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 Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:39 pm
Tara wasn't at the library. Nor was she at Big Niko's, Morsels, or Slave to the Grind, though that last one was more of his kind of place. Kent had picked up a coffee there, which sustained him while he drove somewhat aimlessly through Destiny City. He checked the mall, remembering with a shudder the strange spirit that he and Yvette had run into there some months before. He swung by the science museum, which was closed, but it didn't hurt to look. He stopped at Horizon Institute on the off chance that she's never really left the school, but had to leave when he saw security guards out front. He even looked in their local Southern Poultry. What he was expecting to find there, he wasn't quite sure, but other than a two-for-one sale on frozen pizza crusts, there was nothing to see.
For better or worse, he hadn’t run into anyone suspicious while he was looking. No monsters to run away from. No one in military-styled uniforms or with holes in their foreheads- really, who made up stuff like this? What was that even supposed to look like? Nor were there any of the supposed good guys, in light sailor-type outfits. Nobody he could ask about this whole Zodiac business. Not that he hadn’t looked.
It felt like he'd been all over Destiny City, like he'd been travelling for days. In reality he'd just given the city a quick tour, and he'd only been out for a few hours. It was after eleven when he pulled up outside of 19 Waverly. He had brought Tara there a couple of times, and she'd mentioned how much she liked their pie, so he figured it was worth a look. And though he hated to admit it, given the seriousness of the situation, he was also really hungry. Breakfast had been his only real meal that day, and the coffee he'd picked up did nothing to fill his stomach. It felt silly to be thinking of food at a time like this, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to find anyone if he didn't cover his own basic personal needs.
Bearing Laney’s guidance in mind, he left his wallet in the car, only taking enough cash to cover his tab, if he got the chance to run one up. The lights in the diner were dim. It was probably just about closed. In any other circumstances Kent would have shrugged and found another place to eat. But he was tired and hungry and suspicious, and not being able to check the place made him certain that there was a secret hiding inside. Which made no sense, but nothing did when he was frantic and half-starved.
"Noah!" he yelled, banging on the front door. "Marco! Anyone! Hey, it's important! Open up!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:24 pm
It was wavy haired Marco that opened the door, but he was scraggly and tired and he eyed Kent with half lidded eyes before he pushed past him and kept walking, waving on arm over his head. "Yo NO-AH! Your crazy late night regular is here."
Because it was closing time and the grill was off and he was going home to sleep forever.
In the meantime, Noah was scrambling through his closing time ritual and he popped his head through the kitchen door with a distressed, "Huh?"
Initially at the thought of being left alone, but when he saw Kent there it didn't help ease confusion. "Oh... Uh... If you want a shroomburger it's going to be a little bit of a wait but I can start heating up the grill just give me..." He had to shuffle the dishrags in his hand to his apron pocket so he could move the box in his hands to the other arm and stop the door from slamming in a mad rush.
"You okay, man?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:48 pm
Kent only had time to say "thanks" to Marco before the cook left, yelling for Noah. So at least he hadn't been left to his own devices. And really, what was he expecting, turning up past closing time, probably looking a mess? If they didn't think he was crazy before, they'd be sure of it now.
But there was no time to worry about that. "Don't worry about it, I'm not here for the food. I mean not really, but if you've got any day-old pie or something I wouldn't mind it." What was he saying? Priorities, Kent!
"It's my kid sister," he blurted out. "I'm about ninety-nine percent sure she's missing, and I thought maybe she came here? I've brought her a few times, but I'm not sure if you've met her." And then he froze, because he couldn't exactly show a picture or anything. Laney had strongly warned against it, and regardless of what else she'd said, that seemed like reasonable advice.
But this was Noah. A nice guy who ran a burger joint. The furthest away from terrorist he could possibly imagine. Surely telling Noah to be on the lookout couldn't hurt. "I've tried everywhere I can think of, and I don't know where else to go. Have you seen anything? She's twenty-one, about this tall, long hair with a braid on the side? Probably ticked off at me right now?"
It wasn't a description anyone could use to track Tara down, but enough for recognition, Kent hoped. Assuming there was something to recognize.
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:55 pm
Noah's brow raised as the seriousness of Kent's situation sunk in. He was suddenly struck with an frantic and overwhelming need to assist, make it better, take care of it. But unfortunately a missing kid sister whose appearance he couldn't even really recall.
"I don't... dude," He made a face, and then shook it off. "Ninty-nine percent sure? What's the other percent? You okay? Have you called the cops?"
You called the cops when your kid sister went missing, right? He would probably be a hypocrite for mentioning it considering Zia vanished off the face of the earth and he had mellowly thought she was just off being n independent adult and she had never let him live it down.
But people who didn't have half cat-girl-things for sisters called the cops, he was pretty sure of that. Especially when they were on the younger end of the twenty-something spectrum and you lived in a city full of monsters and paramilitary chaos agents.
"Do you need help?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:12 pm
For some reason, being asked if he'd called the cops made Kent chuckle. Until he realized what he was laughing at, which made him stop abruptly. "Uh. Okay, so we had a fight, and then the apartment was a mess- like, lock broken, stuff missing mess- and the police think she's just out but she said things. I pushed too hard, and now nobody can reach her and her best friend said she's-
And then he stopped, because even though Noah was just the friendly neighborhood burger guy, he was not about to share what Laney had told him. It was either an elaborate game or a magical conspiracy, and neither seemed appropriate to talk about in this situation. Which meant that he'd already run out of conversation topics. But the need to talk about what was happening was stronger than his half-founded fears, and he found himself going on without realizing what he was saying.
"I'm pretty sure she's involved in something big, but I don't know what. Maybe it's the organ ring again, or maybe it's something else, but I don't know. She's been trying to keep me from knowing all this time. Even the terrorist in the apartment said it wasn't safe for me to know! And maybe they're right, but you know what?" Finally, the chatter in Kent's brain quieted, leaving one truth gleaming in the light, and he grinned. "I don't care! If she's had to deal with something threatening this long, just to protect me, then I don't want to be safe. I want to know everything! To heck with the consequences! Even if the world stands in my way, I'm going to find out, so there!"
The 'so there' was a bit childish, but other than that, Kent was pretty pleased with his declaration. Though he felt kind of bad for Noah for having to listen to what probably sounded like a bunch of gobbledey-gook. He opened his mouth to apologize-
A leather-bound book burst into existence, glowing faintly, hanging between them as if it was waiting for something.
Kent looked at the book dumbly, and then at Noah. This felt like some sort of breakthrough, but all he could manage to say was "uh?"
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:08 pm
Noah could feel the shift in his expression go from confusion to shock. Something about Kent's plight rang a note deep in the back, back in the recesses of his brain. Little sisters caught up in dangerous magical wars and all that.
"I-I..." He stammered and his mouth struggled for words in a way that made him look like a dying fish for a brief moment. He didn't know what to say, he didn't know how to help, and for the most part, he felt like a spectator to events he couldn't touch.
Kent's problems were similar but entirely foreign all at once. But most importantly, his realizations and fervor were internal things he couldn't really touch.
He closed his mouth and nodded at the declaration, It was all he could do; Agree, cheerlead, and go forth and succeed, fellow distressed person with whom he is mildly acquainted!
At least until the glowing book popped up. "Holy s**t," Noah didn't yell, the exclamation came out as an almost quiet hiss when he dropped the box. This looked familiar. Stress brings about glowing objects, begging to be touched.
Don't touch it. He had to warn Kent, but how? It was a complicated situation that needed to be handled delicately with a slow and steady stream of information in a way that would hopefully be comprehended with no proper introduction to the magical world he knew of.
Or he could preemptively tackle him while shouting, "Don't touch it!" which is exactly what he did.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 7:27 pm
This is a dream, Kent thought to himself. It was the only explanation that worked anymore. This whole thing is a dream- the fight, the break-in, all of it. I'll wake up and none of it will have happened.
Once he established that, he felt a little better. It was weird, as dreams went, but definitely not the worst one he'd had. Odd that Noah showed up in it; it wasn't like they knew each other all that well, but hey, it was a dream. It didn't have to make sense. All he had to do was sit back and enjoy. And maybe check out the book. It was, upon further inspection, a really cool looking book.
He didn't even get as far as raising his hand to touch it when Noah ran right into him while shouting something. Kent hit the ground hard, the wind totally knocked out of him. It hurt enough to make him doubt the whole dream thing, which meant that he was even more confused than before.
"What the hell, man?" he shouted back, trying to push Noah off of him, get up, and rub the shoulder that had borne the brunt of the impact, all at the same time.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:02 pm
"No, stop for a second!" Noah shouted, managing to get up to his knees and successfully use both his hands to hold Kent down on the floor. At least until he realized the awkward position he was in, straddling his best late night regular and trying to hold him down.
He let out a yell and flailed off of Kent, arms flailing every which way.
"Don't touch it, you don't know what you're doing!"
He had born witness to so many of Zia's rough and tumble 'welcome to magical bullshit, here's your crash course' talks and he always swore that when he got the chance, he'd do better. He's be calmer. He'd be nicer. He'd e more coherent.
Future Noah was going to be so disappointed in present Noah.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:23 pm
In all fairness, Kent did stop when he was asked to. Mostly because he was completely unsuccessful at getting Noah to leave off. So he settled for rubbing his shoulder- man, that hurt!- and waited for what he hoped was a damn good explanation. He'd been waiting for one all day. Moment of frenzied panic aside, he didn't really think it would come from the burger guy.
As soon as he was able, he sat up, and was almost thinking that they would be able to work this out like grownups. And then Noah said the magic words, and the shouting started again. "You're right, I don't know what I'm doing! Did you listen to a thing I just said? I don't know because nobody will tell me a damned thing, and I'm sick of it!" Well, that wasn't entirely true. Laney had told him things, but he wasn't sure he believed them. Because with all her talk of organizations creating monsters and superhumans, it sounded like she'd read one too many comic books.
Then again, was he really any better, having hallucinations of a floating glowing book?
Kent glanced upwards. Yep, the book was still there. Waiting for something. He looked back at Noah, re-evaluating his previous assumptions. "If you're trying to imply that you know something I don't, you've got about ten seconds to cough it up before I see if that book has more answers than you do." After the day he'd had, he wasn't going to let anyone else get in his way.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:50 pm
It was always the burger guy, duh.
But in all seriousness, Noah was wishing he could put this whole thing on slow-mo so he could catch his breath and figure out how to do this thing. It was his first time without his sister, it was a little difficult.
And then he promptly became offended at himself for the notion. Zia was an informational hub but she wasn't training wheels and often her bedside manner left a lot to be desired. He could do this thing.
"You need to stop for a second and think, because if you take that book nothing's ever going to be the same again," He said, managing to lower his volume, but the urgency was still there. "Because something like that popped up for me too, once, and it turned me into... well into this."
He powered up. There was no waffling about the dangers Kent presented to him or hesitation about losing his identity as a terrorist and throwing it out in the open. Blind faith, even after all these years, still came easily to Noah.
The squire of Earth sat up with a groan and rested his arms on his knees. He was really past the time to be tackling people to the ground in frenzied panics, especially with his busted knee, but he figured he could go grab some aspirin later. Magical introductions times now. "You'll be sucked into this duty of fighting monsters and evil and you won't be able to go back. You'll end up tied to this huge big thing in the universe of what ever planet you get tied to. It's a huge deal."
He pointed to the book, "And that thing wants you to touch it and make you one too."
He wasn't advising against it. On the contrary, Noah himself had spent all this time as a civilian yearning for the ability to do something. His powers came with strings attached, but they were strings he would learn to live with. He preferred strings to never having anything power or identity at all. But he wished someone explained to him what it all meant before he did, and he was going to give Kent that courtesy while he had the chance.
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Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:20 pm
Even without Noah telling him, Kent knew that things wouldn't be the same after this. Because he was either about to learn something world-shattering and life-changing, or he was going to need to be committed to an institution. Probably the latter, because he was seeing things. He really wanted to touch the book, if only to figure out if it was real or not, but he suspected that Noah would tackle him again if he tried, and his shoulder was still aching.
And then Noah was gone, and some other guy was there, wearing some weird armor and- was that a crown made of rope? It probably would have been funny if it wasn't so shocking. "Holy s**t!" he screeched, scooting backwards as fast as he could and ruining the seat of his jeans in the process.
He could see that it was Noah in there somewhere, but he had a feeling that if he hadn't seen Noah turn into whoever he was now, he wouldn't have been able to tell. Which meant, unlikely as it sounded, that the terrorist in the apartment was probably Tara all along. Laney had practically told him as much, and he'd had his suspicions even before that, but he hadn't been able to accept it because it felt like accepting the moon being made of green cheese.
But it was true. And as he thought back to what Tara had hinted at, what Laney had divulged to him, what not!Noah was saying now, Kent realized that it was all true. The monsters, the organizations, the saving the world- everything that he'd been able to wrap his head around was 100% real.
"Okay, you've officially earned an extension." Ten seconds was in no way long enough to cover all of this. "I won't touch anything until I figure things out, promise. But uh... man, where do I even start? Does this have something to do with, uh, monster-making organizations? People with military uniforms and holes in their heads? Or sailor outfits?"
Noah wasn't wearing anything like that though. New as he was to all of this, Kent had no idea if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
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Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 10:50 am
Noah swore he would do better.
Noah swore he would do better.
He was getting to his feet with a groan and Kent mentioned the monsters and suddenly he threw his arms up in frustration. "Youma! ******** youma!"
Alfheim took pride in his peaceful acceptance of all factions. He thought the young egos involved in this war were best dealt with understanding and acceptance and that peace was the answer over elimination.
But youma held a special place in his heart. The ugly place that absorbed all of the extra, run off hatred and contempt he would normally be directing at the human race. "This things! Those-- argh," He waved one hand in the direction of the diner that had been renovated last year. And the year before. "They keep-- the damage-- insurance--- argh!"
He was having trouble making complete sentences. He was not exactly accustomed to being worked up into a rage.
But seriously, <********> youma.
"The Negaverse sets them loose on the city because they're pure ******** evil," He managed out but the yelling noises and arm flailing still threaded in to every move and word. At least until he remembered he was supposed to be explaining and he was going a horrible job.
"I'm what's called a knight," He said when he cleared his throat. "We fight monsters, try to save the world from evil, all that jazz." He unclipped his bottle and showed it to him. "Well it's not the same as when I was first awakened, but it showed up. Two years ago when a youma crashed through the window, and knocked my sister half way across the floor. It popped up and I grabbed it, and it turned me into this. So that's yours," He jerked on head towards the book, "So I imagine that's yours, ready to turn you into one too."
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Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 11:25 am
Kent sensed he may have hit a nerve.
If he'd been in a calmer state of mind he probably would have been apologetic. He hated making people upset, especially when he didn't even realize that he was doing it. But in this case, it just served to remind him of how little he knew, and how much everyone around him- literally everyone- was hiding from him. Which meant that Noah had a partner in tantrum-throwing.
"So what's a ******** youma?" he shouted back. "Is it the monsters or the military dudes or the holes in the forehead or what? And what the hell is a Negaverse?"
Now he was getting somewhere. He just had no idea where.
When Noah said he was a knight, Kent couldn't help but snort in disbelief. "As in shining armor, damsel in distress, all that? Kind of an archaic role, isn't it?"
But when he stopped to think about it, there was a certain sense to it. Knights fought monsters. Usually dragons, in the folklore, but sometimes other things too, like giants and the like. And opposing armies. Which maybe accounted for the people Laney had warned him to avoid.
So, okay, knights. Why not? The remains of his skeptical smirk faded as Noah described how he'd become one. How he'd been awakened, Kent corrected himself, trying to keep track of the proper terms for these sort of things. He glanced up at the book again, feeling no compulsion to reach for it now. All he really felt was way out of his league.
"But why a bottle? Or a book? Why you, or me?" Kent wanted to ask more meaningful questions, but they weren't coming together in his head. Every time he tried, he'd bump up against another unknown, and another, until he found himself doubting everything he thought he knew.
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:13 pm
"No, it's a monster-- thing-- like... like they're made by... wait. Well mostly... uh..."
Alfheim went off into a rambling stammer before he stopped himself. Breathe in, out, and parse out information into digestible and cohesive chunks.
"Okay, dude, it's just," He let his arms go slack, hanging ever so slightly behind his torso thanks to his shoulders leaning so far back as his eyes rolled up to the ceiling. This would be so much easier with a little bit of weed in his system. "It's magic, okay? And there's light sparkly magic that may or not turn you into an elf guy in lady's armor," He tugged at the shining fabric his tunic was made from. "And the sailor girls with the white outifts and then there's black magic or evil s**t and it's called Chaos."
His hands moved to his general forehead area to elaborate. "The black suited sailor girls and the cracks and holes and the long flowy underwear things?"
Babydolls and overlays were words clearly lost on him.
"It's because of Chaos magic. And it's what that organization runs on. They're called the Negaverse. And they use it to make monsters that feed on people and wreck perfectly innocent restaurants. And those are called youma."
He pointed at the book again. "If you touch that, you'll have access to your own magic, which will be perfectly nice and not horrible or Chaosy. But it means you're a knight, which means you've always had that power. If a recruiter for Chaos magic caught you and caught hold of your starseed you could be corrupted and totally brainwashed into being a homicidal minion for their cause. Crazy s**t, man."
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Posted: Wed Jun 11, 2014 9:31 pm
This was seriously trippy. Not that Kent had ever tried recreational drugs; he was too much of a goody-goody to want to break the rules, and too concerned with how bodies were meant to function to mess with his like that. But he suspected that if he bucked tradition and gave them a shot, the end result would probably be something like this.
"God, I need a drink. Or five." Somehow, alcohol had never seemed as awful a drug, and a beer would probably relax him wonderfully right about now. Not for the first time, he thought it was a shame that 17 Waverly didn't have a liquor license.
But it didn't, and Noah was expecting him to follow this crazy explanation, so Kent tried to parrot back what he could understand. "Monsters bad. Black sailor suits and holes and underwear- seriously, underwear?- and Negaverse. All bad. Knights good. And, uh. Was there a 'why' in all of that? 'Cause if there was, I totally missed it."
The why might not have been important in the long run, but Kent wanted to know before he jumped into this, just what he was jumping into. If he had a choice. "So hey, what happens if I don't touch this thing? Other than maybe getting brainwashed into some kind of evil cult if I don't, which is a good incentive in itself, but inquiring minds, y'know?"
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