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 Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 5:57 pm
The night smelled sickly sweet, like burning flesh. He'd woken up to it before. Couldn't place it. Never did.
However, it left him wanting - looking for a reason to search the streets again, if only to clear his nose of the rank scent. Through trees lining a park, between playground equipment overused and bleached from the sun, between trash cans emptied religiously yet splattered with Cokes and discarded juice boxes. Between streets, across sidewalks, through alleys littered with displaced souls and bodies riddled with addiction. And in watching one turn over in her sleep, mouth slackened with exhaustion and hand unfurled across the ground in a rolling gesture, he realized he wasn't so far off. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.
Without the smell of demise dogging him, would he still go out at night?
It didn't matter. Wrinkles spiderwebbed from her eyes. Parenthesis held her mouth in contempt, and the rest of her body lay beleaguered with her habit. Her hunt, her something to search for.
And he realized, he needed something to search for. He left her, and started down the remainder of the alley, stepping over gutter trash as he progressed.
Sometimes headlights illuminated street lamps and their shadows stretched for miles into the distance. They bled into darkness, where the headlights couldn't reach, where nightmares still breathed and bred anew. Idly he wondered if youma passed through riftss sprouted in the shadows, or if they only came from an officer's call, just before a swift demise. The thought didn't linger, and neither did he.
He drifted like leaves through a gutter, past an old, rusted Volkswagen with ductape over the right rear window and a steering wheel adorned in a dragonfly cover. Bird s**t ran down the hood before it crusted over under the sun. Maybe it'd been there for months. Just as he ran his finger across the delicate antenna, he paused - something broke his concentration. Something threatened to dissuade him from his search, to place him on a different path of its own accord. Like a moth to fire, for his sole choice was to burn alive tonight.
It felt... Like a star lit on the ground. Perched atop the monkey bars in the park. Nestled itself on a bench like a bird roosting in its nest. Maybe not quite a star, because it felt far unlike any senshi or knight he'd felt before - so what could it be? What could've uprooted him from his comfortable miseries and beckoned him to a location he'd crossed prior? What felt so simultaneously wrong and interesting?
He had to know.
Bischofite crested another building in renewed determination - he found something to seek. Something to brush the burning flesh from his beleaguered nasal passages and offer him a small reprieve from incessant ruminations. Something to dissuade him from the Rift - just a little longer. And that was fine. He didn't mind. He didn't care.
So he sought it. Across clattering shingles, almost slipping on a broken gutter. Across a fresh-cut lawn. Down a street littered with potholes and a single discarded hubcap. Something was etched into the broken plastic, but he didn't pause to read it. He was fixated now - he wouldn't stop until he happened upon the source of this distraction.
And the general slowed to a stop not twenty feet away, head slightly cocked in quizzical examination but countenance still stubbornly stoic. He eyed the creature before him - lilac ears and a cat's bushy tail. Golden eyes, similar his own. Strange dress habits unlike anything he'd seen before. Decidedly inhuman.
(All this time spent chasing dreams)
"You exist outside of binaries, don't you?" Beyond order and chaos. Beyond the pretense. He grinned.
She held some promise, now. He could feel it.Carneli let me know if this is ok! if not, i can edit!
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Posted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 10:37 pm
"You're one to talk, general," She stated with almost laughing amusement in her tone as she held out nails she had been filing for examination rather than look at him directly.
The yellow eyes lied about the pilot. The host was operating things, not the parasite, but since the Black Moon's decline and Zirconia's withdrawn nature within the mind they both fought for dominance over, whose devices were whose was a gray area and often up for debate. You ended up sharing a lot of things when you shared the same physical being.
Either way, the auric energy leaking into the atmosphere was a problem most guardian cats often tried to avoid and resorted only to using their humanoid forms in the most dire of situations.
Filing one's nails obviously wasn't one of those. This was intentional.
Lifting the deep purple overlay so it didn't drag and turning to face him, positively light on her feet and brightly smiling at the presence, the Mauvian seemed to almost gush right there.
"A Negaverse agent talking about anomalies? I know you aren't fully aware of your universal context, but it's still..."
She trailed off before she said something condescending. The open stance, the airy smile, even the seeming distraction of grooming her nails was all very calculated and condescension would ruin her facade. Zia was used to newer and more emotionally receptive recruits who were easily disarmed by such small actions and warmth. Open arms and smiles had been her more productive tactics in accumulating tactical information and maintaining her status as a non-threat. With no physical strength or fighting capabilities, and no sides or faction to call on, being a friendly, non-threat was generally how she lived throughout the night messing around in wars that weren't hers and trying to start a few new ones.
Superficial, flighty, motherly, caring. Carefully chosen hints to planned traits, planted from the same woman who had attempted to persuade a captain to pull out a starseed only to satisfy a curiosity. They were all curiosities. That was the point of fishing for the negaverse and their order counterparts in particular.
Her eyes scanned Bischofite up and down, flicking this way and that to the outlaying details of his person as she tried to get a read on him. Of the generals she had encountered so far, he wasn't fitting into any preconceived molds just yet, and that made him difficult.
"It's a side effect of my displacement. My name is Zirconia, Castellan of the Black Moon," She crooned with a sweeping bow, just dramatic enough to border on possible mockery against her great efforts not to tread on such things. It was so hard, though.
With a delicate noise from the bangles around her wrists, she extracted a camera she had waiting. "I don't suppose you'd let me document this momentous occasion?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 7:47 am
If he learned anything during his interpersonal excursions, it was that, often times, people wanted to avoid him altogether. More accurately, they clamored to get away from him, primarily as a general, but they were far more apt to retaliate against him as a civilian. He could've speculated that those were the defining moments for his misanthropic views, but to do so would be to belittle the goals he had in mind that relied on those tendencies. He hated people, people hated him - it was that simple, and it worked.
But this?
This didn't work.
Bischofite eyed her warily, more out of habit than true caution. He began his pacing - slow, measured steps designed to encircle her in lazy seconds rather than dizzy himself with his view of her. Now, he recognized there were various defining moments in his history that solidified someone's role in his life, much like how his corruption indelibly confirmed Benitoite as his superior, rank be damned, but anything up to that point was entirely fluid and entirely malleable.
His view of her still retained some of that malleability, but she nearly tempered it with a quick eight words. She knew something, and she acted happy to see him. Whether or not this act was a complete lie wasn't entirely discernible, not to him, but he erred on the side of skepticism given his long history of grimaces toward his presence. She had no reason to be happy to see him - though she drew him here like a beacon. She pierced his listlessness with a singular pinprick some distance away, and he had her to thank for dispelling that hopeless wanting feeling.
He paused in his encirclement, and golden gaze settled on her. Internally he rifled through a quick and stunted catalogue of her mistakes and their rectifications.
One: She looked happy to see him. This was a mistake. Strangers aren't happy to see him.
Two: Her words caught his attention. Sometimes this is a mistake, sometimes not - for now, he'd consider it neutral.
Three: She introduced herself. This was free information - a positive.
She stood on neutral ground, that much was easy.
Bischofite laced his fingers together just beneath his sternum, and cocked his head with a nearly inaudible sigh. Eyes still feverishly bright with the excitement of a new puzzle, a new face to discern in some sort of doomsday desperation, he still did not smile. This was probably for the best - his smiles were largely teeth and malice. "Zirconia," he began with echoing her words. "Castellan of ze Black Moon. I'f heard of ze White Moon Court, and ze Dark Mirror Court, even ze Blood Moon Court, but never a Black Moon." He relayed that information evenly - her solitude in his explanation wasn't the focus of his endeavors. "Curious zat you show up of late... Black moon sounds unconscionably similar to ze eclipse zat haunted ze city of late. Do you haf' somesing to do wis' zat, Mz. Zirconia?" He leaned forward with his intonation.
Straightening up, he furrowed his brow and eyed the camera she produced. It looked surprisingly ordinary, almost absurd in the grasp of a cat-turned-human speaking of worlds and binaries. However, Bischofite grasped the lens in one quick motion to halt the process altogether. "No, I wouldn't." His gaze sharpened - was she collecting information? Was she documenting anyone who was stupid enough to approach her strange signature? But who would she relay that information to - her court, whom he'd never heard of before? Something seemed wrong, and he didn't like it.
Wrenching the camera from her grasp, he looked it over. Simple enough. He knew little of cameras, though. With his occupied hand resting against the back of his hip, he furrowed his brow and leveled a glance at her. Calling her name, he pronounced the z as a more native ts. "Zirconia - you said somesing earlier zat piqued my attention, and for zat we will trade. I assume you want your camera back, so you'll answer my question. You said, 'you aren't fully aware of your universal context'. Tell me what you meant."
He didn't ask because it wasn't a request. She needed to confirm her presence on a scale from friend to enemy. Such a question mapped her placement for him.Carneli Sorry this took so long! It's hard for me to tag on workdays because life gets hectic!
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Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2013 7:48 pm
She opened her fingers to allow the camera to be taken with the most ease possible. After Orpheus constantly snatching away her mirrors, having startling things taken from her was almost expected. She knew the camera was going to cause some tension. The smartphone always did, so the cheap digital camera was an experiment tonight.
That and she was clearly confident she was going to be getting it back.
"Show up as of late?" She snorted. "I've been here since the epidemic of 2010. When everyone was collapsing into comas."
He did being up a fairly good point, though. With the eclipses, the moon was black, and there was something about the very concept that tugged on the back of some unknown space in her brain.
A quiet, niggling feeling that it was all very familiar, but when she dove for it in her memory, she came up empty. Something had been there, but it wasn't there anymore. It bothered her, but she knew why it wasn't there anymore, even if she had no idea what 'it' was.
"Eclipses are bad," She stated the instant, knee jerk reaction she had vocalized to Valhalla earlier when he questioned her, but that's all she had to offer on the matter. "I have no connection to these in particular. I do tend to have my fingers," She paused to lift up her newly emptied hands bend her fingers through the air like she was scratching at something invisible, "In quite a few disasters. The comas, the Blood Moon and it's Operation Rota, the existence of the Dark Mirror 'court'," She actually paused to scoff after forcing herself to say the court's title in full and address them as a legitimate court, although it was dripping with derisive sarcasm and disgust.
"But alas, this is not my doing. I would be interested to know whose it is, though," She said with a wistful look up to the sky.
There were other things at hand here, though.
He offered a trade and she returned the demand with a warm, almost laughing smile. "Oh calm down. I was looking for you! Of course I'd tell you why."
She rolled her shoulders and leaned back on the heels of her bare feet for a moment as she fluffed up her dragging purple overlay and smoothed out her skirt.
"I look for the Negaverse's officers and their order counterparts in the hopes to observe and study. You're very fascinating! And I want to know everything about you!" Yellow cat eyes were wide with glee she didn't even bother trying to restrain as she clasped her hands under her chin and leaned just a little too close.
"Did you know-- I know you don't actually know but my social conditioning demands I ask to fully convey the factual nature of the following-- that you are an anomaly specific and unique to this particular universe? I don't come from here, I come from another place in spacetime, and I've spent many years gathering knowledge in my capacity as a sworn companion to guide and serve. I've traveled across time, to universes outside my own. Knights, and by extension their Chaos counterparts, are unique. I've never seen anything like you. There are similar analogs, but nothing quite... the same..."
She grinned and tilted her head as she pushed to even closer proximity and made an attempt to turn around him in a circle, every sensory nerve in her goosebump accented, sun-kissed skin ready to overwhelm with the unbridled fanaticism at merely talking to him.
"You are amazing and-- Well I already told you. I want to know everything about you."
She realized that may have come across as a bit problematic, and paused her hungry staring stand full upright and put her hands on her hips. "Well, not the Negaverse organization as a whole. I don't care about the whole, I'm far more interested in how it manifests in the individual. I only want the rhizome, not the whole crop."
One hand reached out to lightly brush his arm with some hesitation. Would he allow it? Would he make physical contact with her? It seemed like even just the anticipation of this question would cause a volatile, manic outburst just from the way her body language and expression practically exuded excitement.
"Will you tell me your name, General?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 9:36 am
So this strange cat prowled the streets for years now - no one put her down yet. No one euthanized the stray. This led to a variety of conclusions: perhaps she possessed the cunning to secure her survival through the years, or members of her court still lurked amongst the periphery of Destiny City, or she truly posed no threat. Disinclined to believe the lattermost of his various conclusions, Bischofite's ruminations lent toward two very plausible scenarios. Yes, it was very possible that she bought her continued lifespan through cleverness and well-played strategy, but she was bound to piss someone off. So who had her back in those instances?
Who protected a cat that lingered beyond her dimension?
"I came to ze states in April. I haven't seen you until now." His justification came succinctly, because he was studying her still. He tried to puzzle her out, to discern the hows and whys of her strange existence. If she managed to land herself in Destiny City in 2010, then how did she do it? Were there others of her kind afoot? And most importantly, why stay? Why linger in a realm foreign to her? As a transplant himself, he considered it thusly: if she stayed, she either preferred living here or she couldn't leave. It wasn't so different from his situation, really. He couldn't leave, initially, but now...
He smiled, only a little, but the huff of a laugh following it broadened that crack in his normally stoic countenance. He watched her with budding mirth and a piqued interest, one normally hidden by cold, dead observation. He bit his tongue lightly as he drew a barely audible breath - she finally provided that small spark to truly catch his attention as another living entity. Before she simply lingered as a puzzling ideal, but now... This cat, Zirconia, become something of a covetable affair. Maybe it wasn't quite a recognition of her, but it was a step up from a speck of dust blown in from another dimension.
Though he wasn't aware of all the instances he mentioned, a few stood out for their significance: the Blood Moon Court, and the Dark Mirror Court. Both ominous names, to be certain, and he knew only a superficial explanation of the former. As for the latter... Well, he had every reason to scoff alongside her, though his sudden enthrallment with her recount prevented it. "All zese sings..." He drew the words out as he spoke. It traced the wonderment hidden in the universe. "And you were a part of each one? I can't say I commend you on ze Dark Mirror Court, but..." To maintain that kind of manipulation was genius. "If you truly had a part in zese events, zen we might get along quite nicely."
But she had more to offer than that.
A little too much, in fact.
Bischofite caught her arm in the midst of her frenzied encirclement, if only to curb her enthusiasm. It hadn't worked, not much. She still blazed with that feverish excitement, one he had recognized in himself on numerous occasions. And for a moment he wondered if this was how he appeared to the enemy during traps planned and executed near flawlessly - as some frothing fanatic spilling tales and intents that hardly fit the moment.
"Fine." He watched her in a half-lidded, reproachful glance. "FIne," he echoed with identical intonation. "I will tell you sree sings if you can back off for a moment." As if shooing her feral counterparts, he swept the back of his hand toward her and edged backward to maintain a modicum of distance. "You can marvel at me and stare me down and visually dissect me all you like. Es ist mir Scheißegal*. But if you are truly a castellan, zen it seems you'f forgotten how to behaf'e yourself."
His hands moved to clasp together, and two circular blades materialized in their grasp just moments before his hands met. With the chakrams held vertically, it looked like some perversion of a prayer pose, but Bischofite thought little of it. No, he was more focused on inventorying a few choice facts to offer like scraps to this hungry cat. "One. My name is Bischofite. Two. I haf' chakrams as weapons." He held his arms outward in an exaggerated embracing gesture, and the two blades flickered dully beneath the sickly street lamps. "Sree. I want to become a youma."
He smiled.Carneli *It doesn't mean s**t to me.
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Posted: Sun Nov 17, 2013 1:42 pm
"Yes, well, up until recently I've made considerable efforts to not be seen," She admitted, and the tension that appeared at the corners of her mouth hinted there were relative feelings to it than were immediately obvious.
"However, my research has hit a plateau. To revitalize I send out this beacon," Her bare arms lifted slightly, to reference the amount of energy her aura leaked into the space around them in her current form. "And make something happen. I rely on the charity of those I meet to not snuff me out where I stand. However, the simple fact is things happen. And a step in any direction-- positive, negative, fatal-- is preferable to stagnation."
She had suffered a year of stagnation and lacking motivation in the year immediately following the creation of the DMC, and it nearly killed her. She had decided since then, that that dying in action was more in her comfort zone than dying by the slow suffocation of stillness and sameness.
His reproach drew a 'tsk' and a huff as she snapped back and stiffly clasped her greedy hands behind her back as if they were separate, sentient beings that needed to be controlled or they would continue trying to touch him against her will. There was a brief reprieve as her gaze shifted away from him and seemed mildly irritated, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. His offerings of his name and his weapon jerked her eyes right back to him and her pursed lips spread back into a grin as she made mental notes of the index necessary information.
"I don't need to behave myself," She snorted. "My court is dead, I am a castellan of ruins and corpses. Still, it was my title when the Black Kingdom was alive and flourishing." One arm bent to rest in the small of her back as she leaned back a bit and checked her nails on her free hand. "I have been dabbling in various variable tensions and wars between the Earth and Moon for a hundred years in multiple parallel instances of reality. Proper manners in regards to a hardly evolved monkey are a little bit low on my list."
Internally she reflected that she was failing at maintaining character. Zirconia's soul, when it was piloting the physical being the often shared, reached a level of taking herself so seriously, her bonded human host who found herself searching through the implanted memories couldn't hope to achieve such stuffiness no matter how hard she tried.
Not that she really needed to try. It wasn't as if Nehelenia or Ares was going to appear and point out the inconsistencies with Zirconia of days passed.
'Commended' for the Dark Mirror Court, or the lack of it implying there was something someone could mistakenly commend in the first place, seemed to have twisted something. She pulled her lower lip into her mouth by one of her canines and tented her fingers in thought, trying not to appear a child who had just been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, figuratively or literally, and think of the best way to explain the situation to her audience of one.
"Yes, well.... the Dark Mirror Court was a minor miscalculation on my part. Ares should not have been left to her own devices, and she shouldn't have been allowed to play in the darker reaches of mirrorspace. However, she seems to have played with things she doesn't understand in her attempt to recreate our late queen's methods of soul transfusion. They are pathetic imitators with weaker magic that appears the same as the Black Kingdom's on a superficial level, but the similarities fall apart when you look deeper," She rolled her yellow eyes up and huffed to blow a stray ringlet from her forehead.
"They are deceptively human looking, though, aren't they? For being what basically amounts to youma walking around in the bodies of dead children. Little dolls she created to prop up and have tea parties with so she could convince herself she wasn't alone, who now walk the earth, lost and alone themselves and thinking they were born this way and not created in the hollowed out mind of taken senshi. They're interesting," She paused, almost rethinking the word she used, and then snapped back to attention. "But ultimately poor, boring copies of wasted potential. I don't really like them. And they make me... angry... when they prance around like little mirrorwalking caricatures like they understand even a shred of where they came from or why. Ignorant. Futile. They are a failed experiment with no purpose that continuously absorbs resources, I wish they would be purged already."
She traced the old scar on her chest from Ares branding her with the crescent moon of the Blood Moon Court, directly paralleled by the deep purple crescent on her forehead. "Ares was always difficult to handle, though. Stubborn little problem child, even as a chibi senshi."
This led her in to another question. "Why? A youma, I mean. I haven't looked in to them much, but... I was under the impression they weren't self aware or capable of anything besides being tools. Why give up all of the thoughts in your pretty little head? I can't imagine it would be for power, you're already plugged in to the Chaos generator..." Attempting to process this sent her line of vision all over the park in a manic attempt to focus as she crossed her arms and tapped her fingers against her own skin. "It's a strange choice to consciously make." And far more interesting for her narrative than the scared bunnies who only wanted to please mommy Metallia or save the Earth that she'd already interviewed.
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Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2013 7:50 pm
"I'm more curious about what you're researching for. Is it for your own satisfaction, Zirconia? Because as you said, you are ze castellan of what amounts to a necropolis. Which, might I add, is quite astounding." Bischofite gestured toward the cat with one of his chakrams while he resumed his languid pacing. "If zey're all dead, zen your court ran its course wis'out you. Your court is complete, but you are not. So are you looking for a way to join zem? Because zat would be easy to accomplish - all it would take is a blade to ze sroat and you can join zem just ze same. But what is ze fun in zat? A waste of potential, really. Because if you are truly as adept as you say, zen you haf' far too much to offer zis world zan a bloody demise."
The general slowed to a halt, his back to the prim and proper dimensional transplant. He gestured outward in a half-shrug. "Zum Beispiel*. You say you were a catalyst in ze creation of ze Blood Moon Court, and from what I know, zat was quite a brutal and driven faction on ze side of ze enemy. And from my experience wis' ze White Moon Court, zey are not often goaded to zat point of bloodlust. For you to inspire zat wis'in a normally..." He tapered off and clicked his tongue as he searched his multilingual word bank for the proper descriptor. "Docile group is testament to your abilities. If you can do zat, what else can you do? What else can you offer?
"My point is zis: you are wasting your potential wis' zis informational bullshit, Zirconia." Slowly he rounded on her, hawkish gaze settling on her elegant features. Even her countenance indicated a seriousness he considered befitting of those who served passionately. "If you can begin whole courts wis' your participation, zen wouldn't you say you haf' better sings to do zan question wandering Negaverse agents about zeir names?"
Bischofite knew he wasn't interesting. This much was confirmed solely through the responses of a plethora of senshi to his admittedly twisted machinations. While he consistently explained his rationale in a discernible manner, the lot of them continually brushed over his logic with the notion that he was a monster. But even monsters held reasoning behind their heinous acts, did they not? So this persistent ignorance toward the intents behind his behaviors only served to clarify that he wasn't terribly important in the eyes of the White Moon Court. A shame, really, that his lofty goals had fallen so short.
It was a wonder he still persisted. But maybe, just maybe, he bathed in the ashes of his ideals just as Zirconia touted her court of corpses. Skeletons of the past, really. No different than her characterization of the Dark Mirror Court and their true composition.
"But, about ze Dark Mirror Court... Hold on," the general offered an index finger skyward as he nonverbally asked her patience, and he transferred the grip of one of his chakrams to his teeth. Afterward, he used his free hand to strip off his gloves one at a time, and let the articles drop to the ground in an unceremonious heap. Once finished, he retrieved the chakram from between his teeth and offered his apologies by way of a mild rationale. "It gets a little hot out for all zis pomp and circumstance zey call a uniform.
"Now, ze Dark Mirror Court hardly sounds like a minor miscalculation, as you put it. I'f made more zan a few of zose myself, and none turned out quite so monumental zat an entire court sprang out of my mistakes. And as much as I hate Remarque and his vapid following of airheads and shitstains, zey are not ze cause of accidents or oversights or trite little discoveries. Zey were planned. Now, I do not claim to know Ares, as I'f only heard of her in passing, but given zeir close-knit nature and established abilities, zey're not an accident." Bischofite paused, and his gaze drew far past her, toward the waning street lamps in the distance - the ones enshrouded with a modicum of fog. She compared them to youma.
Youma in the bodies of dead children. He closed his eyes for a moment, and the twitch of addiction shuddered through his mind.
Dead children. Dead children. He wanted a cigarette. Pockets full of posies, even. Dead children, afflicted with the plague, drowning in disease and allowed to walk the earth. They breathed infection, these dead children, and now they bonded under the words Dark Mirror Court.
A pack of Marlboro Black 100s, please and thank you. And a word of advice - everything ties back into travesties if you let it.
In a quick and measured movement, a single chakram left Bischofite's grasp and buried itself into the front fender of a 2005 Ford Probe parked alongside the street. Its car alarm began almost immediately, screeching into the night with an unbearable cacophony that shattered the almost lulling silence. As it honked, jittered and roared ceaselessly, Bischofite sought to talk over its prolonged racket. He even held out his hand. "You haf' two choices now, Zirconia. You can take my hand and continue talking wis' me at a more appropriate location, or you can stay here and wait for ze owner of zat car to come outside and investigate. Given ze events zat plagued Destiny City over ze years, I would say it is a safe wager to assume zat he will come outside wis' a rifle or a shotgun. Now, would you, a woman wis' a cat's features, like to explain to him zat a passing Negaverse officer buried his weapon into zat car for no reason? Or would you prefer to accompany me elsewhere?" Gaze still fixated on the castellan in that same sharp scrutiny, he awaited her decision.
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Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 7:11 pm
Something in her had fully shifted. The glee was gone. He didn't answer her question, one she was actually curious enough for an answer to.
Instead he went on about her wasted potential., taking her little tasks at their surface value and making assumptions she was very sure he did not have the informational basis to be making.
Create courts? Her? The Blood Moon wasn't her idea, though she certainly encouraged it. The DMC was definitely not her idea. The Black Moon was already a flourishing monarchy before she arrived at court to worm her way into King Tyndareus' good graces. It wasn't her job to lead or sit on thrones or create. She was not the author, only the editor.
She considered herself closer to a motherly figure who guided and molded little things into something better suited to their potential. In the most horrible fashion. Maybe one day she should take a good, hard look at the fact everything she stuck her fingers in seemed to result in Chaos and death war crimes, but that wasn't happening any time soon. Hell, she was still fairly convinced that the world was better post-Blood Moon.
Which was why the Dark Mirror Court, with their pathetic attempts at mirror magic and blatant copies of something greater were so infuriating to her. They were mockeries. Weaker mockeries than the original. Failed pieces of ugly art that took up space and misrepresented greater things than them.
The White Moon's world took everything from her and then mocked her via the Dark Mirror Court's existence. They deserved more bloodshed than she could ever hope to initiate when her only weapon was pretty words.
Her fervored, wide eyed excitement at locating him seemed to have been fully replaced by bitterness wholesale as he spoke of potential and how she was wasting, especially when she was certain the limits of her potential weren't something he had any right to pretend to know.
When he spoke about the close knit bonds of that pathetic, hopeless imitation of a court, she could only roll her eyes, at her limit with her disgust. The way they thought of themselves as family and arrogantly seemed so secure in their lack of knowledge did anything but help her burgeoning hatred. On top of that, the way he shuddered and the tone he took was dangerously near being interpreted by her as admiration, or something equally dangerous when being in contact with all of that volatile hatred burning behind her eyes.
Her sneer was evident, she was about to part her lips and spill insults, or at least tell him to knock it off. Stop it. Stop treating them like they're something. They're nothing. But that was when he suddenly launched his weapon and alarms went off. Literal alarms, since the ones in her head seemed to have been dulled and faded. Her expression was lidded. Unamused. Mildly irritated. She raised one eyebrow as she looked at him with what was very near a scolding glance. All he had to do was ask, though she did appreciate the showmanship.
Besides he still had her camera, and hadn't graced her index with a photo just yet.
"Are we going to teleport, General?" She managed to ask without dripping hatred and bile over every word. Even a glimmer of her previous enthusiasm returned as she gently rested her hand on his outstretched one. "I certainly hope you're not planning on wrapping your fingers around my starseeds."
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Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 9:53 am
"Of course we are," he responded, though the thought crossed his mind to teleport her atop an impossibly tall skyscraper and simply push her off. Too finite for him, though, and not enough suffering and revelations involved in the act - just a simple reaction to her brewing distaste for his words and views. It mattered little, since she ultimately knew to bend to his will regardless. She had to - otherwise he held the means and wherewithal to end her in ways both torturous and gratifying.
He closed his eyes, and the world around them faltered and melted away. He found it more taxing to teleport another individual, and much to his chagrin, he showed that steep cost through a breathlessness upon arriving at the intended location. But it felt more at home here, more conducive to their burdened dialect. A simple neighborhood street could not afford them much discretion, as he already proved through his use of chakrams. However, he could not suppress a small smirk as he imagined a tired and frazzled homeowner emerging to find a rather large weapon protruding from his care.
But they had more serious matters to discuss than a simple prank and misuse of power.
Bischofite gestured to the whole of their new trappings in one sweeping wave of his hand. "Zis is an interesting mark of human failure, isn't it?" The room sported a plethora of pipes running alongside the ceiling, as well as shadowed wear marks on the walls where electrical paneling and equipment might've been, if the building was still in commission. A smattering of holes alongside the baseboards indicated space for power cords and other wires of varying uses, always contained within those pale shadows. The floor still sported a hefty layer of soot and char, likely from the explosion that disfigured the exterior wall. Great strips of steel and paneling peeled back like a flower in full bloom, revealing the nightscape of Destiny City in a scope that a simple window could never afford.
And many a night he stood on those very petals, frozen in time, and watched the city's nocturnal vibrancy echo back to him in the form of whispered winds. This place spoke volumes of solitude, but it was not without its markings of human inhabitance.
For the most part, the walls were now bare of the blackened carbon that once covered their entirety. They showed a greyed echo of their former color, what Bischofite could only identify as a pale yellow of sorts - something industrial and governmental, to be certain - and sprawled across those recently-cleaned surfaces was a profusion of words in different colors and handwriting. Some simply spoke of a gang name, unrecognized and easily overlooked in the scope of the war, while others held complex and intricate quotes from both books and unpublished minds.
Inaccessible to most, this place held secrets for those driven and determined enough to reach this solitary, exploded room. But Bischofite held the key to easy travel, so this place was met with a great variety of his writings, mostly small and unassuming in their black felt penning. But the undeniably meticulous script was there, sometimes bending around the holes near the baseboards of the building.
But Zirconia wouldn't know whose hand transcribed some of the more thought-provoking lines he found in today's literature. Still, the general crouched and brought the camera close to the lines, pausing a moment for the camera to focus properly before fully depressing the shutter. Though she may not have a photo of him, she held evidence of his work uncredited. Afterward he stood and tossed the camera back to her, without another word of what he'd captured or why it was important enough for a photograph.
But she was a smart girl. She'd figure it out someday.
"I didn't want to talk about zis in ze middle of a street. You can probably consider it paranoia, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong, but... Zese matters don't much concern zose wis' prying ears, you see." The misanthropic general crossed the room toward the blown-out surface of the wall, and leaned against a warped pipe that peeled outward toward the night air. He folded his arms and fixated his gaze on the varying graffiti adorning the adjacent surface. "I don't know how much you know of youma, but I will assume you're aware of zeir nature in as much detail as I am. Now - you understand zat youma are tools to us, and we are encouraged to use zem as such. But you also know zat youma are evolutions of mankind - wis'out a human, one cannot haf' a youma. Some become youma while ozzers become officers, but even officers succumb to becoming youma sometimes.
"And as an evolution from ourselfs, youma have a few unique characteristics zat draw me wis'out fail: zey do not feel as we do. Zey do not engage in wors'less, trite activities like cultural celebrations or culinary concoctions or subjecting zemselfs to schooling for seven hours a day. Zey do not haf' family to take care of, or a job to attend. Zey don't have children as an obligation. What I am getting at is zis - zeir existence is streamlined. No extraneous feelings or necessities.
"But how does zat apply to me? Simple - I hate people. I owe zem nossing, and I feel no inclination to defend zem against an interplanetary menace. Zat does not concern me. What I like is instilling suffering, because humans haf' a unique property where zeir lives become enriched when placed in peril or harrowing circumstances. And while I sink it's fun, it's nossing zat would force me to reconsider my interest in becoming a youma. I want to shirk all zese stupid, pointless homages toward dead principles. I don't want to deal wis' family anymore, or any of ze obligations outside of ze war. None of zose sings matter to me.
"I'f been free for many years and I'm tired of it now, Zirconia. I can sink outside laws and predetermined logic and act however I want. I'f disobeyed Negaverse orders and attacked allies because it suited me at ze time. But now I want to kill two birds wis' one stone - to obliterate zis second life and relinquish ze freedom zat stagnates me now." Finally he shifted his attention toward the Castellan of Corpses, who now stood as a great contrast to the old, weathered room. "Was zat ze answer you were expecting, Zirconia?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2013 9:12 pm
Internally, she twisted until she felt she would break if she moved one more thought forward. There was so much to dwell on and ponder, she stood there emotionless as stone as her mind struggled to unpack and order it all into a flow which could be deciphered consciously.
The room was repulsive at first, but it's nightmarish and decaying state seemed to dig it's claws into the shadows of some untapped corner of her mind and what it dragged out into the light was some sort of strange sense of nostalgia.
"Oh... Cronus..." Her former senshi likely would've felt at home here, but then again, she had ruled the domain of despair. Cassandra and her little nightmare realm came to mind as well, but in lesser terms. Nightmares belonged to Black Earth much in the same way Elysion's dreams belonged to White Earth, and she only considered herself Earth's ally in the most desperate of times and circumstances.
She caught her camera with minimal motion, and raised one sculpted brow as she glanced down at it in her fingers.
"Interesting," She finally said in a volume that sounded like it was at least meant for other people. "Incredibly interesting."
Slowly, the movement came back into her gestures and her fingers rapidly tapped on the camera casing as the corners of her mouth spread into a grin. Her wide, bright yellow eyes skimmed over the walls and all around before they finally landed on him, set back in her hungry expression.
"Did you know... I knew senshi who corrupted or are still considering corruption into the Negaverse for similar reasons. Erase unnecessary memories, failures, feelings, problems. Start over. Start new. Be Negaverse tools. And this..." A perversion of similar desperation, or the next natural step in the evolution of lost souls in a world with Chaotic options? She tried to avoid falling into feline nature and just blatantly purring at the revelation. "It's very interesting."
When it came down to things, the options provided by Chaos were of no interest to her. She had already been corrupted at one point, become a monster, tried to plunge the world into eternal darkness and devour the dreams of innocents in exchange for eternal youth. Typical finding your way stuff, she imagined, but it was also a phase she was done with. She investigated universal anomalies and phenomena because she was interested in separating out her dual soul and returning Zirconia to her proper place in spacetime, but that didn't mean Chaos and it's shenanigans weren't interesting to watch.
It was almost like coming home again, sometimes, really.
"It's not the answer I was expecting, but it's not a bad answer. I think your progress in this endeavor would be something I would be... highly invested in tracking."
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Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2013 11:10 pm
"Maybe I would consider escape srough zose very means, if zose were my only concerns." Shirking memories proved a useful endeavor, but unless one opted to lose hippocampi, it wasn't likely to prevent buildup of more harmful memories. And considering that the brain's functions were not entirely localized... Those very senshi sought what would only amount to temporarily relief. But no one studied youma brains, did they? No - it would be impossible, as they crumble to dust soon after a fatal blow. Bischofite smiled at the thought, more of a private affair than anything. Youma were meant to remain a mystery in some rights - and perhaps that's why he sought their change so fervently. "Zey damned zemselfs, because zere will always be unnecessary memories and failures. Starting over only erases particular circumstances." And what's to say they wouldn't encounter similar, or even more harrowing predicaments?
Bischofite took to pacing about the room as if searching for something - eyeing every corner cast in shadow and the echoed remnants of control panels in scrutiny intrinsic to his disposition. It was difficult for him to avoid lingering near Zirconia and study her relentlessly, as she proved such a perfect contrast to this room, but nothing about her would change in the moments that he spent watching. She wasn't about to morph into a heinous beast fitting of their current environment or somehow shirk her catlike appendages.
In away, it disappointed him. But constancy provided an anchor for some minds.
But Bischofite did hesitate - in the center of the room, looking out toward the stars where they shone through the bloom. He watched the distant city lights with fingers steepled beneath his chin, though his expressionless face did not betray his reasoning for watching the display. It discouraged him to see the city in such health, given the recent events and prevalence of anarchy. A shame, really - all efforts amounted to naught in the end. An echo of his quest to become a youma, maybe; he hadn't seen a shred of success, and the condition of the city only seemed to remind him of it.
"Zirconia - you'f seen a lot. I am certain you haven't told me an abstract of all your tales, but you'f told me enough to clarify one sing: you and I abhor ze Dark Mirror and zeir clan of useless puppets. Youma in ze bodies of dead children, you called zem. So, I will make you a deal." Finally he glanced toward her, though he still faced the blossomed, gaping hole in the exterior wall. "You can solicit updates on my endeavors, and I will readily supply ze answers you seek. In exchange, perhaps we can work somesing out to decimate a superfluous and pointless court. In addition, you can take my photo if you are still inclined toward collecting it."
It disturbed him greatly to concede his indelible image to the cat, one he barely knew and suspected was more subversive and iniquitous than she let on, but she hadn't yet clarified her aims, yet she knew exactly how to cast the hook. It was curious, and he could learn from her - not only through her surprisingly vast knowledge of other worlds and Destiny City's past, but her propensity to drop just enough information to whet his curiosity without divulging the entirety of the story. She was tricky, but notably defenseless (on her own).
Thus, he had a measure of power to balance the equation, meager as it was. Where she might beguile, he could dismember.
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Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2013 4:56 am
"Hm," She hummed, with a warm smile on her lips and her fingers still drumming away on the phone casing. It was all something of an act to cover up how much she wanted to remove herself from this environment.
All the decay, all the despair, rot, words lining the walls and intrigue and memories everywhere, in this one dark little corner in some forgotten part of the city. She didn't want to be here, or exist in this space. Not because she was put off, but because the memories it was poking at made her genuinely twinge.
Homesickness was bizarre. This was nothing like the lavish halls of Tyndareus, and then Helen's court on the Black Moon. But how long had it been since she dared to say Cronus' name? Cronus was lost, old news. An inaccessible senshi on the other side of the mirror and she had moved on since being locked out.
In a lot of ways the home she was aching for wasn't even hers, she remembered, but who the pilot was had become increasingly lost in this conversation. Who was ever speaking at one point? The host in character, or the parasite herself?
"If you say so..." She mused, as he went on about her comparison to corruption and youmafication.
She saw the similarities from her place outside of it. Whether one was erasing memories of failure or erasing what they say as unnecessary facets in an effort to 'streamline', it came down to the same elements in her mind. Erasure, ultimately. But she also had a habit of looking too closely for similarities to the point of ignoring contrary evidence. Cutting her own puzzle pieces in an attempt to solve something that would never match up.
"I personally, plan to go in the other direction," She said, eyes bright as she pieced together various assumptions and feelings she hadn't really articulated before. "In order to travel to another universe, I had to steal someone. Only the soul, not the body, can cross the barrier. I think this girl I stole was an heiress," Think. Right, She knew, but she feigned some lack of knowledge as she looked on the shoulder of her physical shell. "It's not a bad body. But I'm only eighty years old. There are other universes, other places to go. Eventually, when I wear her out, I may possibly move on, or go back, collecting the memories of whomever I subsume, adding their knowledge to my own, and continuing on eternally."
She grinned and held up the camera to snap a photo of his face. "Everything is insignificant in eternity. But we have to keep busy somehow. And I can't move on without some substantial amount of power and a bit more knowledge of how to break open the universe a crack in order to slip away."
She shifted forms, and suddenly the woman with animal features was fully animal, a larger forest cat grooming in the middle of the room.
"I look forward to your progress, Bischofite. Should I see myself out or do you see fit to guide me?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 9:32 am
"Try not to make me jealous. I don't sink I'd take it well." He could only dream of crossing the barriers she so readily spoke of, and to become pure consciousness - it would far surpass the shoddy abilities provided by his body. And Zirconia had managed that feat before - whatever she looked like, in another world, likely faded and wasted away by now. But she still lived, including her starseed by her earlier testament to having starseeds, and she had access to her very own puppet. Whether the host still lived or not was out of the question - for all he knew, the individual who owned the body initially was long dead by Zirconia's intrusion.
However, if Zirconia had access to the woman's brain as evidenced by her ability to achieve coherent motor skills and speak in a discernible manner, then he suspected she knew whether the girl was an heiress or not. And she would probably know the first memories the girl had, along with any talents or aspirations or love interests. If everything is stored in the brain as current psychology suggests, and she had control over the brain, then why wouldn't she know without a doubt?
And perhaps that was another reason to be fond of Zirconia. She could lie about the little things, small deceptions, almost meaningless ones, but it was enough to discount her. She was unique, and given the wealth of knowledge she had, Bischofite found it increasingly difficult to rationalize killing her. She simply had too much to offer.
"When you come to ze point zat you can manifest yourself across ze universe again, let me know - I would want to see it." Especially if it taught him a means to travel across stars to unfathomable worlds too. Maybe it would even them out - maybe he'd become a youma by that time, and her display might shed enough light on the act for him to figure it out. Maybe crossing the universe was limited to cats like her. Maybe it was the fallout from a dead generation.
The general wordlessly bowed, gesturing toward the gaping hole, a far too enthusiastic action for his mannerisms. And during that sweeping bow he flashed a smile - a dry one, a hollow one, it didn't matter which - perhaps the only testament to his humor in executing the gesture at all. Go ahead, Zirconia, he thought mildly. Cats always land on their feet. Assuming her feet didn't fracture into splinters and shoot up into her elbows.
Finally he straightened up and picked at a slowly growing crack along the base of one of the petals. "But if you're insistent on ze scenic route, head out zat door," he pointed to the sole manmade exit of the room, in that same dry mockery. "And you'll find a catwalk on ze ozzer side. Travel its lengs' and zere's a staircase connecting it to ze ground floor. Zen it's just a matter of heading out ze double doors zat are almost always open. But I sink I'll stay here a while - I'f given you enough information for you to find your own way."
Bischofite wanted to study the stars now. To look for hairline cracks in the sky that might've never existed. To search for verifiable answers about Zirconia, whether the yarn she spun of different worlds and strange times was anything more than cat's fancies.
Were there really other dimensions out there, ones that cradled the charnel house of the Black Moon Court?Carneli fin! thanks, carneli - you gave me a lot of good information for a future plot!
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