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 Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2015 1:22 am
Necessity drove Umber to shift perspectives in his research. No longer did psychological backing hold viability to him - not in a war that took into account magic and manipulation of their very souls. To focus on brain and behavior alone seemed a trifle. It felt like shooting an alligator with a BB gun and expecting it to die.
That was likely closer to the truth than he felt comfortable admitting.
For the first time in fortnights, Umber left the confines of his apartment with no books under arm. No newspaper articles, no printed abstracts or medical journals, no notations or clippings or suggestions of topics to investigate remained on his person. Tonight he intended no quota gathers, for he farmed that activity to the few lieutenants struggling to repair their credit with the Negaverse. In return, they expected him to speak for them, and that would eventually fall to his good graces to reciprocate. Even then, their success strayed far from his mind, for he focused on magic in those hours.
And where will I find useable magic? The question gave him pause while he balanced expertly on the parapet. It still felt too smooth for his liking in its lack of gnarls and slopes. Trees felt far more comfortable with their constituent camouflage. Corrupt senshi are few. Dark Mirror have no standing alliance with us anymore. Elsa's magic... It shook him, but did not stop him. Of Mintaka or Tantalus, I don't expect viable magic. And what else does the Negaverse have access to? Youma and starseeds. Should I abandon this and turn him into a youma? No - I need something more efficient. This cannot end fruitlessly.
Finally Umber leapt to the narrow alleyways beneath the waxing moon, where light peeked over the lip of roofs yet never touched the darkness between the streets. Vagrants proved easy marks given their accessibility, and due to this, their number grew so few in Destiny City that the find was considered a golden rarity. They slept now where the rats did, where Negaverse agents refused to tread for their own like for personal sanitation. Umber could not begrudge them this.
So when he approached the single female lying atop her cardboard bedding, when he looked past wrinkled face and matted hair, he saw only genuine opportunity. His hand felt the tingling hum of anticipation for the warmth of a starseed to warm it, and that palm darted out quickly and efficiently to push through clothes and skin and bone. The older woman started, seized, gasped and tried to wrench his hand out of her heart but her protests offered no delay. Soon his hand freed itself with starseed in grasp, leaving the woman limp against her pseudo-mattress.
First one, he thought. Several to go.
Umberr started from the scene when he felt the keen presence of an ally - and at first his mind shifted to the whiny, patronizing Ashanite who would so deeply protest his actions. To circumvent this, he simply pocketed the starseed and leapt to rooftop to distance himself from the body. Whether Ashanite or not, they would come as they pleased.kuropeco editing to ask if you want to backdate this to before mad king?
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Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2015 10:21 pm
Aurostibite's time had been spent mostly with Mintaka lately. With the move into the manor and Chariklo's abandonment, she'd had a distinct change of heart in how she handled things, and while he'd been impressed by her dedication, he had watched her rather carefully, knowing her heart had been hurt in the process.
Now, however, he was out patrolling, his hat pulled low over his forehead to prevent the moon from highlighting the majority of his face, and his dark hair had grown longer, rippling behind him like a cloud. Aurostibite had spent the first hour simply draining those he came across, quick, silent gestures before slipping away unknown, and now he was getting more to the slums of the city, the darker, shadowed streets with their lowlifes and hoodlums. Aurostibite had no desire to sully himself in such a place, and had turned around before he'd reached the very depths, lip curling in unabashed disgust.
A few blocks away, he felt the pull of someone - an ally, by the familiarity of it, and Aurostibite frowned somewhat as he slowed. Eventually, he changed courses, followed along behind the aura, silent and quick, and the body he stumbled across minutes later, only served to prove his initial belief. He gave the old woman no time to spare, Aurostibite immediately rising to scour the rooftops instead, because it was what he would have done should he be in the same predicament, lips pressed together in mild annoyance.
Somewhere up here, there was an agent, though he knew not which direction to go.strickenized backdating works! biggrin
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Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:39 pm
The noted signature gave Umber pause. Chaos it felt, and Negaverse by assessment - an ally much more than the Dark Mirror Senshi he met. Umber halted in plain view, moonlight stricken across face and arms and uniform, as he turned toward the direction of the approaching aura. It trailed him, he knew, and the auric sensing complicated matters of traditional tracking beyond what he was used to. Destiny City afforded little means to catch scents, footprints, and scrapings along inorganic surfaces. Umber was no stranger to this.
He banished the starseed to subspace quickly, and the weight in his palm left without complaint. Both hands hung at sides while he waited, and upon spotting a dark figure sporting lengthy hair of multiple colors, Umber started his approach. Each foot set afore the other, he crossed the parapet with little challenge to his balance. It felt much like a uniform tree branch that he often crossed in the woods.
"Captain," he started, voice neutral in greeting. "Did you want something?" In approach, he noted the hat pulled low. Was he trying to hide his face? It didn't matter regardless - Umber hadn't recognized the particular uniform he wore.
Be quick about it if you had demands, he thought in brief aggravation. Such impatience was kept carefully hidden behind his countenance, and he was grateful for what meager self-control he still held. His duty called for him to continue gathering starseeds, as he imagined a great lot of them would be required for such forays into their usage, and any time spent chit chatting with other officers may well be time lost.
Unless he wants to help. I could use help.kuropeco sorry auro he is permagrump
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Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2015 10:51 am
He finally managed to make it up to the rooftops, boots clicking on the tile and cement. Aurostibite's gaze swept across the first - deserted, save for the steam rising unobtrusively from one of the pipes that edged upwards through the ceiling of whatever building he was currently on. The power signature was still strong, however, and he thought he caught the silhouette of something moving on the next building over.
It only took him a few scant seconds to arrive, landing gracefully on the parapet and then stepping over it, gloved hands smoothing down the front of his coat. There were footsteps approaching; Aurostibite had only taken a few of his own before the figure came into view, unfamiliar and yet reassuringly Chaos, like he'd anticipated. The dark hair and the rough appearance were somewhat unorthodox, at least to Aurostibite, who was used to clean lines and pristine folds along creases to present himself fully and completely as an upstanding member of the Negaverse (even if he wasn't).
His head inclined towards the stranger, a little nod of greeting.
"Good evening," Aurostibite said, lifting a hand to tilt the brim of his hat up, and his face was relatively impassive as he glanced from side to side, wondering what he was doing up here. Not that he held any sway or information that he could have used, but it didn't matter. A slight frown touched his lips as he turned back.
"Not particularly," he said quietly, and shifted from one foot to the other, Aurostibite walking in a small arc near to where the other stood.
"I was in the area, felt your aura," Aurostibite said. "And I followed it, naturally, because of your alliance. But down below, in the alleyway...the old woman." He glanced up, eyes flickering towards the other with an expression of silent musing.
"Your work, I assume?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 11:22 am
You want answers, at least. Umber's gaze narrowed slightly as he studied the man. So either you didn't put thought into the question or the one you posed is small talk.
"Alliance? We are peers, and mandated to work together for the sake of the Negaverse. 'Alliance' is a word used for the Dark Mirror, some time ago." Umber considered that the diction paring might be finicky by nature, but he offered no apologies for it. The captain halted at conversational distance from his peer though he did not dismount from the parapet. Wordlessly, he summoned the starseed to hand again and held it up for Aurostibite to examine, pinched between forefinger and thumb. It offered a pale gleam under the starlight and looked nothing short of ordinary in the scheme of starseeds.
I wonder why he'd ask of it. Starseeding is acceptable, even promoted by some generals. Maybe he holds reservations about taking lives. Benitoite implied as much about many early officers.
"I need starseeds for a research project, and this one marks the first of a handful. I don't expect I'll need many. Why ask about it?" To know would help with reading this man, who hardly offered more than a smattering of highly wan facial expressions. No name, no rank beyond what Umber could measure against his own senses and experiences, and no indication of his approval, rejection or indifference toward the starseed in hand. Umber expected that he would side with the lattermost option due to the lack of emotional display. He himself felt mostly indifferent about it, so long as the murder found use in all parts. Much of the human body went to waste in an act like this, which perturbed him, but the overall usefulness of the starseed attempted to trump his ingrained aversion to wastefulness.
"Did you want to help?"kuropeco man they're both so neutral to each other
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Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 3:27 pm
The return response was not quite one that Aurostibite had expected.
His lips parted a little, a brief flicker of surprise registering on his face before it lapsed back into the same stoic expression he usually wore, Aurostibite's eyes narrowing slightly. "We are peers and mandated to work together" was not a phrase that was promising, nor indicative of someone who same sort of agreement that they should consider themselves allies.
A rebel, perhaps? Aurostibite thought. Or simply someone who dislikes dealing with others?
"The Dark Mirrors are allies, yes," he said slowly, a frown on his face. "At least, they were at some point, and can be again if things are to work out well enough. But those of us within the Negaverse should consider ourselves allies of one another as well, else how are we supposed to move forward?"
It was, perhaps, an idealistic view of things, but Aurostibite took what he could get. He gave the starseed a silent examination, not moving closer, observing from the distance he was currently at. The captain seemed unfazed by his questions, and Aurostibite tilted his head slightly, his scrutinizing gaze moving from the starseed to the man himself.
"What sort of research are you proposing to do?" he asked, mostly out of curiosity, but there was wariness there as well. Belatedly, he said, "If you do not mind me asking, what is your name? I am Aurostibite."
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Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:31 am
Did he not follow Umber's meaning? "I don't think I explained myself well. 'Allies' are foreign bodies working symbiotically. But we are more than that." The examples that came to mind consisted primarily of animal behaviors, so he offered none aloud. "I don't mean to say that working together is detrimental."
He would've been a moronic hunter to think otherwise.
"I'm looking into behavioral modification through starseeds." He held the starseed up for his own examination, and peered at the opacity of it. Olive in color, it offered little in the way of gleam. Already the light started to fade from it. "Specifically, I'm looking for a method we can apply to all officers who display averse behaviors toward working with other officers. I looked into psychology and senshi magic and did not find much available to us. It needs to be a method that we can employ ourselves as the Negaverse. Limited access to magic prevents us from looking into senshi avenues. And behavioral conditioning varies person by person - it's too variable."
The starseed vanished when his hand closed and fell to his side. Hands found back pockets in a more relaxed stance while he spoke. "I have reason to believe starseeds might be the best option. We already tamper with them to create starseeds with Chaos energy. If we can find a way to use that chaos energy for rerouting behavioral pathways... Then we might be able to standardize a system across all officers.
"If you think about it, we wouldn't have belligerent corrupted senshi, or deviant officers. Any individual found acting against Negaverse protocol by the SpecOps could be changed as a last measure without having to youmafy the officer to preserve usefulness." Umber's gaze met Aurostibite's just then, searching for a response. Would he balk, or find it similarly useful? Would he shy away? Would he think nothing more of it, or find it a waste?
"Captain Umber, by the way. My brother is Ochre, a corrupted senshi. He is the reason that started this project."
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Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 8:58 am
The explanation was nothing if not succinct, at the very least. Clearly this man was not one for many words, and Aurostibite's gaze flickered a little as he contemplated him, a little frown of thought on his face. He supposed it was true, after all; they were moving together symbiotically, or at least they were supposed to be. And his last statement at least fortified the belief that they would need to work in tandem to get their goals accomplished.
But he was now more interested in what this man's proposal was in terms of his research. Aurostibite's eyes traced the lines of the starseed, though from where he stood, he wouldn't see all the finer details of it, just the faint, not quite entirely there, glow of it.
Behavioral modification. It sounded - well, he wasn't quite certain how it sounded, other than daunting. The prospect of being controlled somehow by using starseeds was certainly an interesting thing to consider, but interesting did not necessarily mean good. Aurostibite's gaze rose to meet the captain's, his own expression relatively flat and unemotional.
He had to admit, he disliked those who stepped out of bounds or out of line within the Negaverse. And Aurostibite was already notoriously mistrustful of the corrupted senshi, all things considered. Briefly, his gaze flickered back to Amphitrite and her fervent anger at being associated with the White Moon, but he couldn't help but put them in a similar category.
Umber. A name for the face. Aurostibite didn't recognize it, nor could he tell whether his project was because he was trying to help this brother of his or hinder him. Either way, he found himself growing more and more curious about it altogether.
"It is..." Aurostibite folded his arms across his chest, momentarily lost in thought before he spoke again.
"It's not unreasonable, I suppose. And admittedly, I can understand the usefulness of being able to contain who we need to, encourage proper behavior and loyalty within our ranks." A gloved finger tapped idly against the inside of his arm, and his gaze flickered back to Umber's. Several thoughts were currently milling through his head, some conflicting with others, some wary, but...
"What sort of help would you have me provide if I said I was interested?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 2:30 am
"Good. You see the point in the project. Sometimes exemplary behavior doesn't encourage more of the same. We have our good examples, but there are still those who begrudge the Negaverse and working for it, despite reasons in their favor. They don't commit - or not in the way we prefer. Quartz, for example. Ashanite. I hope to provide them a persuasive alternative."
The question of help was well-received, and Umber answered readily. "I'm trying to see if we can use starseeds in behavioral modification. If you want to assist, pulling as many as you can will help. Senshi, knight, civilian... The source is less of a concern. We will need all types." And more people to assist in research. There's no way I can come up with an answer on my own. I need people who are more scientifically minded. The more experienced, and the more studious - what I need is a research team. A pause came afterward where he remained silent for some time, then pressed further information.
"I will also need people who are creative and pay attention to detail. Who can think outside tradition. I do not know a great deal about starseeds, so their study will be a long path for me alone. That will take years. If you know someone who can contribute to their study, or if you can contribute yourself, that might also help."
Chaos and starseed ripping are the last bastions of magic we hold ourselves. Energy draining, too, if we can rig that to drain reticence from our recruits. I'm not certain which way to go.
"And if you have any other suggestions, my ears are open."
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:38 pm
Aurostibite did not recognize the names of Quartz and Ashanite, but he filed them away for later, in case he needed to recall them at some point in time. "It seems rather fruitless to be dedicating yourself to a cause without actually wishing to take part in being loyal to it," he said, sounding rather irritated that there were those in the Negaverse who were not committing the way they should have. "I find having the alternative to be...a rather curious idea."
And he was interested, even if he didn't really know Umber; but the other Captain seemed at the very least to have thought this plan out well enough. He was quite logical about the whole thing, laying it out in front of him with ease and careful thought - which Aurostibite appreciated.
He gave a slow nod. "Starseed gathering." A simple thing, but he understood the benefit of it. "I can assist in that regard. There are plenty of starseeds to be had in this city, we could make good use of them if we do it right. I have no objections to gathering as many as I can."
He tilted his head to the side a little, scrutinizing Umber with a careful expression. Several emotions flickered across Aurostibite's face, none of them quite discernible, until they finally settled into something quieter, more contemplative.
"I'd be willing to contribute myself," he said quietly. "I'm afraid I have no other suggestions at present, but I find myself quite intrigued by the prospect of this endeavor."
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2015 3:09 am
The officer acquiesced to his idea, which proved fruitful. Not only was he willing to gather starseeds for Umber's intentions, but may volunteer in researching what they could from the gems. This bade well - with Aurostibite and Amphitrite's assistance, they might devise a method to corral Ochre and other resistant officers within their own lifetimes.
Or, alternately, discover its impossibility.
"Good." Umber withdrew a small notebook from back pocket and began scribbling furiously on one of the pages. "You'll need my contact number if you have starseeds for the experiment. Here," he tore the page from booklet to hand to the other officer. "It's my cell phone number for the times I cannot be reached on communicator. Otherwise call me if you find someone else who could assist in research." He imagined few who would attempt it existed. Much of the Negaverse that he discovered displayed only rudimentary interest in bettering themselves or their peers. In a way, he felt much like an outlier for finding such promise in tying together the whole of the Negaverse.
"I'm going to speak with my superiors for suggestions on how to proceed. If you hear of any operations involving starseed reclamation, call me if I'm not already involved."
For a moment, Umber faltered. He considered soliciting Aurostibite for his personal contact information, but being an officer of equal rank to himself, he could make no demands for it. He expected, then, that retaining positive officer interactions involved waiting for that information to be surrendered to him voluntarily. Idly he wondered if Cinnabar, now a general, found no reason to ask anymore.
Not when she could simply order it out of them.kuropeco wrap soon? anything else you wanted to cover?
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:56 am
He found Umber to be an entirely straightforward sort, which he was appreciated. There were no games played, no beating around the bush, no tantalizing teases of information that he may or may not have had. Everything was laid out in front of him for Aurostibite to dwell on, and he found it incredibly gratifying, as well as encouraging.
He reached out and accepted the piece of paper offered to him, Aurostibite folding it up and tucking it away. "Thank you," he said, and gave a little nod. "I have no contacts at present that I can think of to be helpful, but I will see what I can do to assist you in your endeavors."
The only superiors that Aurostibite were familiar with were long lost into the Negaverse, barring one or two; a fact he wished wasn't so prominent in his life. There had been a few of them that would have been interested in Umber's proposition, or at least he thought they might have been, but...
"Here." Aurostibite gestured to the notebook that the other still held. "Let me give you my information in return, that way we are both on equal levels of communication. You can let me know if there is anything that you should need from me otherwise, and I will do my best to add to your research."
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2015 12:03 pm
Without a word, Umber handed over the notebook for Aurostibite's use. He watched the man accept the notebook and start to write in it, past the several pages still left from Umber's attempts to research behavioral motivations. Interestingly, Umber noted that Aurostibite was right-handed to Umber's left-handed, which looked somewhat wrong to him.
When Umber accepted the notebook, he made reference of the number within. He would have to ask his roommate how to add the contact, but that seemed a small inconvenience (and easily added to his roommate's list of atrocities that required penitence). "Thank you." The captain gave a curt nod of the head to acknowledge Aurostibite's willing donation. "I'll call you when I need you."
Umber found no reason to linger for a goodbye with a new contact. Both he and Aurostibite maintained their own duties as members of the Negaverse, and understood the importance of time measured away from these duties for idle chitchat.
Afterward he started from the captain at a brisk walk, which transitioned into a full run and carried him over the gap from one building to the next.
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