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 Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 1:25 pm
Destiny City, her city, her home, her hunting grounds.
It had been a while.
If she'd felt a twinge of nostalgia when watching the city line twinkle past her on the drive home the night before, the feeling of dashing over rooftops in the warm late afternoon light gave Zircon a rush she hadn't felt in almost a year, her heart pounding as she exalted in the power running through her veins. In all her time as an officer of the Negaverse, the high she got when she powered up never ceased to get old.
At the end of her sprint, she leapt off the low-hanging roof of a business adjacent to Destiny City's Central Park, landing with a heavy thud of her toes against the sidewalk. She began to walk calmly through the iron gates of the park when the memory of an old hit to the torso caused her to clutch her torso and wince in phantom pain. She thought of the blood she'd shed in this town, this very park, and the scars she wore, and had to concede that not all of being an officer was exhilaration and power. There were darker things locked away in her head, images she'd long put to rest, feelings that bubbled just underneath her subconscious, and these too were a part of her loyalties to Chaos.
But none of this nostalgia, for good or bad, accounted for her presence on an otherwise typical day in the park. As a lieutenant with a fairly inconspicuous costume, Zircon was afforded a privilege that many of her peers simply didn't have: she blended in with civilians. In fact, she could stroll through the winding walkways of the park casually scanning for victims and no one would be the wiser, which gave her the opportunity to gather energy during the daylight hours when senshi patrols tended to be low. It meant a lower chance of confrontation, which Zircon was perfectly fine with, and for her first real day back on the job it would be useful recon work to determine how the City's dynamics had changed.
She spotted her victim a few minutes after her walk had begun: an old, decrepit looking man, curled under a threadbare blanket and a nest of newspapers on a park bench in the interior. Destiny City never lacked for homeless people, and they were often the easiest prey. Zircon was quick to pick off the weak and the useless, and as she approached his sleeping form she thought of her job as something akin to pruning a garden. Her first instinct was to slip her hand in his chest, but she hesitated at the last moment, recalling her change of orders. Her lip curled, and she snarled, but after a moment's thought she pulled her hand away.
"You have no idea how lucky you are," she murmured, instead placing an open palm on one dirty shoulder. She concentrated, and after a moment a hazy sphere of energy began to form in her available hand, becoming more opaque with each passing moment. "At least you can contribute something to society."
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Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 1:51 pm
"...The FUDGE are you doing, Muckluck?" The thirteen year old at the end of the alley, armed with a back pack full of books and an much larger than necessary attitude, had perhaps already taken one too many cues from meeting one of DCs Tiny Terrorists. To the possible confusion of others, none of those cues involved actual swear words instead of occasionally surreal replacement words. She had to admit she loved the womans' coat, but she didn't think she was watching her slip him money or food. Granted it was movie levels of cool looking, but she wanted to know what it WAS. That failing maybe she'd go all Jet-Li and go for the coat. It was an AWESOME coat. She could steal it and be all "...Yeah I'm tough, I took this from a terrorist" NO ONE would anticipate combat ballet. No one.
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Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 2:02 pm
Zircon had been intercepted by a myriad cast of those who would interrupt her work, from knights to guardian cats. She had been called all sorts of names; criminal, villain, scum, evil.
But she had to admit, Muckluck was new.
Her head tilted towards the tiny voice in modest recognition, though the lieutenant as of yet made no effort to stop what she was doing. Her expression twisted into one of confusion as she scanned over the girl--no powers, no weapon, no sign of a specialized starseed. Was this child really that desperate to get herself killed?
"It's none of your business, kid," Zircon called out, doing her best to instill her authoritative teacher-tone in her voice. "Just turn around, and we won't have any problems here." Truth be told, Zircon had no desire to hurt the little girl, and she was almost done with her collection anyways, so a few more moments and she could be on her way. She could only hope that it would be that easy, but her gut was telling her otherwise. Either way, there was no threat in the present situation, so Zircon's demeanor remained stiffly calm.
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Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 2:33 pm
"You're going straight to threats? No "move along this is police business" or "I'll tell you're mom"?" Quila demanded, pushily. "LAZY. Bond villains at least try and bribe people sometimes." "Hey did you ever do Ballet? You don't look like it. There's this move called "soubresaut"... It's kinda cool..." It was also a pretty fancy way of saying 'huge jump'. Which was, to be honest, never meant to be done by someone wearing blue leather boots. It was also nearly the worst warning in the world that not quite a hundred pounds of girl with her knees together like a battering ram and her back pack held skyward like a missbegotten payload was about fly skyward in ways that a civilian might have taken for breaking laws of gravity, (only because they were unlikely to have seen a powered individual do anything of the sort.) She really REAAAALLLYYY wanted to do the Bruce Willis line, but it was really more of a ninja moment. Ninjas didn't yell catch phrases, except in stupid cartoons. OHYEAH DC. QUILLA ROSE FISHER TO THE RESCUE!
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Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 3:02 pm
Zircon didn't have time for this. She wasn't anybody's babysitter, and she really didn't give a s**t about ballet. Nevertheless, this little girl was starting to get on her nerves, and the edges of her mouth turned down in warning.
"I'm not a Bond villain, I'm just doing my job," she retorted darkly, her eyes narrowing. Honestly, people had such poor opinions of the Negaverse! Did no one understanding she was fighting to save these simple fools from oppression? She watched with a bored stare as the girl reared up to jump, but she never took any measures to defend herself. After all, even if the girl had a big mouth, it wasn't like she actually had the nerves to go barreling into a fully fledged officer of the Negaverse, and an adult at that. At the last second, Zircon scoffed and began to look back to her victim, deciding that it would be in her best interest to hurry up and finish what she'd started.
It was this exact underestimation that sent the Negaverse agent stumbling when a little ball of force went hurtling her way, and with a startled gasp she lost hold of her hard-earned quarry. As she skipped a few steps backwards to regain her balance, she grabbed her assailant by the forearms to keep either of the two of them from outright falling, her gaze of bewilderment and shock followed the crystalline sphere, which shattered on the pavement beside them, the milky substance dissipating into the air. After a moment of agape disbelief, she turned to the little punk who had cost her a good hunt, holding her tightly at arms length but otherwise not harming her.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?!" shouted the flustered lieutenant between gritted teeth. "Do you really have that much of a deathwish?" She tensed up, ready to strike at the girl, but at the last second she caught herself. No. This was a child, barely coming into her own, and she clearly didn't know what danger she tempted. Zircon wouldn't make any moves to hurt her, but that certainly wasn't what it looked like, given that she had an angered death-grip on the girl.
Zircon lowered her posture to look Quila directly in the eye, and with a dark gutteral growl, murmured, "You're going to walk away and let me finish my business. This is not a bribe. This is not a threat. This is a statement of fact." And then, with a shove that was light for a Negaverse officer but forceful for a civilian, she released her grip on the girl. Maybe now she could get some work done in peace.
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Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 3:42 pm
Oh. No. She. DIDN'T.
If you didn't know Quila... or not terribly well, the wide eyed stare probably looked chagrined, maybe even a little afraid, but that wasn't the emotion behind the blank expression on her face or the saucer wide eyes.
Alas, no, that was the look on the playground that usually preceded berzerker rages like a warrior of old and week long detentions. And sometimes biting.
She waited until Zircon turned her back to the man again before her rage hit boiling point.
"Lady you better hit the books, because your facts are WRONG!"
It didn't help that 'wrong' came with 'book bag clubbing' action, complete with the pencil and pen collection in the front pocket, or it's armor plating of buttons with snarky little turns of phrase or cute colorful ponies.
True, she hadn't a clue how literal the phrase 'deathwish' was with this woman, but she had it in mind that she could be just as tough as Columbia. They looked about the same age after all. And failing 'tough as' she definitely figured she had "louder than" in the bag. If apparently super powers came along like puberty in this city, than hers might be something kinda lame like 'distract until the police get here' rather than 'punch monsters to death' but hey, she'd take it. A super power was a super power. Shame she'd forgotten to ask where everyone got their costumes from tough. Maybe it was a store?
Didn't look like something you found at a party store though. Hm. Something to debate for later.
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Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 8:18 pm
Penthesilea was new to this "senshi" business, but she was well aware that when she felt a nasty Chaotic aura, her job was to track it down and interrupt whatever its owner was doing. Maybe even do some damage to the owner in the process. So, she followed her aura sense and was rather...well.
Displeased with what she saw. An agent of the Negaverse, picking on a small child? That kid could just as easily be Taji, and no one got to pick on Taji. Sure, the kid was doing her best, but against someone with Chaos power? She couldn't let her go it alone.
"Hey! You!" Penthesilea shouted, running forward from behind the officer. "Why don'tcha pick on someone your own size?" Her New Orleans accent was thick, heavy - perhaps matched by the weight of her boot as she kicked out.
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Posted: Sun Oct 27, 2013 8:51 pm
Getting hit with a backpack didn't hurt much of Zircon, save her dignity. With a scowl and a few obscenities, she swatted the blows away one by one, her urge to kill slowly rising. "I--al--ready--told--you--to--go--away!" she huffed, narrowly dodging one of the girl's more spirited hits. It was then that she felt the aura in the distance, slimy and slickly clean, and she stopped mid-flail.
"You have got to be shitting me," were the words Zircon muttered just before she got a faceful of plastic buttons. With one frustrated grunt, she ripped the bag from the girl's tiny hands, tossing it aside as she advanced into her personal space. She needed to scare this girl into leaving, and then get lost herself--even a newly minted senshi could do a lot of damage if they felt like it. "Listen, I have about had it up to here with you, and if you don't find somewhere else you need to be in the next five seconds--"
Nope. Too late. Cue one angry shout from behind her.
Zircon rolled her eyes, mouthed, 'One moment,' to Quila, then turned to her would-be assailant. "Why don't you--OOF!" said the officer, who managed to deflect most of the kick but nevertheless stumbled onto the bench where her homeless victim had been snoring. He startled awake upon impact, shouting drunkenly at the group, and with a disgusted snarl Zircon pulled herself free of the pile of limbs and newspapers to address the senshi.
"Was that really necessary?" she spat, circling away from the bench so that she would have more open space to operate in. "Here I was, just minding my business, and now you're on my case for something you know nothing about." Senshi and their prejudices, right? She was clearly the victim here.
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Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2013 5:30 am
"She's Lying! TOTALLY LYING!" Quila provided loudly and helpfully, shouldering her backpack and dancing backward like Rocky (Rockette?) Balboa, punching air and doing a little dance step that was supposed to make her somewhat diminutive frame look more impressive. "She was doing a... a THING... to the guy! It was all woooooooo..." She paused in her shaddow boxing long enough to make a hand sign equivalent of the energy drain. "BUT I NAILED HER, POW! AND SHE DROPPED IT!" ...Ok she wasn't sure if dropping it had actually been good for the guy, but hey, bad for this lady was apparently good for something? This older person was definitely dressed differently than Columbia, but she looked kinda like.... Girl Sparta.... no Leonidas was way more badass and would probably have totally worn dagger accessories if he was a girl. She could kinda get behind that. She probably broke creepers in half. "You are going DOWN." She accused Zircon pointedly, jabbing enthusiastically at the air some more.
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Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 12:43 pm
Penthesilea let out a soft growl. "I am far, far more inclined to believe the young lady over here than you," she said. Sure, this was her first encounter with Chaos, but Avior's words rung in her head - the Negaverse drained people's life force, left them unconscious and helpless, and this one had been threatening a child.
She turned to the girl, a slight smile on her face. "You were very brave, to take her on, but you gotta be careful - I'm trained t' handle people like her." Alright, so her training wasn't for Chaos, technically, but it worked well enough.
With little warning, she shifted to throw her weight into the Lieutenant. Surprise and what might be considered "cheap shots" in other martial arts were core elements of krav maga, and that was her style of choice.
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Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:46 pm
"Ugh, you have got to be kidding me."
Zircon may have been unprepared for the first bull rush, but she was a quick learner. This time, she didn't fight the blow, but rather moved with it, putting her in close proximity where she needed to be. She took the opportunity to grab for the senshi, pulling down at the convenient little straps on her bodice. Cute as they were, whoever thought fukus were practical for combat needed their fashion license revoked.
"You haven't trained enough," hissed the lieutenant with a sharp tug, pulling the senshi down with her. True, they were both tumbling backwards, and fighting on the ground was less than ideal, but it was better than nothing. In the meantime, she tried to ensure she at least did some damage, pulling Penthesilea into what would be a quick knee to the ribs on the way down.
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Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 4:44 pm
"Well NO ONE'S TELLIN' ME WHERE YOU SIGN UP FOR THIS TRAINING FOR FLUFFS SAKE." Quilla protested, loudly and angrily, wise enough at least to scrabble backward from the collision of Senshi and Lieutenant... if partially because she was looking for any off chance of a chunk of concrete with which to bludgeon her foes. Wait maybe she should use her camera phone... no then her brother would show her mom and mom would NEVER think this was as awesome and heroic as it was. Mom's were so unreasonable about that stuff and bluh bluh mortal danger. Well mom, she asked for martial arts lessons so she could do the five fingered punch like in Kill Bill and all that got was a grounding for watching Kill Bill. WAY TO SEND HER UNPREPARED INTO THE FRAY. Die Fluegel der Freiheit Sorry for the delay guys!
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Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:51 am
Penthesilea actually laughed. Close combat was her absolute favorite thing, and she shifted so that when she landed, even though she took a knee to the ribs, she would hand out an elbow to the gut. As far as she was concerned, the tighter in she could get the more damage she could do.
"Eleven years, darlin'," she replied, her tone completely serious. She had to be amused by the very enthusiastic kid, too. At least she had help, even if it was in the form of someone she'd rather not see involved in this war at all. Fighting was the job of Senshi and Officers, not civilians.
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Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 2:20 pm
Ele... wait. Was that a crack about her age? She was Motherfluffin' Thirteen, not some baby. The young girl drew herself up as tall as she could, which... all things considering really could have been notably taller. "I'm thirteen! not THREE!" She barked at Penthesilea, trying to decide if she should risk hitting Penthesilea in order to come back over and to try and deliver a few good kicks to Zircon. Zircon struck her as a grabber though.
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Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:45 pm
Laughing was bad. Laughing was almost always bad.
Zircon felt the blow to her gut and exhaled sharply, trying to alleviate some of the pain. She found herself better prepared for the impact on pavement, and rolled, using her strength to force her way on top, trying for a pin. As it turned out, the lieutenant was a grabber, and for added leverage she went for the one area she knew Penthesilea would be vulnerable; that long, shiny hair. Releasing her grip on the senshi's decorative straps, she reached for fistfuls of the orange locks, pulling them like the reins of an unruly horse.
When the girl began to shout again, Zircon let out a groan of exasperation. She was still here?"If you're not three, then quit acting like it and go get the police or something!" Not quite expert level diversion tactics, but Zircon would really prefer to fight without a child nearby. She didn't want to have to think about the likely consequences if the young one were to try and intervene again--this senshi was a fighter.
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