so it’s given off some weird vibes,” she explained, continuing her scrutiny of him as politely as it was possible for someone to scrutinize a complete stranger. “What are you a knight of, then? Not Venus. Not Jupiter either. I’m not all that familiar with the planetary symbols yet, unfortunately.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:05 pm
Camelot tilted his head, not quite catching the word she used. For a moment he thought she did not speak English and was greeting him in another language, but his more sensible brain kicked him in the back of his skull and told him he was a moron.
But she was smiling, so that was a good sign.
He bowed his head politely, then looked at the tea pot she was carrying. He had gotten off very lucky with his weapon, even when he was a Page, and he knew that very well now. He'd had an item he could easily use as a weapon, even if it was prone to breaking. It still did some damage before becoming useless. Other Pages were stuck with items that were useless from the get go.
Though he had seen tea pots used victoriously in television shows in the past. So it was definitely not the most unfortunate thing he had seen.
"I am Camelot, Knight of Earth," he said with an easy smile. "I'm still learning all the symbols, myself. Though, I guess my only excuse is not having much of a head for that kind of stuff. Is your item giving you trouble?" He wondered if she was getting that same vibe he was.
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:25 pm
Try as she might to contain it, Palatine was unable to prevent the dry laugh that burst forth as she received the knight’s name.
“Of course you are,” she said, entirely bemused, her expression half thoughtful, half humored.
It seemed only fitting that this man should have such a name, attired as he was. It amused her perhaps more than her own outfit of crisp white and obnoxiously pink ruffles did, if only because he looked the part of a knight, whereas she saw absolutely no connection between her name, her clothes, her planet, or her current form. For a while she’d assumed there wasn’t any connection at all, but now she wondered if it might be worth looking into. What information she’d gained from Sessrumnir after awakening had been of a much less personal nature, as she’d been more concerned about the war itself rather than her place in it.
Arching a brow, Palatine nodded toward Camelot’s shield. “Missing something, Sir Camelot?” she asked with a mildly teasing note to her voice. “I’d’ve expected Excalibur. Unless you’ve not been to see the Lady of the Lake yet.”
She laughed at her own attempt at a joke, if only because this whole war seemed more ridiculous by the day. Monsters? Really? And Knights? Children running around trying to protect the city?
Then again, this man was obviously no child, and though she didn’t know him, she also didn’t think it was a good idea to alienate her allies through her own humor and disbelief before she even had them.
“Sorry, it’s just that when I left Destiny City there wasn’t any war, and when I come back there’s this,” she said, waving a hand between the two of them as if to encompass the entire story with a single gesture. “It’s a lot to take in. But I’m Palatine, Page of Venus. And now this,” she added, switching her teapot from one hand to the other, “is being a pain. It’s not giving me trouble per se, since it doesn’t really do anything to begin with. Or it doesn’t yet. But there’s just been something not really… right… about it. It’s felt sort of off. I don’t really know… how to explain it. I’m only three months into this so maybe I’m wrong , but I don’t think it’s supposed to feel like that. Everything else about this mess has felt strangely right despite how ridiculous it is.”
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 10:40 am
Camelot wasn't unfamiliar with getting teased for his name and appearance. He looked like the knights that populated ren faires, the classic image people drummed up when they thought of storybook knights. He looked at his shield and smiled feebly.
"Yes, I suppose a sword would have been a bit more fitting... but it seems no knight is given a weapon like that... not that I've seen, anyway." He was not sure he'd know what to do with a sword, even if he got one. He blushed a bit, nodding his head and chuckling at his own expense.
"I know how you feel," he sighed. He had never left the city, but he'd been dragged into awareness of the war as a civilian, ultimately finding himself fighting in it when he awakened as a knight. He looked at her teapot and nodded his head, tapping his hand against his shield. "Yeah, the same thing is happening with mine. I don't think it's just you, or just me... and it can't be a coincidence. Whatever it is, though, it's got me well on edge. Like there's something just beyond my ability to see or feel, and it's driving me crazy."
He shook his head, not a fan of the paranoia that was building in him ever since he had powered up and that feeling of anxiety had settled in. It hadn't been very long at all, and he was already certain it was going to get worse. Or maybe that was just his weapon making him feel that way? He couldn't tell, which was just as bad.
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Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:24 pm
Had Palatine been involved in the war for a greater period of time, had she battled more than youma in the three months since her awakening, had she seen some of the truly horrific occurrences that had come to pass within the boundaries of the city as well as outside of it, she might have been able to face the odd vibes emanating from her weapon with more seriousness than she’d expressed so far. As it was, she didn’t yet have the sense of urgency these sorts of oddities might otherwise inspire. Indeed, she could only face it with a vague annoyance and the scantest bit of concern.
“I take it you’ve been doing this for a while then,” she said.
However much Camelot might resemble a knight of old, he didn’t exactly look how she’d been expecting other powered individuals to look. Sessrumnir had warned her that most of them were practically children—teenagers, if not younger than that. Palatine had resigned herself to making use of her admittedly minimal maternal instincts in dealing with them, should she ever run into one. Instead, she found herself faced with a more companionable presence.
She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved by that or not. On the one hand, encountering another adult was somewhat reassuring; at least these dumb kids would have some supervision, even if it wasn’t enough to truly manage them. On the other hand, she was beginning to wonder if she hadn’t been giving this war the attention it deserved, seeing as this was her first time running into anyone at all.
“And there’s no one who can tell us what this means?” she asked. It bothered her that strange things like this could happen—strange even to the knights who’d been in existence longer than her—and there wasn’t any book or person they could turn to for the appropriate information. “I guess the feudal hierarchy only goes up so far around here. Fat lot of good it ever did anybody anyway. If it’s not just us, then… hell, how are we supposed to know what to do about it? Not that it’s a huge problem yet, but if it’s going to be one it’d be nice if we could just go ahead and deal with it now. That'd probably be too convenient, though, wouldn't it?”
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Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2013 12:45 am
"A little while, yes. Though... not as long as my gray hair might indicate..."
He got a lot of flack for being older, and he was always surprised to meet someone over the age of, say, twenty. Younger, usually, as most of the fighters in this war seemed to be teenagers. He had no idea that his own son was such a one, though he was just coming out of his teenage years and had been in the war longer than Camelot.
"No, not that I've seen so far. I'm not sure who might know what this is..." maybe one of the cats? A princess? But they were senshi oriented, and did not know the ins and outs of knights any better than any of the actual knights did. He frowned thoughtfully.
"I agree with you, but I'm not sure where to even start." He looked at his shield. "Perhaps visiting our Wonders might help... maybe this is something trying to get our attention. Or warn us."
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Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 2:18 pm
That Camelot could joke about his age amused her, and Palatine laughed lightly even as her expression remained blandly curious. If she’d let herself open up to other people more than she did, she might have thought it was somewhat endearing.
“Warn us about what?” she asked, with no hope for an answer.
Perhaps it was pointless to voice such a question when neither of them knew how to respond to it, but just talking about it eased some of the tension roiling within her, and she could continue to keep a calm head for the time being. Whether or not she knew what was going on, whether or not she had grown accustomed to any of this, at least she knew she wasn’t alone.
Palatine did not know whether to find that reassuring. She didn’t necessarily want to be alone, not in this, but it was unlike her to rely on other people after all these years, and though having an ally or two would likely prove beneficial, it would take some time for her to adapt.
“I haven’t even been to my Wonder yet,” she said conversationally. “But I heard some of us have… people… ancestors?... that show up. Ghosts, are they? No stranger than the rest of this, I guess. Would they know anything about it, you think?”
Try as she might to convince herself that all this was normal and real, it still seemed pretty ******** ridiculous to hear herself talking about dead ancestors rising to discuss magical weapons as if that wasn’t the stuff meant for movies, and she issued another short, sardonic burst of laughter.
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Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 11:31 am
Camelot looked helpless there, not sure what to say. He couldn't fathom what they might be getting warned off, if it was a warning, which did not make it a very good one. He frowned thoughtfully, though he felt a little bit better then he did a few moments ago.
It was easier to deal with in the company of others, he decided. Being alone and fretting uselessly just made him feel like he wanted to explode. He saw things different, in that way, though he imagined just going home and powering down, maybe playing fetch with Dogby, would be even better.
"Ghost... I've heard of it. I must not have any luck there, I haven't run into anything while at my wonder. Though, I suppose I don't spend much time there in any one visit. I should... maybe they would know something about this. If our ancestors have experienced it before, they would recognize it, maybe, if we had the chance to tell them."
"This seems like a bad time to be new to all this, if there is ever a good time. I'm sorry, it's usually confusing but not... quite this bad. Hopefully things clear up..."
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Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 1:40 pm
“Yeah, well, that’s just my luck, really.”
She sounded a little bitter as she said it, though she was not quite as annoyed by all this—becoming a knight—as she thought she should have been. She shouldn’t have the time for this; indeed, it was often difficult to make the time, what with her job being so important to her and her admittedly awkward attempts to be there for her kids. By all rights, she shouldn’t want to do this at all, and there was a part of her that considered dropping the act of knight before she even began to get used to it.
But there was another part of her that balked, and though she didn’t go out as frequently as she probably should if she had any hope of making a difference in this war, she couldn’t completely abandon it either. Whether or not being a knight actually meant something to her yet, it was still, strangely, a part of her, and she wasn’t yet done exploring it.
“So do you think we should do anything about it?” she wondered. “In the meantime? We don’t have to carry these things around all the time,” she said, and banished her teapot into subspace as she did so. “Maybe it’d be safer if we didn’t, if it means something dangerous. Mine isn’t much help yet anyway, but yours…”
She paused to consider his shield. “Yours is probably more useful. Does it… well… do anything? Aside from, you know, actually being a shield. I’ve met a Squire,” she said, and saw no reason to mention Sessrumnir by name, the arrogant b*****d, “and he was kind enough,” or smug, more like, “to bring me mostly up to date. So I know he can use magic, and I assume you can, too.”
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Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:27 am
At least for Tony the transition to knight hadn't been all that difficult. Yes, learning the ins and outs of it was complicated, and there was a lot of moral and personal stuff he was not familiar with before the whole awakening bit.
But he had been rather aware of the whole senshi fight before he became a knight. It helped him with the change from victim to fighter, and left him with fewer questions.
"Well," he frowned and tilted his head, looking down at his weapon thoughtfully. "It's a very good shield." He laughed at that, but he was being stingy with his praise. He lifted it a bit, focusing his magic. A barrier, visible only through reflections of light, like the clearest of glass, stretched out from the shield. He kept it small, just to show what it could do.
"There is also a green crystal inside the eye of the dragon, behind the emblem. It's ah... the Terra Viridis crystal, and it can cast a beam of light which causes pain, but doesn't injure. That's it though. Just the barrier and the crystal."
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:45 am
Palatine watched with interest as he demonstrated his magic, but made no move to draw closer whether or not it would harm her to do so, quelling the urge to inspect the barrier. She kept her distance—which was not too great of a distance at all, since they were easily able to converse like this, but it was in her nature to be reserved. Despite her curiosities and the intrigues of knighthood, she felt more comfortable, for the time being, keeping what distance she could until she’d had the chance to become better acquainted with the people who were supposed to be her allies.
“Terra Viridis?” she wondered, focusing on the dragon’s eye.
Sessrumnir hadn’t mentioned anything like that, only that their weapons evolved and gained the ability to perform magic. His explanation had described only one magical ability—and she knew what his was, though she was not yet sure what hers would be. Yet here was a knight who seemed to have two. And he spoke of them as separate things even as the crystal sat embedded in the shield.
The barrier and the crystal. As if the crystal was something all its own.
“What is that, exactly? The crystal. Does anyone else have one?”
She was fairly certain she didn’t have anything like that hidden away in her teapot, nor had Sessrumnir said anything about a crystal in reference to his storm glass.
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Posted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:12 am
"It was something a youma had been carrying, and I found it." He left out the fact that it had been a squirrel youma who came into the window of his hospital room while he'd been recovering, for the thousandth time, from one battle or another. But the fact that it had not been the most glamorous of events wasn't important, right? Most everything he did was embarrassing and stupid in some way.
It wasn't his fault, so much as fate messing with him endlessly.
"I know there are other crystals out there, but they don't seem to be exclusive to anyone one side. A couple of Negaverse soldiers have them, and senshi. I'm not sure how many there are in total, though. They all seem to have their own unique power, as well."
He glanced down at his shield, tapping the shield emblem thoughtfully with his opposite hand.
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Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:58 pm
“And no idea where they come from?” Palatine wondered, though for one reason or another she didn’t expect a concrete answer.
That seemed to be the way of things. A question would arise and the only answers out there seemed to be “I don’t know.” As of yet, she hadn’t determined how much this bothered her, or if it bothered her all that much at all. She supposed it should be expected when one took into account what they were dealing with—magic, monsters, things no educated, sane person would believe existed, and so far the two knights she’d run into both seemed educated and sane.
She didn’t know who to blame for the lack of decent information and so she didn’t blame anybody. They were all in the same boat, it seemed—wandering around confused but trying to make the most of what they’d been given or become.
“I guess we can’t expect much help from that, then,” she observed. “Maybe we can’t expect much help from anybody. Is it always like this? Weird things happen without answers? We fumble around for a while looking for said answers and then everything blows up in our faces?”
To her, that seemed as if it could be the only outcome.
Or it’d all be terribly anticlimactic—one or the other.
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