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 Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2015 10:00 pm
Mistral, as a rule, did not patrol. She was weak as a civilian even as a squire--weaker than a civilian as a civilian, though, so it all balanced out--and that put her on the bottom footing against any Negaverse officer or Dark Mirror senshi she might run across. Hands down. There was danger from her own side, too, those who remembered what she had done. The fate of Soldier Virgo would not be soon forgotten, whether Mistral regretted her future self's actions or not. Of marginal comfort was Babylon's insistence that that future had already been averted. He said that, since their future selves hadn't recalled living this before, they must have already changed what was to come. Mistral wasn't sure coincidence could be confused with divine providence, but Babylon was becoming someone weird and mystical--she didn't like it. She didn't trust it. Knighthood was consuming the both of them. It consumed them, and gave them nothing for their troubles. She'd left Mendel at home. They'd had a bit of a scare with a youma, and he was resting up from a rather nasty gash to the ears. This turned out to be for the best, because her dog-glamor project hadn't even gotten off the ground yet. She'd been... busy. And now she had found Zircon, whom she remembered from the future as Zoji La. "Zoji La," she called, her low alto pealing down the alleyway. "Hands behind your back, thumbs up, and I won't hurt you."
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Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 10:23 am
A voice chimed out from the darkness, and Zircon froze, eyes wide as she dropped the drained civilian in her clutches. It was a name from another time, a voice to match, and panic settled deep into the captain's core, where the dagger had been. She knew this person, or rather, she had--or would have? It was all too confusing, but in light of recent events Zircon could no longer pretend that the being behind her was some phantasm of a nightmare. She had a voice, a face, and a name that tumbled from her mind like desperate tears.
"What do you want?" Zircon choked out, slowly turning to face the Squire. Her hands quivered and her eyes were wide, but as of yet she made no moves to comply with the directions given. Breathe slowly, she told herself, be calm. Zircon was faster, she could teleport away if the Squire wanted a fight. And yet, her heart kept racing like she might have been standing in the presence of the White Moon Princess herself. The future had already changed course, she was no longer on the path that ended in this woman's bloody hands. So why, then, was she so afraid?
"My name is Zircon," she added, as if the small affirmation might afford her some protection from the Squire. "There's no Zoji La here."
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Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 3:46 pm
"Hands behind your back," repeated Mistral. Her own strain thrummed beneath her words, each one clipped off sharp on the consonants. "Thumbs up." She had no advantage of timing here, no sneak attacks. Mistral didn't even have a sharp object. But she knew she could muster enough force to break a man's balls if she had to. She didn't have to be afraid. She tested this theory, taking two steps forward. "I want you to leave him alone," she said, pointing to the civilian. "I want you to come home." With Zircon's denial, the stance of her body, she knew she'd found a button to mash. "To us, Zoji La. Do you remember what our partnership was like, in the future? We could have that again, today." Inelegant, hamhanded, more than half-ripped from wicked. Maybe it would bridge the gap anyway. She held out a hand. She didn't expect Zircon to take it, but she hoped so.
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Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 4:32 pm
"No," Zircon murmured, shaking her head as she took a step behind her, over the sleeping body of the man she'd drained. Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears, threatening to explode if Mistral came any closer. "I--I mean, yes, I'll leave him alone, but no, I won't disarm myself in front of you." The words flowed out of her mouth like babbling water, like when Babylon had shined his lantern over her, but panic had overrun reason and kept her from stopping up the busted floodgates.
"My name is Zircon," she mimicked Mistral's tone, taking another step back. "Captain of the Negaverse. I harvest energy, I've eaten starseeds, I kill senshi, I am a good officer."
Her hands were up in a defensive posture, but as of yet she hadn't summoned her weapon. She laughed at Mistral's proposal, cruel and bitter in a way that stung her eyes. "Partnership? You stabbed me and I died!" Zircon shuddered as the vision washed over her again, and she shook her head, as if that might shoo away the dark thoughts that clouded her mind.
"No, I am home, and that will never be allied with you."
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Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 4:58 pm
Mistral shook her head. Not to deny the stabbing. She'd done that. "You wanted to take space," she said. "You wanted to destroy everything!" Later, she'd think of something more eloquent to say. That was how it worked, right? In a situation of stress, she said whatever came to mind. Later, she'd have time to think. None of that really mattered now. Right now, this was all she had. I can do this, she thought, and she closed on Zircon, her heels clicking across the cracked pavement with a confidence that Mistral didn't really feel. "I am sorry for what I did," she said. "I am. And I would not do it now." She offered a hand, not in violence, just... held it out there. This was going to end badly. "Aren't you a scientist," she said. Different tack. She could loop back around to hammering on the fact that Zircon'd come around before. "How many others are there like you in the Negaverse? How many like me?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 9:38 pm
"I..." Zircon paused mid-rebuttal, biting her lip. A number of phrases came to the tip of her tongue, but it was nothing she would admit out loud to this murderer. I wanted to escape my status as traitor by delivering my homeworld to the Negaverse. I wanted to take back what was mine.
I just wanted to go home.
The captain stared blankly at the outstretched hand, holding her own well away from the friendly gesture. She had, however, stopped taking steps backwards, so it was a start. "...I was," she responded lowly, combing over her thoughts as she considered what would be appropriate to say. "I would be one, too, in the projected future. But I am not one now." There was a vitriol in her last sentence that pinched at her nose and scrunched her expression, as if she'd tasted something foul.
"There are many like me in the Negaverse," she explained further, touching the patch at her breast. She was a footsoldier, a basic scout, and barely less expendable than a youma. Officers like her were legion. "However, there are none like you." There was a curious lilt to her voice, an unspoken proposition. After all, there was more than one way for the two of them to be allies in this current timeline.
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Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 11:16 pm
Mistral didn't drop her hand. It was a strain, in a way she didn't like to strain. "I would die," she said. "You know I would die. The least little bit of lost energy, and--" with her other hand, she made a little poof! gesture "--then I would not be me any longer, would I?" She had done away with Sakuradite, too. Did Zircon know that? "The Negaverse does not deserve you, Zircon," she wheedled. "They don't treat you with the respect you're due." Maybe... "Why don't we make a deal," she said. "You try to find a way to corrupt me. I'll see if I can find something to make your purification worthwhile. If you find a way to make sure I live through corruption before I make purification worthwhile for you, then I'll corrupt. Sounds fair?"
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Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:54 pm
Zircon opened her mouth, to plead or to bargain, but after a moment's consideration she closed it again. There was no point in denying what she knew from the alternate timeline. Mistral's civilian glamour, whoever she was, had proven time and time again to be too delicate and fragile for any sort of energy harvesting. How she even had the strength to power up was a strange curiosity, but one Zircon had not considered, seeing as how most of her thoughts had been focused on the dagger in her gut.
"The Negaverse treats me the way I deserve to be treated," the captain replied darkly, lowering her shoulders. "I will command respect once I've earned it, and maybe someday soon." For the first time since Zircon made eye contact with Mistral, her gaze glanced down and away, brow furrowed in what might have been shame.
Nevertheless, Mistral's proposition intrigued her, and she looked back to the squire with a curious stare. It was a win-win situation, regardless of how Zircon looked at it--either Mistral would come into the fold as a respectable officer of the Negaverse, or Zircon...
...perhaps Zircon could simply forget all this happened.
"You won't find anything worthwhile," the captain initially scoffed, a remedy for the panic in her chest that fluttered whenever she considered her disastrous future.
"But If you truly mean it..." the captain wavered, searching the squire's eyes for signs of deceit. Her eyes bore down hard on Mistral, expression set in a grim line, but slowly, she extended her hand. "...We have a deal."
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Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 8:06 pm
You don't know that, Mistral thought. In fact, she thought she had an unfair advantage--no solution to the problem of Mistral's innate unsuitability for corruption had ever been found in the future. But Mistral knew Zircon's weakness, knew exactly where to strike. She just had to figure out how to play it. "I do," she said, shaking Zircon's hand. "May the best scientist win."
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