So much had happened and in seemingly so little time to. Kidnapped, made to fight, and then brought to Maia’s planet to help a dying senshi. Not to mention the tree which had attacked him. Oh yes, so many things. So very many stressing things and it was why the senshi of will’o’the wisp was half leaning, half lying, back on a park bench with a joint between his fingers and smoke drifting up from the lit tip as well as the smoke passing his lips.
Sighing his painted nails ran through his dark hair, of course it flopped right back into place, as the
super senshi worked on relaxing. He’d been dealing with nightmares since his return and they didn’t seem to be lessening, though on the plus side they weren't getting any worse, it simply wasn’t something he wished to deal with and perhaps that was why his usual habit of staying up late at night was getting progressively worse. Last night he’d stayed out, and powered up, till a good deal after midnight. Tonight...well it wasn’t midnight yet but it would likely be after midnight by the time he powered down and returned home in order to crash in his bed. Until then he was planning on trying to enjoy the evening and ignore whatever might happen around him.
It had been after the fight night of nightmares upon his return that he’d sought out one of his friends from high school, one he was still friends with, and acquired what he was currently smoking. It wasn’t the exact same as what he’d bought, he’d gone through that already, but it was something he hadn’t done since high school. He could remember well how often he’d wandered the halls buzzed and how often he’d gotten buzzed or high when he was home. It was a wonder his mother had never found out, maybe one day he’d tell her, his father had been too drunk to ever notice what his son did. The man was such a lush he really had no room to talk anyway, if he ever crawled his way out of a bottle enough to notice his sons habits.
Who the hell invented ties?
The thought was primarily on Tristan's mind as he loosened the finicky thing from around his neck. Why was he in uniform on vacation, then, you ask? Simple. He was trying it on. At least according to his parents. Nosey people, they were, but what Filipino mom wasn't concerned for her son's appearance at school? He offered a snort at best in response to that particular question, and proceeded along the usual route home from his go-to art supply store.
Given that he had absolutely nothing to suspect, he didn't notice the thing following him.
After a quick glance at his watch he noted the time and his eyes went wide; his mom was gonna kill him, he thought in passing, and picked his pace. Cutting across the park wasn't a big deal, he'd done it dozens of times. And, as with nearly every other night, it was almost entirely devoid of life if he tried really hard to ignore the occasional couple that didn't know what private rooms were used for. As he passed one such pair sitting under the dying light of a lamp, something...almost glowy...caught his eye. Across the way a bit, and blue.
"What the heck?" he murmured, and his feet automatically started him in that particular direction.
With a thing hot on his heels, no less.
It was slowly, for obvious reasons, that Chaldene picked up on some dark feeling. A dark feeling...chaos...lovely. Rolling his green eyes he stood up slowly and looked about the darkness even while taking one last drag from the joint he had before letting it land on the park bench. It looked like he’d be giving up his relaxation time, as much as he didn’t want to deal with senshi things he wasn’t going to ignore duty either.
What was a youma doing here? As he was sure it was a youma, at least fairly certain. He hadn’t had enough to impair him enough to be unable to tell a youma from a Lieutenant - right? No, he was fairly certain of that fact. So he called out into the darkness. “Who’s there?” Someone was headed his way, he could make out the shape of a person, but he felt a youma...so where was it?
Oh. A person. That was...ordinary.
A frown set itself across Tristan's face; first the tie, now this? He sighed and walked toward the glowy-blue-man, raising his free hand in a wavelike greeting. "Tristan," he replied casually. The closer he got, though, the less ordinary this person seemed. His clothes were strange, like he was going to a Con of some kind, only it was the middle of the night and there was no Con that happened in DC without his knowledge so...that wasn't it.
"You do this for kicks?" he thought to ask then, stopping just a few feet away and regarding the man's outfit. Of course, again, he didn't notice the long, serpent-like body of the thing starting to coil around his ankle. "'Cause, man, you'd give a few guys I know a run for their money. What'd you do for th--ah!!"
And the world was suddenly upside-down.
“No, I don’t do this for kicks.” He stated, missing the coiling around the other ankle till it was too late. He did notice it however when the other was upside down and being held up in the air. “That is why I do this - why I look like this.” Like some neon flashing announcement of his presence, as if his aura wasn’t enough.
Great...a youma and he was buzzed and really not up for this s**t. Cursing to himself he shook his head, trying to dispel some of the need to curl up and rest which had him within it’s grips. As he cleared his head a bit he brought his hands up into a familiar formation and blew across the tips of two of his fingers. “Chaldene Wisp's Secret.” And the little wisps of blue magic took off headed for the youma, and maybe the poor innocent person.
Hysterical screaming whilst being held upside-down by a giant, snake-like slimey...thing. Not exactly a night he was expecting to have, and not one he was quite sure was actually even happening. Nevertheless, he kept on screaming in typical hysteric fashion as the monster hoisted him up a little higher, then made a sound as if half roaring and half belching before it made a move to drop him into its wide open jaws.
He was already silently praying to whatever saints may have existed that this was only a dream, and sure enough by the time he opened his eyes he saw blue, whispy...things...kind of just floating around. Tristan blinked, his screams dwindled down to curious-sounding murmurs as he reached for the closest wisps, one after the other. He didn't even notice that the grip around his ankle had loosened…
The snake-youma's focus had turned from Tristan to the blue wisps, and it had started to flick its tail around in attempt to catch them as well.
With the youma’s attention off the person Chaldene moved in to grab at the person and see if he couldn’t at least get them free from the youma’s grip. Taking hold of the figure he pulled, not too hard either, and at the same time hoped his attack would hold and keep the youma occupied till he could get the person away and on the bench he’d previously been occupying.
“Come on, time to get you away from the big nasty youma - don’t want to become dinner.” He stated while tugging again.
"Dinner of what?!" he practically yelled as he kicked himself free of the thing's grip. It was too preoccupied with the wisps, thankfully, but his own concentration on them had been broken when the blue-glowy-man started tugging him away from the snake-monster, which...he was thankful for. Still, just as he scrambled to his feet the wisps had already begun to fade and flicker, as though they were about ready to go out with the next breeze.
He wasn't panicking without reason, of course. Now that he got a good look at the thing...it looked like a giant snake-worm with a too-big mouth and a disgusting expression on its face as it tried to make another grab at the flickering wisps.
"What the hell is that thing?!" he hissed in an attempt to not break the thing's concentration on the wisps for however longer it would keep its focus on them. "And do you think maybe we should run?"
Pointing to the youma he nodded at it. “That. That is a youma and it plans on you being a midnight snack.” He stated while grabbing the other and yanking him away from the youma who seemed rather...busy, how cute. “Come on, bench for you.” He needed to get the person away from the youma.
While tugging the other toward the bench he shook his head. “A youma, as I said. And it needs to be killed before it attacks someone else and makes them into dinner.” This was stated even as he turned back to face the youma, noticing his attack seemed to be wearing off on it. Approaching he got in close enough to aim a punch for whatever part of the snake like thing he could strike. “Running doesn’t help, not in the end.”
Youma.
Weird name, but appropriate for the level of ridiculous that was happening right about then. Tristan blanched at the idea of being anything's midnight snack, though, and decided to hold his tongue. For all he knew the thing would understand human language and react even more violently once it was out of its trance.
He let the glowy-blue-man drag him to the bench, behind which he crouched and watched in horror as the youma finally snapped out of it immediately when the wisps finally disappeared. It belch-roared again when it finally set its sights on the bench, but the cry of anger was cut short as Chaldene landed a good fist to its body. Naturally, the snake turned its attention at last to the senshi and roared again, raising its tail to retaliate and maybe grab on to his new target.
"Watch out!" Tristan called from where he crouched like a coward. It was annoying, considering bystanders in comics really weren't very helpful at all, that he'd defaulted into such a role. So, in an attempt to be less useless, he began to grope around for a rock or something to throw and maybe...help distract it so the glowy-blue-man could get another few hits in and maybe kill it.
Honestly if you asked Chaldene, or Ian, about the name for the monsters he couldn’t tell you where it was from or if it was simply made up. He’d never taken the time to look it up and see if it was an actual word, he did however know the word chibi was real. he’d seen that enough from friends, online friends, who were into anime and that sort of thing.
“I’ll be fine.” He called out, even as he kept his focus on the youma. He didn’t want to lose focus and get grabbed by the tail, or wind up somehow in it’s mouth - nope not a good idea.
While the other groped around for a rock, or some form of projectile, Chaldene was already launching another attack at the youma - another fist and followed it with a well aimed kick. He couldn’t just rely on his magic and he knew it. His magic didn’t harm but it did distract well. Hopefully this would be over soon and the youma was weak, he really wasn’t sure.
He looked like he could handle himself in a fight, at least. Tristan didn't take his eyes off of the battle scene unfolding before him, providing the loud and likely distracting "turn around" and "tail coming at your 3 o'clock" sort of commentary as needed. Eventually he found a nice little rock bed and started throwing small stones to help with trying to distract the beast.
Each well-placed kick and punch got a roar out of the snake-thing, though it certainly tried its best to keep up. Its thick skin seemed to act as a natural shield of a sort, but after so many hits, slowly but surely it was wearing down. Its roars were slowly dwindling and it started getting slower, and its aim wasn't quite as good as it had been at the start of the whole ordeal.
"I think we're wearing it down!" Tristan called from his safe, rock-throwing distance. "Just a little longer, blue-glowy-man!"
Turning for a moment, figuring it might be on the safe side to do so, and called out to the other. “It’s Chaldene.” Blue-glowy-man was a bit...odd and annoying, not to mention a touch embarrassing to be called - he had a name! After informing the other of his name he turned back to the youma and decided to try and finish the fight off. he really hoped this worked.
Both hands came up and he called out his super attack one more time as he blew across his fingertips and sent the little blue wisps of energy off toward the youma. Not even thinking his attack would miss, or be broken, he went to get himself a large rock from where the other seemed to be getting them from. A nice good sized one that wasn’t meant for throwing. This one was going to be used to smash the youma in the head while it was distracted by his wisps.
"Tristan, good to meet you!" he replied, happy to get their names out of the way. Though given the situation he didn't care all that much about introductions. Afterwards would have been better, when they were out of immediate danger. He was in mid-throw when Chaldene blew those blue wisps onto the monster again, and much like earlier they caught the giant bugger's attention without any problems.
When Chaldene came over he blinked over at him for a few seconds, watching what it was that he was doing. "Uh…" he started to ask, then reached for the giant stone to his left. "Looking for a big rock?"
“Yeah. Magic doesn’t do anything more than distract him.” Meaning to attack he was left with the normal physical means anyone else had, he just had a bit more strength behind it, so a rock was a good idea for this. “Don’t attack him, it’ll break the magic.” And he was planning to do that but he didn’t want it happening before he was ready for it - he wanted to do it. Taking the rock the other offered him he nodded once and headed back toward the very distracted youma and moved behind it and jumping, hands above his head with the rock in his hands, he brought it down as hard as he could on the youma’s head.
He could follow instructions, especially from someone who was doing basically all of the work of not getting them killed. Or worse, eaten then slowly digested. The thought made him shudder, but beyond that he didn't do much else. He sat there and watched as Chaldene went and crushed the snake-thing's skull in. Likely it was a very good thing that it was distracted, else the opportunity to effectively kill it would probably would never have surfaced.
When the rock made a sick thud-sound against its skull, Tristan watched the thing collapse, motionless on the ground. He jumped up and made audibly cheered and jogged toward Chaldene, clapping him fairly hard on the back. "Nice work! Hey, can I take a picture, by any chance? I draw and stuff so--"
He was cut off by the youma rapidly turning to dust before his very eyes, which got him to shut up and stare, gaping, at what little was left of the snake-thing.
He wasn’t expecting the others cheering, nor the youma to die so...easily? Was that easily? He really couldn’t say as he hadn’t fought some really big and nasty ones. But the clap to the back had him turning to face the other slowly, surprised to see him there and he wasn’t scared or calling the cops on a terrorist. He knew the reputation they had in the city, most people thought they were all terrorists side not known nor considered of course. It was a blanket term used for them all and cops got called about them all the time, especially the big things. So to not have him scared but asking for a picture and excited was...shocking to him.
“Umm...uhh..sure.” He didn’t know what to say and he didn’t want to say no really. But he was honestly a bit, or a lot, nervous and embarrassed really. He certainly didn’t expect any attention like this but maybe this was a good thing? Maybe it would look good for the senshi somehow?
“Yeah...they do that.” He nodded to indicate the youma dust which remained. “They die and turn to dust.”
There was something about his reaction that Tristan thought was...strange. Maybe it was slower than he expected? Or...uncertain? At least he thought all this in passing, as it didn't matter to him all that much unless the guy said anything, which it didn't seem like he was going to. With a sigh he raised a hand to scratch the back of his head.
"Shame," was all that he said, and then he watched in silence as the passing breeze gathered and tossed the dusty remains of the snake-thing that might have eaten him had Chaldene not been around. A shrug later and he was over it, and he had his attention back on the glowy-blue-man.
Smiling, he gave him another clap on the back. "Hey, so thanks for saving my skin, man. I would've been snake food if you weren't around."
So he’s wanted a picture of the youma and him? Meh, that didn’t bother him in the least honestly. Were he a normal civilian he’d have wanted such as well. he couldn’t blame him at all - youma were amazing looking...if one didn’t take into account the dangerous gonna kill and eat you bit.
“Yeah...just watch yourself at night and carry something with you from now on. The city isn’t safe, hasn’t been for a long time.” And anyone who lived in this city for long enough knew that. people missing, buildings being destroyed, other property damage, and all manner of other things went on and all caused by people dressed in mostly ridiculous outfits. “You should hurry home, or something, you don’t want to be attacked again.” That said Chaldene turned on his heels and looked to head off into the night, his previous activities forgotten thanks to the youma.
“If it ever happens again...just attack it. It will kill you if you don’t.” or drain your energy, but he didn’t say that. Letting him think it would kill him might get him to fight one off the next time and that would be a good thing - one less youma. That said he hurried off into the darkness, he should get home...or maybe he’d find another part of the city to patrol and relax in.
_ p a o cx
