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 Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 11:59 pm
This RP is backdated to June 29th
The note was short and sweet: I’m alive, come at me. No arranged meeting place. No further details. Babylon knew Avalon. He knew that she’d mastered teleportation as easily as she breathed. She knew his aura. It was distinctive, moreso now than it had been before - the moment he powered up, she’d be upon him.
After jogging a few blocks north of Florence Court, he stepped into his crisp white coat and sleek new cape, letting the magic settle comfortably around him. Babylon had not only recovered from his ordeal: he’d emerged stronger. Perhaps it was only because he’d forgotten what it felt like to not be in pain, but everything felt clearer now. Sharper. His old uniform had always felt slightly baggy. This one was tighter. Tailored.
In short, he looked good.
He was radiant now, light spilling from his eyes and the strange new lines along his cheeks. His lantern held high, darkness fled before him. Now, if only he could do the same for Avalon.
The inside of Babylon’s head was gloriously quiet.
With a few easy leaps, he made his way to a nearby rooftop. He had no doubts that his message had been received. Now he need only wait for the response.
He cracked his knuckles. The scab on his lip stung as he brushed it with his tongue.
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Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 8:20 am
He had so little to say to her. Avalon held the note in her fingers, ran her thumbs over the surface of the post-it. Bright yellow and blue ballpoint, it looked so stupid, such a dumb thing for her to get emotional over. But he was alive! He was alive, and she could try again. Maybe with his ailment gone, the magic sickness done away with, she’d be able to corrupt him. This time… maybe he wanted her there because, whatever he’d seen or experienced, he wanted to corrupt. Oh, God. She hoped. She barely wanted to allow herself that hope, but she did: she let it bloom as she wandered, seeking his aura. When she found it, she didn’t think before teleporting to it.
She appeared before him, and when her eyes had adjusted to the bright light of the lantern, she saw the changes: armor at his shoulders, neat pauldrons. Black fur, a new cape, a tailored white coat. Once she had dreaded him ever getting a fashion sense, but he no longer looked like an escapee from a renaissance faire. She thought… he looked like he might have as a Negaverse General, if only she swapped the colors. Her eyes unfocused as she mentally replaced white with black, and smiled.
“You’re alive,” she said, and she was so glad she could have choked on it, bubbles of light rising into her throat and popping there, like the sweetest champagne she'd ever had. “I…” She reached out to him, not for his chest, but for his face, and stroked his jawline, gently. The smile on her face would be familiar to Babylon--though it felt strange to her, like her muscles were stretched the wrong way. “I’m happy that you fixed whatever it was. I am happy.”
But she was also… focused. All she needed was an opening, and then…
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Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2014 1:52 pm
Soon enough, thought Babylon, she’d realize what he’d done. She’d realize that he’d put himself beyond her reach forever and then there’d be rage and all manners of hell to pay. But right now she was tender. Gentle. He offered her a hesitant smile. “I am,” said Babylon. “I’m glad, too.”
This peace would only last a few moments longer, he thought, heart skipping a beat. He raised a hand and cursed inwardly how it shook, and brushed a thumb gently over her cheek. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen you smile,” he said, heart aching. He’d done this. He’d made her so sad that she’d gone and turned herself into this- this monster. And he’d make her sadder still… At this rate, he was never, ever going to convince her to purify. <******** put everything right,” he said, not specifying what that meant on purpose. It was only a matter of time before her hand moved from his face to his chest, before she tried to dip inside him once more and met with magical resistance. “I- My ancestor is gone,” he said. “He can’t talk to me anymore. He can’t judge me.”
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 3:42 am
“I smile,” she said, a little stung. The smile faded, and she instead reached for the Mercury clasp at his throat, carefully slipped her nail under the gold filigree around it. Would it remain that way? Or would it be like her apple necklace--would it metamorphose into something different, broken? She looked up at him, cocked her head and tried to imagine what a shattered Mercury sigil might look like.
Certainly more beautiful than this. She turned his face to the side, ran her thumb over the long straight scar on the side of his face. It had been a good night’s work, she thought. Avalon would do another good night’s work tonight, she knew. When she took his starseed, took him, for his corruption. She could hardly wait. “I’m glad,” she said, once she had ascertained he was alive and unharmed. “All of them deserve to die. All of the ancestors, all of the Wonders, ought to be destroyed.”
She took a deep breath. He smelled sharp, like ice, with a bit of that brainfreeze from before. Well, it’d been strong magic, to almost kill her Babylon. “Have you thought about my offer?”
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:09 am
She was scaring him, as she usually did, and Babylon clenched his teeth a little as she turned his face. The scar still stung as she touched it, and a shudder ran through him. “Please don’t-” he said, but the words died in his throat. He knew she would not heed him, and he’d done nothing to deserve any gentleness from her, anyway.
“He didn’t die,” he said, the muscles in his throat clenching. She wouldn’t like this, he knew. She wouldn’t like this one bit but he had to tell her. The sooner she knew, the sooner she could start to get over it. She wouldn’t kill him - wouldn’t she? Babylon felt a flash of cold terror. Had he surrendered whatever safety he had from her when Cosmos reached into his chest and drew all the pain out?
“I took him to the cauldron,” he said, fighting the growing urge to flee. She’d only catch up with him, anyway. “He’ll be reborn someday. That’s how the universe works.” Ebb and flow. In all things, renewal.
He forced himself to meet her eyes now: there’d be no squirreling out of this. Surely she’d noticed the circuitry that now lined his cheeks, the way his eyes still glowed. “I can’t accept your offer, Avalon,” he said.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:09 am
“You’re still scared,” she said, and there was derision in her voice. “Poor dear Babylon, always scared.” At least she’d been brave enough to take the risk, make the jump from weak and alone to strong, a knight with sword in hand though she may no longer bear the name. She traced the glowing lines on his cheeks with her fingernails, touch soft through her brushed-cotton gloves. Avalon wanted to count his freckles with her mouth, a kiss for every one, but she couldn’t. Not now. Not a distraction like that, not right now. She needed to corrupt him, first, and then she would have all the time in the world.
She put her forehead on his, and was just. Glad that he was alive, alive for her to fix. Alive for her to heal. “It’s alright that you’re weak,” she told him, softly brushing her lips over his. “I’ll make you strong.” She kissed him again, a curiously cold gesture.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:11 am
He was scared, yes, but probably not of what she thought he was scared of. Babylon didn’t fear power anymore. His knighthood’s legacy was no longer a weight upon his shoulders. There was light inside him, leaking out from the fissures in his skin, from the tissue of his retinas, but that didn’t scare him anymore, either. He had mastered it. Tamed it. Altered his body chemistry for it. As much as Avalon had been changed by Chaos, he had been more changed by Order.
“I’m not weak,” he said quietly, bearing her kisses. He was not weak, but he feared her. He feared her for her quiet mania and her cold sword. He feared her for the love she bore him. He feared her for the burning he felt inside his chest, the utter sadness that he loved her, too, and she was beyond his reach.
“Is that how you’ve always seen me?” he asked quietly, careful not to shatter the still, quiet moment they’d reached. “Weaker than you? Below you?”
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:11 am
She shook her head. “Not always,” she said. Before, she’d been upset to see him outpace her. He’d been a Squire when she was little more than a jumped-up human. Sometimes things worked that way, though, and Order was perverse. “But you ran. And that was when I knew you for weak and afraid.”
He didn’t seem scared anymore. But he must be, to refuse her gift. She didn’t want to think about it anymore, so she kissed him again to shut him up, her hands tangled in his hair.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:12 am
Babylon nodded. He’d deserved to be told that, and she’d said it before, but he thought he’d overcome all that no. He’d done more since returning to Destiny City than he’d ever done before he left and he was older now, more mature and more responsible. He only wished his youthful mistakes hadn’t had such dire consequences for someone so brilliant and important to him.
He pulled away from her kiss after a moment, but left his hand resting gently against her neck. “I’m stronger than that now, Avalon,” said Babylon. “I’ve learned so much. I’m not afraid anymore.” Except of her.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:13 am
She didn’t believe him, and it was beginning to annoy her that he insisted on it, over and over and over. If he were stronger now, then he’d choose her. Clearly. She was right, and he was wrong, and--that was simply how it was. “Shut up,” she said, and there was a thread of irritation in her voice as she kissed him again, balling her fists in his hair and pulling ever-so-slightly, enough to hurt.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:14 am
Babylon whimpered, but he went back into her embrace, thinking it best to keep her calm for as long as he could. A moment later, breathless, he tried again to break away from her. Kissing Avalon was strange, and under different circumstance he might have even enjoyed it - but right now it just felt dishonest on multiple counts. “I can’t do this with you,” he said lowly, trying to think of a reason to get her to stop. “Not right now. I-”
“I would have to break up with my boyfriend first,” he said, the excuse making him feel a little sick. He’d already cheated, like, three times, in the last two weeks. He had so totally ******** up everything.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:14 am
Avalon didn’t mean the flash of anger that flashed behind her eyes, down her spine in painful heat. It sort of just… happened. “Let me break up with your boyfriend for you,” she said. Corruption would end any relationship that wasn’t with her--and that was how she wanted it to be. Did he need anyone but her? Ha, no, of course not. That question was stupid.
She thrust her hand into his chest again, only to hit that same intangible barrier. The blue light flashed and she was blown backwards, landing hard on her back. “<********>,” she breathed, tasting blood in her mouth. Just a wrong angle, she thought. And then--misery and rage washed over her, a tidal wave of hate that flowed in to fill the great yawing hole in her heart. “What did you do,” she said, her voice rising with each syllable. “What did you do!”
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:15 am
Babylon staggered backwards, sent sprawling by the same force that had repelled Avalon. “I tried to warn you,” he said. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. He hadn’t even wanted her to find out. “I took my ancestor to the Cauldron,” he said, watching her struggle to her feet. “I met Sailor Cosmos. She changed me, Avalon.” In truth, he’d done too much damage to his body to ever be put back the way he’d been. Sailor Cosmos hadn’t changed him so much as she’d healed him, and the physical changes were scarring from the process.
“I can’t accept your offer,” he said. “Not now. Not ever. It won’t work.”
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:15 am
A mature response to that would’ve been to consider other options. Avalon knew that, but that didn’t stop her from letting all that pain out in the form of one awful, bestial scream. The sound was barely human, even to her own ears, and if it hadn’t hurt so much to make she would’ve wondered where it’d been coming from. She only stopped screaming because she ran out of breath, and then she panted for a long minute before screaming again, louder, longer. Avalon sank to her knees, curled up small.
It was permanent. She’d never have him.
He would never be hers again.
She fell silent, panting to catch her breath. And then, quietly, she said, “Go the ******** away.”
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:15 am
Babylon stared at her, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. Any moment, she would run him through. Any moment, she would kill him. There was no use in running. It would only serve to make things messy--
But then she did not kill him. Instead, she collapsed, small and miserable. He tried to breathe a sigh of relief and found that he couldn’t. That his breath caught in his throat. That everything about him was rooted to the spot. Frozen.
And when she spoke, he did not move.
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