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 Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 6:37 pm
Megrez--
I hear you are doing well for yourself. Meet me tonight at Times Circle Fountain at 10:30 PM. I'd love to see for myself how far you've come.
<3
--Megiddo The squire sat on the edge of the fountain, a boxed cupcake held neatly in her gloved hands. She was proud of the little baby senshi. Order needed more soldiers like Megrez, people who weren't afraid to get their hands dirty. As the time she'd chosen for their meeting ticked nearer, Megiddo sighed regretfully that there was no way to determine whether Megrez had even received her message. Sort of like Tumblr, in a way. Well, if the other girl was more than a half hour late, she'd eat this cupcake herself. It was chocolate, with a candy skull and crossbones and a little flag that said Congratulations!. The girl at the bakery had asked what this was congratulations for. She'd thought Keren was joking. She had not been joking. This really was a cupcake reward for killing a dude.
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Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2014 7:27 pm
When Megrez's senshi phone pinged with a message, she was surprised to find that it was from Megiddo. She didn't even know that Knights could send messages to senshi phones. Nonetheless, she couldn't help but feel excited to see her again. Megiddo was the one who taught her about the true face of the war and changed her life forever (not just as a senshi; there were very real and obvious repercussions on other aspects of her life as well). She really wanted to show her progress (even if said progress felt like it ripped out a part of her soul sometimes). Megrez arrived just about on time. "Hey, Megiddo!" she called out, waving. As she approached, she was able to get a closer look at the Squire's new gear. "You're looking good tonight! Did you get an upgrade or something?" She couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Killing her first enemy had to be good for something, even if it wasn't a level up. Then again, senshis probably didn't run on an experience point system.
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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:43 am
Megiddo hopped to her feet, cupcake still held carefully in her hands. "Why yes, indeed I did!" she said cheerfully, preening a little. "It's Megiddo Squire now." And didn't it feel good to say so! She had armor. It was amazing. So, thank you, Megrez, for noticing! "You are also looking quite wonderful if I do say so myself!" she continued, looking the senshi up and down. Was the scar across her nose new? No, Megiddo was pretty sure that had been there before. And she hadn't leveled up, but Megiddo had been a page for like two whole years so that wasn't terrible. The girl's posture was way more confident, she decided, and that was worth everything. "Battle-hardened," she appraised, and then, on second thought, said, "Hard-boiled." She cracked herself up sometimes. Anyway, Megiddo held out the cupcake in it plastic clamshell. "I got you a present," she said. "Congratulations for killing a dude."
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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2014 4:54 pm
"Squire, huh? Neat! I like how your rank sounds like an actual title. I mean, Super Sailor and Eternal Sailor So-and-So are great and all, but Page and Squire have a special something to them." The quips that came after elicited a short, harsh laugh from Megrez. "'Battle-hardened' is one word for it. And I see what you did there! I think I'd argue more for 'cracked' than 'hard-boiled' sometimes." "Present...?" Megrez took the case and cautiously opened it, as though it would explode in her face. When she got a good look at the cupcake, though, she couldn't hide a laugh, one that was a bit longer and not as edged as the first one. "Megiddo, you are funny, you know that? Like... seriously. This cupcake. A cupcake for killing someone. I've gotta get a picture of this." She set the cupcake (still in its case) down on the edge of her fountain, took her senshi phone out, and took a very precise picture of it, making sure to get the skull, crossbones, and congratulations flag all in the shot. "Perfect. New phone background acquired."
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Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2014 5:46 pm
Megiddo looked Megrez over, her lips pursed. "No, definitely hard-boiled," she said. "Cracked would be, like, splattered all over the sidewalk." She and Gunn had killed low-level dark mirror senshi and lieutenants, and she was more than sure the other side did the same to pages and senshi. So, like, Megrez had survived and that was good! Definitely cupcake-worthy. Gunn would definitely say No cookies for doing your job, trainee, but that was Gunn. "Well," she said, smiling widely. She was pleased with herself! "I'm glad that you like it. I tried to get something that really, you know, captured the moment. They usually make these for, like, pirate-themed birthday parties. The girl at the bakery didn't believe me when I told her it was for murder." Which was, you know, probably for the better. "Man, I wish I had one of those neat phones," Megiddo said jealously, twisting her signet ring around her finger. "Gunn's background is this Negaverser she's got beef with in, like, a splint and a huge bow? He got demoted or something. Did you know Negaversers can get demoted? Boy am I glad that s**t can't happen to us."
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Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 7:08 pm
"You can crack without totally breaking," Megrez replied. She considered herself a little damaged, but she had managed to rebound the night she had the realization that she was now firmly entrenched in the war. "Wait, you seriously told her it was for murder? You can't just tell people that! You never know when someone might act on it. At least say I just 'made a killing' or something." Her position on how to handle her part-victory-part-crime was still a bit ambivalent; she kind of wanted to be proud of it, but she wasn't sure she wanted to have Gunn's or Penthesilea's kind of reputation (yet). "You don't have a phone like this? How did you send the text to my senshi phone, then?" Megrez was unaware of the function of a Knight's signet ring. "Anyway, yeah, I've seen that picture. It was pretty funny. Like, is the demotion just a rank thing, or did they actually suck his strength out or something? Sure is a shame, for him at least."
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Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2014 8:49 am
Megiddo sighed. She thought Megrez's anxiety was a little bit misplaced, but if it would make the senshi feel a bit better about the whole situation then she'd roll with it. "Okay, okay, I'll be a little more subtle," she sighed. "But seriously I have never ever heard of anyone being tried and punished for crimes committed while powered up, so I think you're in the clear." She didn't know what the city thought of all these senshi and negaversers and knights going and getting themselves killed but they certainly were powerless to do anything in the face of it. "No, I don't," said Megiddo, confused, "I've got-" She held up her hand to show Megrez her signet ring. "I stamp messages with them and off they go. Oh. You know what? It's that thing that cat did. Okay. Never mind. But I don't have a phone. Think of it more like I'm sending you faxes, not texts." She hoped Megrez would give her a bite of that cupcake. "I think it is like an actual step down in power," she said, "Like his knives went and got turned into jump ropes or some s**t like that. Wild, huh?" She held her pitcher a little possessively - at least she'd never, ever had a lame weapon!
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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 2:20 pm
"Yeah, okay. It must be the glamour." Megrez was only slightly reassured. She was starting to develop a bit of paranoia these days (she would say it was a healthy dose), though really, it was a bit unfounded; that lieutenant's body had been burnt to ash with that building. Even if someone noticed someone was missing, they'd never find a body or anything to pin a crime on her. Megrez leaned in to take a look at the signet ring. "Oh, that's cool. So a cat did something to make knights able to send messages to senshi? I should probably thank them if I find them." Once Megiddo told her about the Negaverse officer's fate, she chuckled. "Oh, wow. Knives into jumpropes... that's gotta suck. But you can still strangle people with a jumprope if you're good at what you do." And she guessed that, untill his demotion, this guy had been good at what he did. Picking up the cupcake and sitting down next to Megiddo, Megrez eyeballed the chocolate-frosted treat for a moment and took the congratulations flag out of it. "Say, how about we split this? I get dibs on the skull though." It looked like the Knight's hopes were going to come true.
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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 2:50 pm
"Blame it on the glaa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-mor," sang Megiddo, to the tune of an R&B number one hit several years past. She was thankful for anything and everything that made Keren Della-Blue untraceable to Megiddo's superpowered hijinks - for one thing, she had seen Orange is the New Black and she did not think she would do well in jail. She liked her fancy clothes a little bit too much for that. "I could send messages to you anyway," she said, "but you'd just get showered with a bunch of little pieces of paper. The cats just made it more convenient on your end." It was still a problem for her - Megiddo didn't reliably carry a marker and paper in her pockets. "Yes, I am 100% okay with splitting that," she said, scooting a little closer to the senshi and grinning with excitement. "Eat your skull. You have earned that ******** skull. Crunch the bones of your enemies between your teeth." Was that a bit much? Well, no more too much than the strawberry filling meant to symbolize the blood of those they defeated, but Megrez would get to that. "So," she said, her a little nudge with her elbow. "Are you ready to do it again? It only gets easier."
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Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 3:48 pm
Megiddo's little musical act made Megrez giggle; it was hard to be paranoid and in fluctuating spirits when you had someone making so much light of a dark situation. "That'd be something, wouldn't it. Suddenly, post-it notes come raining from the sky." "Alright, here goes!" Making an overdramatic show of it all, Megrez plucked the skull off the cupcake and slooooowly put in in her mouth. Then she decisively crunched down on it, and it was done for. "Bones crunched." However, when Megiddo asked that question, Megrez bit the inside of her cheek. After a quick "Owowowow" and a hand to the cheek, she swallowed nervously and exhaled heavily. "Uh... I... I don't know. I don't know if I can do it again. The first time shattered me completely." Her hand went down from her cheek, and she straightened up a bit. "I am sure of something, though. By killing that lieutenant, I am completely in the war now. There's no going back for me. Even if I'm not able to kill again... I have to continue to fight. Someone else may have to handle the finishing blows, but I can't pull out of the fight now." A moment passed, and it was Megrez's time to sing, though this song would be significantly more serious. "There's a line in a song I like... Rrha quel ra clemezen en manafeeze. 'Because of my wishing to live, and to not lose my place, I shall fall into madness.' I want to live and not to lose my place, so I'll keep going."
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Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 10:54 am
Megiddo gave Megrez a companionable pat on the back. So the other girl felt that way right now - she was certain she could change her mind eventually. If Megiddo could help her to that conclusion, then she very gladly would. "Woo!" she cheered, followed quickly with, "It gets easier with time, I swear it does. I've killed lots of people." Well, she'd bashed a lieutenant's skull in and helped Gunn dispose of some bodies. She wasn't sure that counted, but she definitely didn't have any qualms over it anymore! The song wasn't any language that Megiddo recognized. She chewed her lip in frustration, trying hard as she could to place it and failing. Megiddo didn't like to fail. "What is that? From an anime or something?" she asked, although she wasn't entirely sure the lyrics were even in Japanese. "It's neat. It's a cool sentiment. None of us are gonna corrupt, we're just gonna keep fighting until we win." She wondered if there was some way to turn the send-to-phone feature off - she kind of wanted to Rickroll Megrez with post-its.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:12 pm
"Lots?" Now that was something Megrez didn't know about. When she had first met Megiddo, the Knight had just mentioned cracking someone's skull with her pitcher. Perhaps she had gone on to kill more between then and now? "Uh... we'll see. I'm not about to pull out of the fight, but killing again... we'll just have to see." Megrez smiled thinly when Megiddo commented on the lyrics. "It's from a game, actually. The language is called Hymmnos. The music is really beautiful and the singers are amazing." The smile faded as quickly as it appeared, and she changed back to a sober topic. "Yeah... we have to fight. There's no going back for us. But... corruption... I heard that you don't even need to agree to being corrupted. A Negaverse agent can just stick their hand in your chest and bam, everything you ever were is gone forever. It scares me. I mean, it's more motivation to beat up the Negaverse before they can even touch us, but the idea of suddenly being corrupted... it's beyond terrifying."
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Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 8:33 am
Again, it was an exaggeration, but Megiddo had a serious commitment to looking like a badass in front of Megrez. "Well," she said, "At least now you know that you can do it when it comes down to it. Anyway, split up that cupcake and let's eat." She was sort of way too excited to see Megrez's reaction to the jelly filling. Megiddo was fully aware that she may have gone completely overboard on this, but she was also pleased to have done so. If you weren't going to make a statement, why do something at all? That was her feeling on the subject. But yeah. About corruption. "I'm pretty sure that they have to be, like, a general king?" said Megiddo. Other than Ares on the surrounding, she'd never actually seen corruption first hand and frankly didn't know how it worked beyond Gunn's vaguest descriptions. "I have no idea." She'd never had her starseed grabbed and wanted to avoid it if she could. "Anyway, yeah, I've got no plans to get corrupted and you shouldn't either. I'm pretty sure that you have to be psychotic and palling around with generals before that happens." Like Ares, right? "So yeah don't even worry about it," she said dismissively. "It ain't gonna happen to you. We'll keep you safe."
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 6:40 pm
"Yeah. When it comes down to it, sure. And believe me, I have no plans to corrupt or pal around with generals, especially considering how much they like to kill basic senshi like little ol' me." The "we'll keep you safe" line really warmed the cockles of Megrez's heart. It gave her brief visions of a nefarious general about to shove his hand in her chest when suddenly, BAM! Megiddo and Gunn swooped in and knocked him out on the spot. Of course, she didn't want to be in that situation in the first place, but boy, did she love the people she hung out with sometimes. "Alright. Time to split this bad boy." Carefully, Megrez pulled the cupcake apart... and promptly got the strawberry jelly on the fingertips of her gloves. For a moment, she had a brief vision of a different sort: the sight of the blood on her gloves from over a month ago. She shuddered, but tried to cover it up, even through a slight shake to her voice. "Uh, wh-what's this? Jelly...? Cherry?" The significance of the jelly was lost on her in the moment.
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Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2014 11:39 pm
Megiddo had been so looking forward to Megrez's reaction, but the quiver in the other girl's face as she broke into the cupcake made her wonder if she'd gotten too enthusiastic for her own good. "Oh, um, yeah," she said, laughing uneasily. "It's strawberry. It's, you know, just how they make the skull and crossbones cake." It was the blood of their enemies, but she figured they could skip that part for the moment. Megrez was a killer, like Megiddo, but she still had a soft heart. And that wasn't a terrible thing so long as she could get the job done at the end of the day. Gunn was all for supporting your wingmen so long as they weren't behaving selfishly or counterintuitively to the mission, and Megrez was doing neither of those things. She was just... a little bit more soft-boiled than Megiddo had wanted to take her for. Okay. She could work with that. The squire smiled and took half the cupcake from Megrez. "Come on, dig in and don't worry about it," she said. "The magical dry-cleaning space elves will take care of your gloves. They always do."
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