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 Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:52 pm
Acubens’s shoulder was finally feeling back to normal. Her brother had griped endlessly about going to a hospital to heal but Acubens head none of it. The whole ordeal was too time consuming and problematic to justify, so the argument culminated in the apartment the two shared being turned upside down, all of the plates broken, and her brother storming out before they both settled things by compromising that Acubens didn’t have to go in if she didn’t complain. And she did try and hold up her end of the bargain but when you can’t lift your arm to scratch your nose there’s only so much silence you can hold. Needless to say both siblings were glad when Acubens could return to her beat and get out of the apartment. For all she claimed to hate her station she felt more at home in her uniform than she did otherwise. She might not know what she was doing but at least she was trying. And it was better than being defenseless and unable to protect her family.
Besides all that, the streets were uncrowded, the evening was calm, and it allowed Acubens a moment to herself. Moving in with her brother hadn’t been the adventure she’d imagined it to be, and the cool, clear evening soothed her nerves. It was the very tail end of winter when 40 degrees was more of a blessing than a curse. Silence ringing in her ears, Acubens closed her eyes and focused on the way her muscles moved when she stepped and how her hair felt against her shoulders and back. Little things that proved her was alive despite her last patrol. Her brother told her to meditate on these things and they did help cut through her stress.
That was, until, Acubens turned the corner and had her focus ripped from her. He was so still Acubens might have thought he was dead. That alone was enough to clear her mind of everything. Carefully, make sure to make as little sound as possible, she advanced. Who would leave a dead body hanging out in the open? Who else would leave a dead body out? Acubens’ jaw clenched painfully tight, listening for the steady drip drip drip of someone being bled, or maybe even the shuddering, halting breath of the very near dead. But there was nothing. Nothing but the steady clicking of her own steps. She was very nearly to the body when it jerked. The civilian’s muffled scream very nearly drowned out Acubens’ own as she jumped back, every zombie movie she’d ever watched screaming to life in front of her. It took her a wild moment to realize that he probably was never dead in the first place.
“Oh… okay. Oh gosh alright. Okay.” She laughed just a little approaching the civilian with less caution. No way would Bischofite leave a live civilian just hanging around. He’d finish them off and then leave. He would never allow them to live and spill the beans about him.
“Let’s get you all squared away big guy, how about?”
First thing was to get the gag out from the man’s mouth and get him talking about what happened and where he belonged.
“So, where are you from? Where am I taking you?”
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Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:59 pm
The crowlike youma placed a clawed finger against her lower lip and tugged thoughtfully. Her orders were clear - lure any wayward senshi without inciting harm to herself. Her general listed a number of foreign names that may arrive to the scene, matched with descriptions to further bombard her with abstract information. She wanted none of it at the time, and even began chastising him for poor choice of tactics, but he shut her down quickly with his newly acquired taste for pulling rank.
Well. There was one exception. He never detailed how she might tug this curious senshi along to the appointed location.
Malicious bounded downward from her perch, heels lighting atop the varying, unusually stable surfaces as she forged her way toward the ground. Destiny City surprised her with its stability - in the Rift, she learned long ago to formulate a backup plan should one descend from the heights of the cliffs. But here? From the highest church steeples to the ground cost her nary more than fifteen seconds - a welcome change from her typical trappings.
Once roosted securely atop a street light, Malicious crouched and spread her wings to afford herself better balance. Nothing short of a legitimate senshi attack would deter her from her chosen rest now. "You," she started firmly, attempting to purge the animated tones from her voice. She failed, somewhat, but surely her harrowing appearance would compensate. "I have a message for you." Silver eyes slid over to the newly freed civilian, the meat, the bait, the carrot on a stick, and her mouth pursed slightly. With a fluttering sigh, she pinched her lower lip between two index fingers momentarily. "Let me have some of his energy, and I'll tell you all about it. I'm starved."
However, no amount of hunger overcame the stifling derision that festered in her core - the everlasting, seething hate she harbored for all of that despicable senshi's kind. The Corrupted, the Dark Mirror, the White Moon - it made no difference. "But be quick about it, my general gets testy about tardiness. You wouldn't want me to get yelled at for your mistakes, would you?" Cocking her head to the side, she batted her eyelashes as an echo of an appeal. She watched other women commit the same act before and rather enjoyed the result. Time to see how it worked for youma.
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Posted: Sun May 04, 2014 3:30 pm
Acubens was in the middle of struggling with the giant oaf when the woman came to perch on the streetlamp. The impersonally address caught Acubens a little off guard and more than a little offended her. She did have a name, not that she really expected this woman to know it, but there were friendlier ways to get someone's attention. She huffed and let the man fend for himself for a little bit as she turned. Must have been a senshi by the entrance. Acubens and her kind always seemed to have a pension for dramatic entrances and cheesy one-liners. Even though this woman seemed to be lacking in the later field. Maybe it was the corruption that tugged on Acubens nerves that stole such a valuable and important talent. But then there was something different to the kind of chaos that filled Acubens' mouth with metal. Something a little more pervasive. More... total about the corruption. In the end, it was her hunger that revealed what she was. Acubens stumbled back when the realization hit her. Next to her, the man's panic only deepened as the suited solider from space recognized the woman above as a threat. Acubens' lips formed the last word for the youma's mouth, head whipping from her to the man back to her. Starved. Frantically, the man shook his head at her, suddenly looking for protection. "I-if I say yes, then you tell me the message first." Her voice wavered, unsure if she was even qualified to strike some kind of bargain with the youma. Clearly getting in trouble with whoever her general was an inconvenience, and maybe even enough of what to allow Acubens to haggle. "And don't kill him."
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Posted: Sat May 10, 2014 8:35 am
Malicious loosed a dramatic sigh, shoulders and wings dropping while her eyes rolled to the sigh, mouth slackened with abject disappointment. She knew these motions well. She memorized them from years of prowling the Rift, eyeing officers that once sought her for her strange abilities and stranger intelligence. But senshi... These wretched senshi knew nothing of their capabilities, of youma capacity. They knew monsters, not people. Jarring that simple conception proved easy enough, especially for her.
And she quite liked it, especially if she scored sustenance out of it.
"I guess I can do that," came the flippant response. Settling into a more overtly ladylike posture, Malicious crossed her legs as she gripped the long steel pole of the lamp post. A finger strayed to her lip as always, mouth pouted slightly as she considered her next move. A show of good faith, perhaps. A demonstration of trust. She could easily immobilize the senshi and draw her own sustenance from the man, even if the senshi thought herself clever enough to outwit a youma like her.
Not killing him, though... What a pisser. The things she did for her general...
"He said something like... Oh, what was it... 'Trees grow heavy with uneaten fruit, just as the world grows heavy with a plethora of souls beyond its capacity. Harvesting is necessary, just as culling is necessary. Wars are no different than plucking the fruits of long labors in the garden.' Then he said something like, 'come to my garden, Senshi. My youma can lead you there. You may find the labor of tending to it quite palatable.' I might've embellished a bit, oops." She shrugged flippantly. Most found it endearing, if not wholly revolting coming from a twisted form. "Now, about my appetite..."
Slipping down from the lamp post came easily enough, and she lighted atop the ground with a surprisingly quiet click of her heels. "Try not to let him down just yet. It's such a pain when they struggle... And you wouldn't want him to suffer, would you?" She offered the senshi a pleading glance with a pouted lip.
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Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 9:38 am
Acubens tried to make it clear to the dangling man that it was going to be alright, that it was like sleeping, but he wouldn't listen. Finally she turned away, not really comfortable watching someone lose energy, no matter how harmless the act seemed to be. And besides that, Acubens had always thought it was rude to watch someone eat. Instead of worrying about the youma consuming the man, however, Acubens opted instead to puzzle out the message she'd been given. It wounded like a riddle, sort of, or as much like a riddle a poem could. She wasn't exactly fluent in that language, but she could certainly at least piece together who had sent the message; she only knew of one person who had that level of poetry in their speech. BischofiteAcubens shut her eyes, deflating at the realization. So he was working again. She covered her mouth to keep from vocalizing her own despair. What did he have planned this time? There was no way for Acubens to guess, since every time she turned around Bischofite's appetite for gore evolved and changed into some entirely different monster. And she'd only just stopped waking up sweating over the last time they'd met. He could have killed her. He probably thought that he had. Honestly, Bischofite could crush her at any given moment, it wasn't like Acubens was a spectacular senshi. If she followed this youma, best case scenario, she's just very intelligent, knows Bischofite, and is using that to lure senshi away -- Acubens couldn't be the only senshi hunting him. In that case she gets killed. But that death stands to be a much quicker death than if the reality is that Bischofite has bound a very intelligent youma to him which meant that Acubens would be walking willingly into whatever horror he'd dreamed up this time. Come on girl, shake it out. Not like you have run away now.She took a shaky breath in and held it for a moment, waiting for her vision to swim before she let it out again. She had to be ready for Bischofite when she arrived. She had to keep her ego under control, and her senses sharp. Hopefully this time it wouldn't be a roof. "If you're done," Acubens snapped, feeling like she'd been standing there waiting for a small life time, "I'd like to get wherever it is I have to be."
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Posted: Thu May 22, 2014 9:47 pm
She always liked it most when they resisted.
Malicious drew energy as easily as she drew breath - she simple pulled the thick threads of vibrance from their thrashing forms before absorbing it into herself. No longer had she any need for primitive use of energy orbs when the transition into her own state proved miraculously effective. Soon, the once writhing and wailing civilian lulled into a steady state on the cusp of consciousness, and not long from that... He drew no further sound from his throat. Not dead, as promised to this curious super senshi, as her instructions from Bischofite were clear.
She need only bide a while longer, now.
Satisfied with her take, Malicious breathed a contented sigh and clasped her hands together in a veritable end to her portion of the bargain. "Have a little patience, Senshi. It might do your kind some good." Afterward Malicious forced a smile. While she fully seethed at the thought of returning to Bischofite's location with one of their wretched parasites behind her, she knew that showing her mouth-ridden back to the girl voiced a show of trust.
"Always in a rush," she mumbled to herself as heeled boots left the surface of the concrete. She lighted well enough on an awning, hollow bones affording her the weightlessness to balance atop its meager cloth, before bounding toward the rooftops. Youma carapace clacked against the lip of the building when she landed, and Malicious half-turned to ensure the senshi followed her appropriately. Truly she checked for any signs of attack, with her lack of constant watchfulness over this wretched nemesis affording a sense of wariness. Perhaps Bischofite would've classified it as unease, yet... She couldn't quite remember what unease felt like.
Her detours across rooftops followed that same manner of monitoring - a few leaps with a check over her shoulder, a few quick paces and a glance backward. Never once had the senshi manifested signs of an ambush, which she considered both fortunate and suspicious. She knew their kind only feigned such complacency at best.
Finally the crow youma drew to a halt in front of a building sporting signs of abandonment - the windows boarded, spiderwebs painted across corners and cracks, and deferred maintenance leading to the presence of a condemnation sign across the double doors affording entry. It loomed well into the sky, thick smokestacks allowing for ventilation of potentially hazardous fumes into the atmosphere. She knew what lay inside. She knew and she led her newly-acquired charge with all but a genuine smile lingering on her visage.
The glass factory.
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Posted: Tue Jul 08, 2014 1:51 pm
Acubens was fast. Even as just a super senshi she was fast, never mind her power. That being said, she struggled to keep up with a youma clearly predisposed to agility. Rather than waste energy hopping like the youma did, Acubens preferred to stay at ground level. It also relinquished the high grand to her guide, which was probably the best plan given that she had to make nice with the monster. Even if Acubens wasn't placing a meager amount of trust in this youma, she wasn't certain she could beat her anyway. Her best plan was to follow and not make waves. Finally Acubens pulled up along side the youma as she stopped, steeling herself for whatever Bischofite had inside for her. Knowing him, and she felt as though she was moderately comfortable saying that she was familiar, then she was better off expecting nothing. Expectations would just lead to ******** ups on her part. Take what he throws at you when he throws it, she reminded herself, shaking out her shoulders as she followed. The way to win was to stay flexible.
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