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 Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2014 10:48 am
“I wouldn't say subtlety's your strong suit,” Ganymede said into the darkness—her voice directed, or so it would seem to any random passerby, at nothing.
But there was something there, she knew. Or someone. She could feel it, whether or not she could pinpoint from which direction the energy reached out to tickle her senses. Undeniably Chaos, and not that of the Dark Mirror. Negaverse, she knew. And particularly dark. The feel of it disturbed her, cloying at her like the night devoid of starlight. Overhead the clouds obscured a moon that had until just recently been full.
Ganymede did not often stay out so late these days. Her daylight hours were busy, her nights often assigned to other tasks—familial obligations, rehearsals—but she made time to patrol whenever the opportunity arose, scouring the streets on her way home. This evening in particular saw her making a return from her home-world, starting in the direction of home when she became aware of another presence. Not following her, or so it didn't appear to be. Not like Laurelite had. It had just been there upon her return.
In the wrong place at the wrong time, she decided.
And she was certain she knew where she'd felt that aura before.
“Bischofite,” she said.
There was nothing to prove to her that his aura was unique except that it was the only one of its kind that she'd ever felt—or acknowledged feeling, as the case may be. But something told her it could only be him. Intuition, maybe? Or perhaps it was only that she wanted it to be him, given what she'd so recently learned.Aeeth Let me know if I should change anything!! <333
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 10:38 am
He knew the feel of her existence, her nagging presence cluttering out the presence of sleep and rousing him to the dismal depths of Destiny City's darkened alleys. Around him lay grunge, pooled and congealed grease spilled from a garbage bag split open, leavings from those who came before draped in equal detritus. Only when the thicker stench of rot clawed up the slicked brick walls did he consider it a place of rest, and so often he stopped, bony knees drawn to chest and wings propped uncomfortably against a wall. He breathed, but could not smell past the tar that cemented mask to face.
It offered solace from those who sought death to his kind. Meager resting points they were, small platitudes offered to those who could not afford etiquette.
Gold eyes glanced outwards from the shrouded darkness of the alley, squinting ever slightly when ethereal glows threatened migraines on him. She looked different from what he remembered, mangled in a similar fashion to himself yet... To sweet, too clean, too sticky between his teeth like the stubborn flecks of Jolly Ranchers. I don't like you. I never did. You were interesting, but you forced me to seethe long ago as you do now. You and your immolation stunts, Ganymede. You and your brilliance under the penumbra of a street lamp.
What is it you expect to find, peering into darkness? In its basest form, we are all alike. What is that to you, one of many, one of a hundred million stars scattered across the sky, all different and all independent? You have everything you're looking for humming just beneath your fingertips.
"Subtlety is a privilege," he said at last. "Just as humanity is a right to be revoked." He stood, slowly as the stars congealed over his peripherals. With one hand balanced against the wall, he hesitated a moment to collect himself. When certain he could walk without falter, he approached the lamp too bright with the star lighted under its watchful gaze. Pausing at the mouth of the alley, he laced warped fingers over his sash while he waited for her assault - verbal lashing, magical excision, physical violence when it really never mattered.
"What is it you want, Ganymede? I am certain zere is nossing you need from me, so why disturb a creature resting?" You, of the stars, who blooms so spontaneously. I was not asleep. You came without warning.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:49 pm
It was her first up-close look at him since the warehouse. If not for the fact that she'd been informed otherwise, Ganymede might have wondered if the trauma of that night had killed him. Certainly she wouldn't have cared if it had; there was no benefit to him living, only deceit and terror—true chaos.
Few were beyond redemption, she'd always thought, but prior events had taught her that Bischofite was not one of them.
She watched him with obvious interest, making a slow survey of his appearance. It seemed fitting that he should become... this. Surely his current state was a more accurate representation of the darkness in his soul than whatever poor kid had once lurked beneath his uniform. Ganymede kept a careful distance between them. Her stance projected a nonchalance she didn't quite feel when confronting an unpredictable foe; she had no interest in a fight but could not trust him to be of a like mind.
“I was just passing through,” she explained.
Her shoulders lifted. Fell.
She shifted on her feet like she meant to be on her way, but stopped when a thought struck her. Her eyes made another study of his dark figure. She felt nothing for him but revulsion.
“Actually, there is something I wanted to talk to you about. Or ask you. Whichever. I have a friend, a girl you once knew. Named Orah,” she said. Her eyes remained locked on his form, searching for a reaction. “She had some interesting things to say about you, to say the least.”
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 9:22 am
His gaze rested on her from beyond the mask, unblinking in their scrutinization of her body language, her interests. Ganymede, who harbored far more sickening brightness, tracing the very back of his mouth with the same sweet saliva that bore precursors to vomit - she wanted to study him, and all these wretched changes incurred over his body.
"Passing srough," he echoed, though never believed it. Were you passing through, you'd have no reason to call out to me in the depths of the alley. It wouldn't matter what I was, where I was. You'd have more important things to do - just passing through. In shifting his attentions toward the mortar and brick on his right, Bischofite started picking through the weaker portions and littering the ground with fallen detritus from his ministrations. Passing through. She says it no differently than I expect an agent would say of their hand through someone's chest - it was just passing through.
The mention of Orah earned his attention once more, though still embedded in the same tepid exhaustion he exhibited form the start. In no portion of his body did he harbor the energy or the means to provide a heated response. She had something to say concerning Alois, though she never met Bischofite. 'She had some interesting things to say about you'... So you must not see me as a Negaverse general right now, Ganymede. That's telling.
"Zat isn't terribly surprising to me." After folding his wings taut to his back, Bischofite took a seat on the floor, among the loose gravel and macadam. Standing for long periods exacted their toll, the science already boiled down to assigned numbers and waning muscle to account for such bleak weaknesses. "I pestered her frequently while I was still human. So what is it about my encounters wis' her zat piques your interest? Surely you don't seek to gossip about your friend and her trysts wis' a man zat becomes a monster... Zat sounds worse zan a magazine cover." And you'd find nothing of use in pursuing that angle. Nothing against me, personally - but if you intended to campaign to smear the Negaverse, I find no compunctions against indulging you.
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Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:02 am
Too late Ganymede realized her line of questioning could have unintended results, and bring danger to those she had no desire to place in harm's way. It risked Orah's safety as well as her own, admitting that they even knew of one another, speaking as if she knew exactly who Bischofite had once been, when she had no reason to know except that she had seen but a brief glimpse of him at the warehouse and, more importantly, that she was acquainted with a Senshi who happened to be Orah.
She made an effort not to let her sudden unease show on her face. So what if she knew? There were various avenues from which she could have come upon the information. That Orah had told her of Alois didn't have to mean Orah knew anything about Bischofite. Hadn't there been others who'd recognized him that night?
In any case, she didn't have to explain herself to him.
“Not gossip,” Ganymede said, and rolled some of the tension from her shoulders.
Her eyes never left him, nor did her posture ease at all when he took his place upon the ground. She made no move to join him. There was nothing about this encounter that was companionable. Buddgintonite she could mock and challenge relentlessly, amuse herself with his reactions; Benitoite she could stroll beside and speak to as if they could possibly be equals under different circumstances; and bumbling lieutenants she could view with pity and encourage along a different path.
But Bischofite had never earned anything from her but contempt. She kept her head high and looked down at him with an expression of one who knew herself to be superior.
“Just curious,” she continued, “why someone like you would go for someone like her. What was it about her? D'you get off on preying on the sweet, innocent type? Was she just another one of your little games?”
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Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:28 am
"Is zis what you want to amuse yourself wis', Ganymede? My trifles?" Championing the cause of a civilian is a dangerous game. Anyone of interest becomes a target. You should know this by now. Orah, oh Orah... Would you like to see what became of your ex-lover?
"How disappointing." Was there truly so little mystery and intrigue left to his existence that delving down the path of his tawdry love life proved more interesting than crimes committed in the past? Must he continue to bring others to ruination to garner any modicum of advancement now, though he found no such means prior? The Negaverse effectively abandoned him, and now those of hostile persuasion skittered to and fro from him, alive each time and yet somehow drawn like a moth to flame. It must be nice to dance around something once considered deadly.
"Everysing is a little game, Ganymede. Our talk, zose nights spent in operations, even my life. Everysing a gamble, everysing a game. She was one of zem, as is anysing. As is trying to find food in ze evening so I don't starf'e to deas'." He shot her an acerbic glance. "Orah was a fight I could not win, which was why I involved myself wis' her. She was - and possibly still is - a doormat, a shadow of her dead mom, and perpetually doomed to ze cycle of inheriting her dad's eternal mourning machine named Farah's Garden. It is not a bad life zat she was destined for - it allows for stable income, continued placement in ze family and probably ozzer perks zat I never fully recognized. But, I wanted to show her zat she is naught but a coffer in a charnel house as she is - a place to heap ze bones and morning for her dead parent.
"I wanted to show her zat she had a choice.
"I told you I picked her because I couldn't win - and I didn't. Everysing I did eizer backfired or reinforced her beliefs zat zis was ze life for her. I doubt she ever considered zat zere was a pas' for her outside of zat damnable little shop." He sighed in exasperation, a portion of it showing in a creased line for a mouth just beneath the beak of his bone mask.
"So to answer your question - I went after her because I like challenges. I like impossibilities. I like ze sings zat can make me suffer, whezzer in defeat or ozzerwise. Satisfied?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 8:17 am
Ganymede bristled at the response. Her fingers curled into her glowing palms, hands tightening into fists by her sides. Her expression twisted, caught somewhere between anger and revulsion.
She was unsure how to interpret his explanation. He readily admitted that whatever life was in store for Orah was not a bad one even as he seemed to disparage it. He raised her up and put her down in the same breath, deemed Orah a challenge even as he belittled such a simplistic way of life. Perhaps he had no fondness for what some might deem mediocrity. Ganymede did not share his thoughts, of course. She would take a normal, uneventful existence over war any day.
Though it disturbed her to think that Orah had taken to bed with this... monster... Ganymede nonetheless felt a wave of protectiveness wash through her. Orah was a kind, decent human being in a city that so often produced awful people. She didn't deserve to be made into someone's sick, twisted game.
“No, not satisfied,” Ganymede spat.
She didn't know how to respond. She was at a loss for words, struggling to understand concepts that at face value seemed simple enough, and yet remained so far beyond her.
Had Chaos done this to him? Or had Bischofite always been out of his mind even before the fall?
“I don't know what the hell she saw in whoever you were before you turned into this,” she waved a dismissive hand at him, “and to be honest I don't really care to know. Whatever choice you tried to show her was of your own making, not hers. Not much of a choice at all if that choice is what you want of her. In the end, it wasn't about her at all, was it? It was about you. What you wanted, how you felt, what you hoped to get out of it. You didn't give a damn about her, about how she felt or what she wanted for herself.
“Stay away from her,” Ganymede added a warning. She had no way of knowing what Bischofite meant to do now, if he even meant to do anything, but she couldn't stomach the thought of Bischofite coming near Orah again.
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2014 4:16 pm
"Why did you even ask, Ganymede? Why solicit my soughts on ze matter? Why look for my motivations? If you'f no mind to even begin considering zem, zen you must find petulant joy in wasting my energy on such explanations. Or do you just like my accent?" Bischofite scoffed before slowly rising to his feet. Unsteady as he was, he was beginning to learn how to fan his wings outward for stability.
"We are never going to see eye to eye, Ganymede. Even if I managed, by some cosmic machination, to find someone capable of purifying me, you would regard me wis' zat same derisif' glare and contempt for any word zat comes from my mous'. It's obvious, it's ignorant, and it's a waste of my time. You can command me all you want, but it holds less sway over me zan ze demands of my peers." Pausing, he brushed a few flecks of dirt from the flight feathers of his wings. A pair of claws pressed together smoothed the myriad barbs across the rachis, the vane holding steady while dirt and dust peeled off the feather.
You're standing there telling me what I thought and why I did what I did. It's preposterous, and gaslighting. Cite me as selfish, tell me I never cared, and brand me a pathological liar or any other repertoire of rot that so suits you, Ganymede - for you never bothered to listen in the first place. "You made your decision about me long ago - zat I am irredeemable, inhuman s**t. It's plain in your face and every gesture you adopt in my presence. You detest me far worse zan, well... Most ozzers I'f met. You're not ready to let go of any of zat hatred, Ganymede, as it fuels you. It gives you zat brilliant burn zat fuels your cause and lights all your torches so you can see so clarion ze need for my deas'.
"You don't want to let go, so zere's no point in my explaining or refuting anysing you ask of me. It doesn't matter, because you'll superimpose all zose detestable little brands to everysing about me until you're satisfied zat you cannot see me as a human being. I don't give a s**t about zis practice, Ganymede, because I don't care about you." Afterward he turned from the senshi wholesale, heading back into the alley from whence he came.
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Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:17 am
“You're not a human being,” Ganymede argued simply. “Not anymore.”
She didn't shout it, or lace the comment with venom. She said it as if it was a commonly known fact. He was a monster, if not figuratively than literally. Chaos had distorted him, had taken his human body and turned it into a bastardized form of itself. He had just enough humanity left in him for speech, thought, and feeling, but she doubted there was little else.
That he should bring up purification intrigued her, if only because he spoke of it as something of a possibility, if only there was someone capable of doing so. And why couldn't they? The royals should be capable. There were four of them that Ganymede knew of. Anyone of them could do it...
But she said no such thing, aware that she was, as Bischofite said, ignorant. Obviously there was something about that topic she was missing.
“You're probably right... and all of those things about me are true,” she allowed, “but you haven't done anything to prove otherwise. All I've ever seen you do is hurt people. Civilians, my allies, Orah. You treat people like pawns and playthings. That's why I don't see you as human, because you've never acted like one in all the times I've seen you. Prove me wrong if you want. Hell, in a situation like this I'd love to be proven wrong, but I also can't forget what you've done. One day, karma's going to see that you get your comeuppance. If it hasn't already,” she added as her eyes scanned over his monstrous frame. Aeeth I'm super, super sorry this tag is so late! Just like the Gany/Angel RP, take your time if you need to! <3
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Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 8:23 pm
"I am half a youma," he responded slowly. "Anysing I say zat might lend credence to considering me human will be overridden by zat fact.
"If you'f not already considered it, try to remember ze last time I did somesing horrible zat resulted in ze deas' of many people. It was in May, correct? Sometime in May. Ever since zen..." With his back still turned to her, he picked at the crumbling portion of the wall meticulously, as if bothered and trying to assuage his exasperating fears by picking away at old walls. "Let's see. Maybe four weeks were spent in intensif' recovery. Zen... I tried to find a reason to continue wis' my usual plans, but more or less wasted zat time bemoaning my life, so zat took maybe... Sree more weeks. I asked Persephone to break into someone's house while zey were gone. Zat would count for Negaverse activity, I suppose. Ozzerwise..."
Finally he half-turned to look at her. "I haf' done exactly jack and s**t wis' my Negaverse duties. Hmm, imagine zat." Attention returned to the wall; there was something aboout Ganymede's presence that exacerbated his unease with himself and the world around him - something that patiently niggled away at the back of his mind so constantly that he never fully recognized it as the cause for his disconcert. "I don't expect it to matter much to you - or anyone - zat I haven't tried to wrench a starseed from body or drain energy from zat time until now. After all, it's not really an attempt in ze opposite motion - t saf'e someone, to repent somehow. People are all about balance, you see.
"But ze world is not balanced. It never will be. It's not made for balance, nor are any of us. We, as humans, or to some degree monsters, are made for rancor."
Bischofite finally wholly turned toward the girl and approached slowly, recounting the final dregs of his point as he came closer. "Every. Last. One of us." Some of his feathers twitched. He wanted to ruffle them, but suppressed the urge.
A hundred potential actions crossed his mind, from trite to potent but he cast the lot aside in favor of folding his thin, frail arms over his thin, frail chest. "Do I haf' to go out and help people, zen? Patch up wounds for your team, or rescue old ladies from burning buildings? Or does proving I'm human involve tritely sweeping you off your feet in a kiss? Maybe humanity is defined as writing poems and prose zat invoke intensif' reflection. No? It's having all ze signs of ze species as scientifically defined, maybe? In zat case I can't win - I haf' to rely on ze goodwill of your faction to finally regain zis so elusif' concept of being human."
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