Welcome to Gaia! ::

A benefit to being a university student was the exchange of peer reviewed journals through universities not just in the area, but all over the world. Better yet, even if the physical manuscript wasn't available to travel the digitization of the materials from work-study students and library science majors meant that print outs were often available from PDFs-- Articles like "The effect of social reward on verbal conditioning in psychopathic and neurotic military offenders" for some graduate student's thesis.

One of the 'secrets' (if anything that had hundreds of articles and research developing the area of knowledge could still be called such) of the modern military efficiency was the methodology behind the behavioral conditioning of the soldiers. It was most often, as he was learning, divided into four parts- brutalization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning and role modeling. The bootcamp classical brutalization that dehumanized subjects and removed self worth was something of an enigma.

In a way, it was where the white moon senshi all started out- they were thrown to the wolves and expected to learn that they mattered as much as any other splat on the pavement or corpse in the alley. They would get as much help. But there was also the aspect of boot camp that was bodily acclimation to violence- the traditional and operant conditioning. Taken a step further- tolerance conditioning, and a soldier could be made quite effective in the field of live combat. They would not fear pain, if it was done correctly, at least not in the instinctual and unhinged way that had made some martyrs stoicly choose to burn while other victims of oppression caved and admitted to whatever charges were brought against them.

Thraen did not trust his body as it was to meet the expectations of his mind. If put to it, he would shiver to pain, he would cry out, and his knees woudl buckle every bit as much as had happened at the Convention. Every bit of instinct still preserved and worthless as the Lieutenants arms struggling against his hands while the mouth formed those words- kill. me.

He would be at either peace, or perfect fury, inside and out and with no half measures. Thraen would be the philosophy of Gardens - Cultivation, Observation, Reflection, Growth, Productiveness and Education, and no longer a man. If he was so unlike all the others, he would prove it beyond a shadow of doubt. Thraen of Gardens would replace his blood with water flowing, his heart with sitting stones and hidden landscapes, and all his limbs with the supple, subtle strength of what grew from the earth. He would find the paths that Thích Quảng Đức's mind had. He would seek the perfection of resolve and mastery over his base drives as to be able to self immolate at perfect peace.

It had started already with his learning, with the battles and sudden freedoms from human ties he'd found himself privy-part of. Another step was the deliberate subjugation of one ideal for the benefit of education. He needed to divorce from his self as Quenton, and that humanity, as well as needed the violence to become more than any human could be expected to stand through taxic training. The senshi from the convention was what he needed. The one who'd flayed his arms.

So Thraen sought, at the indistinct stupid o'clock of too late for clubs that were just closing and letting out and too early for work or anything being opening for breakfast at 5. He had checked two chaos signatures already, sent one youma to its final end and scared a lieutenant by his rank alone into running. But Thraen had patience more than anything else now. Patience and nothing left to lose.

He would find the corrupt senshi.

As soon as he'd picked up on the third aura, his heart had jumped- it felt right, like to Vespa's difference from the usual Negaverse chaos. It was a corrupted starseed, but there could be many.

His doubts were removed when he caught sight of the familiar tails of wrapped hair and long skirts shifting in a run- retreating just like the lieutenant had. Thraen pushed his sprint, closing the distance to yell. "Stop and talk, or take a dirt nap and then we talk just the same. Your choice!"

But he didn't stop running himself, unwilling to risk the other taking a sudden corner or drop and getting away. You, of all, I'm not letting get away tonight. Not by some savior of either of our rag tags. We have business tonight, and if all goes well, more nights to come.

That the corrupted stopped and lifted his hands was half threat and half capitulation, really. Thraen hadn't gotten a bead on how the man's magic worked at the convention- what the call words or magic were was lost to the general cacophony of that day. It laughably didn't matter-
If he chooses to use his magic on me, he fulfills my purpose.

It was an aspect ultimately liberating.

He closed the distance to an adversarial, conversational one- the accepted old medieval longswords drawn proverbially between where they stood. "We can start civilly- I have a proposition of business over war, yet relating in both our parts within that. What is your name?"

"I am Thraen."

It will not be personal.
The attestations of being watched or not supposedly having some impact on the will to do right or wrong was enough to cause Thraen’s eye to twitch. It was valid enough that a greater majority of the world worked on exactly that principle ( or lack thereof.) Only sorry when caught, never sorry otherwise. Crocodile tears.

“I am here for neither a trick, nor about your purification- business only. As you say, nothing personal, excepting you are exactly the senshi I meant to find, and have the magic I want.”

Thraen adopted an easy contrapposto, hand on hip and lacking any flamboyance that was garish-inherent in his fuku. He ignored the pet-term every bit as much as he ignored them from his cousin. He ignored the more illicit meanings that could likewise be ascribed to ‘proposition.’ “The Negaverse steals energy and starseeds, and requires you all to harvest it. I don’t care for this purpose why or to what end. I offer you a mutually beneficial trade. I want you to cast all your magic on me, and I want to meet you for this express purpose twice a week. In return, you can harvest from me on those days. Willing. “

“Neither of us makes an ambush of it, we don’t tell anyone, and we don’t endanger each other. It’s going to be a lot of trust on both our parts.“

Thraen's mouth pulled into a garish half-grin at the other senshi's search for clarifications. "There are few places on the human body more loaded with nerves and more exquisitely farm-able for anguish than the hands. Or torture more effectively disfiguring emotionally and instinctually than flaying. "

I remember your magic well.

"If you'd do it without draining my, by all means. I thought it wise to make the offer with a 'payment' of some sort."

"Mondays and Thursdays, here. And starting now is ideal." The smile faded to his usual stoney look again, "I can do without the pet name. I am no babe and we will not be sleeping with each other."

The uttered word, without the insanity of the Convention around them, was surprising in its simplicity. They should all be so lucky. His own magic bordered an insane sublime by comparison.

In a moment he felt the burning, looking down from the corrupted to his own hands as the magic ate through his gloves like acid, then blotchy layers in the flesh beneath.

His teeth groaned, and knees buckled again, but he didn't scream. He didn't make any noise. Thraen tensed and untensed his hands, forcing his mind to feel every nerve and try to exert commands over the limbs. Move and do not move, pain or not. I will not be hamstrung by pain alone. Move. You are mine. My fingers, my bones, my flesh.

Twenty seconds of skin eaten away.
Time was a funny thing. A minute of a roller coaster could feel like mere seconds- elated full, blessed adrenaline and desire. A minute, however, underwater with no air and suffocation moving in was like an eternity to the mind.

When the magic subsided, and his skin returned as a miracle of some unnamed god, Thraen's air came shuddering from his throat. "Again."

"As many times as you can, Adonis."

Maybe there is something to our names after all.
He couldn't come up with a reason to otherwise be having any hormonally-informed thoughts otherwise than what would someone named Adonis ever think otherwise about.

Brought nearer, bent at shapely waist, the corrupted was plenty to look at and desire. Thraen looked up from his kneel, having little desire to call up in any proximity to the pain. It could be theoretical discourse only, in those moments.
Adonis acquiesced and cast again, and hearing the word again was brutal psychologically.

Thraen understood his research- how the sound of irons jangling after a single day of torture became enough for them to scream whatever confessions their torturers wanted. That was a day, this would be only minutes combined, and the pain was only a ghost in the evening hours after. It wasn't so crippling as open sores and breaks in a lightless cell.

When the melting burns began to open again, he felt shame. It was one of the most painful experiences he'd endured, but others had managed more- hours, days, weeks. Then gone pluckily as martyrs to some burning death. He was no martyr, and didn't plan to be, but he wanted that composure and drive. Facing his own limitations and ineptitude, unable to command his legs to work and stand was worse than the physical pain.

The second application jarred his vision to pinhole camera-focus around his hands as they seemed to lose flesh. Don't pass out. Don't pass out. Don't ******** pass out.

Blessed be, he managed not to, if not much else.

The other's words floated down like leaves from a tree, really only registering once the strangely pointed footwear came into Thraen's remaining, fuzzy-edged field of view. The hands on his upper arms were enough of a surprise to elicit his legs trying to gain better purchase and successfully finding his feet with the steadying.

It was then that the Senshi of Gardens looked up from downcast gaze, through his bangs at the slowly widening perception of Adonis. Funny how many associations and traits go with the name. Is that pity? worry? incredulity? horror? empathy? I cannot tell one or many.

'Is that long face for me?' comes to mind. Too colloquial, too invitational. Stress always is the first test of will, worse paired with gentleness. But what am I really, but an enemy and a free meal. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Narrow the line between genius and sublime." With the memory of pain ebbing, his feet found sounder purchase by the moment. "I have my reasons, and less than a minute of pain in the greater scheme of things is no real madness. "

"And I have more energy that you think. It takes more than pain. As promised, so you may. " The super senshi backed from the contact of both the Corrupted's hands, and the intimacy even vaguely implied, and offered out his own right hand. Do they need contact? I wonder.

"I've never had this done before."