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 Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 1:50 pm
He was still very, very inexperienced.
The park, which was a myriad of black shadowed trees and thick branches, dismal remnants of snow hanging off twisted twigs, was mostly empty. Cerussite stood, shivering slightly, underneath a wide oak and shifted from one foot to the other, wondering if the civilian he'd just managed to steal energy from would be all right. He'd left them leaning carefully against a building wall, and they had been breathing quite steadily - but it still left a bad taste in his mouth all the same. Cerussite did not like hurting anyone, after all.
They're just sleeping, he told himself now, rubbing one hand up and down his other arm. He closed his eyes briefly and gave a quick, sharp shake of his head as though to clear it. They're just sleeping, that's all. Cinnabar said they would be fine, we're getting the energy to help the city, after all.
And to be stronger. He could do this. He knew he had to,for the others' sake.
Cerussite opened his eyes, lifted his gaze, and breathed out a long sigh that was visible in the chill air, ghosting about his face like silver vapor.
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2016 2:29 pm
He'd found the unconscious civilians first, a sure sign that there was a negaverser hunting nearby. Triumphalis checked them over, concluding in his rather inexpert opinion that their heartbeats were slow but steady, their breathing was normal, and they would probably wake up in a few hours very stiff-necked and on the cold side but probably okay. At least they were both bundled up, so the weather didn't pose a threat to them. Now to find the vampire son of a b***h who'd done this. Triumphalis closed his eyes and scanned the area. There, he thought. The chaotic signature glittered like a tripwire, distinct from the surrounding noise. He'd always been good at picking out fuses. According to his appraisal, it was a lieutenant. An easy fight - Triumphalis had been tangling with tougher foes for weeks. Anyway, he thought, heading towards the signature. Time to ruin someone's night. "You left them unconscious in an alley," he said, closing in. "In this weather?" His breath hung demonstratively in the air between them. "Nice." (It was an ironic sort of nice.)
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Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 12:06 am
He had taken two steps towards home, intent on finishing out the last of his patrol, when he felt the gentle wave of a power signature. Not like Cinnabar's, not the frisson of a familiar, darkened scent, but something...lighter. Cerussite did not want to say cleaner, because that implied he was unclean, but it was starkly different from the Negaverse ones he was used to.
Which meant that it was White Moon. The enemy. The ones who had hurt Hitch.
Cerussite turned his head at the sound of footsteps, and tried to keep his breathing even. He was used to slouching, but even at his fullest height, he was neither muscular nor particularly filled out. In fact, he was distinctly underweight, though this had been something of a work-in-progress that Cerussite was feeling better about when he was Tolliver.
This newcomer, though - this man - he did not look as Cerussite did, anxious and uncertain. He felt a tremor of fear ripple through him, and he took a deep, steadying breath, trying not to let the words tear too deeply into his heart as he turned fully to face him.
"They'll - " His voice shook, ever so slightly. " - they'll be fine. I made sure, I put their coats on them. I didn't hurt them."
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Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 9:24 am
The negaverser reminded Triumphalis of the kids he used to save from getting beat up in high school, shrimpy and limp-wristed in all the ways that got you picked on as a teenager. He felt a swell of protectiveness in his throat - he didn't really want to fight a guy like this, did he? He probably had eighty pounds on him! "Yeah, that's a small comfort," he said, bringing the civilians to mind again. He wasn't a great fan of picking on the little guy, but he'd do it for their sake. "Real kind of you. Left them too tired to walk home, but at least you left them their coats. Not like you didn't take everything else." He smirked. People could justify just about anything to themselves.That didn't make them right. "So," he said, "I got a question. Where does the energy go after you like, vampire it out of people? Do you got a special organ for that? Freaky."
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Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2016 1:12 pm
Cerussite took a step back, his hands held up in front of him in a gesture of submission, face coloring starkly pink against the paleness of his freckled skin. The accusations were like little needles in him, and he felt a wave of mingled frustration and fear twist through him.
"I didn't," he said quickly. "I didn't take anything else, I just - I borrowed - "
He swallowed hard, his throat feeling dry, trying to remember all that he had been taught. Stay strong. Be confident. Do what you can to provide for the people you care for, you can do it. This is the reason why you're here in the first place, why you chose this path at all.
Cerussite did not summon his "weapon" (for lack of a better word), but he did take a deep breath and square his shoulders, trying not to look pathetically inexperienced in fighting, hands still braced in front of him.
"We're not vampires," he said defiantly. "We're helping. That energy is used to help people."
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Posted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 7:59 pm
Triumphalis raised an eyebrow. "That sounds fake," he said, "considering I have literally never met a single person who benefited from having their life force sucked out through someone else's fingers. I mean. Tell yourself what you've got to if it helps you sleep at night, but... sounds fake." He looked the lieutenant over, and thought, Some general probably paraded this poor kid around all look, I made an officer, and all the other generals said, you ******** up a perfectly good nerd is what you did. Look at him, he's got anxiety."I will fight you," he said, "Because you are an enemy combatant and that's what I'm trained to do. But you can either hand over the energy and we can go put it back in those nice unconscious people in the alley who never did anything to hurt you and don't deserve to get frostbite, and this can be over nice and easy and with minimum pain, or we can do things the hard way." He cracked his knuckles for emphasis. "I'm giving you a choice here - so what's it going to be?"
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Posted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 8:50 pm
The frustration was mounting, building in his chest like a cold ice that seized his heart and made it difficult to breathe. Cerussite stared at the man in front of him, his mouth feeling dry, and said, in a slightly wavering voice, "I don't hurt them. And it's not fake, it's - it's - this is what we do, everything will work out, that's - that's what happens - "
Cerussite swallowed again. The offer was there, on the table, and he could take it. He could give it back, and this knight would walk away, and they would both leave and that would be it.
But...that wasn't what he was here for. He couldn't walk away, not when he was just starting to get the hang of things. Walking was a coward's way out, and he'd been a coward for so long, hadn't he? All he'd done was try to find the simplest way out. He'd argued with Fritz, and left. He'd had an accident and he'd tried to leave, even if it hadn't worked.
He could not walk away now.
His feet shifted before his brain did, sliding forward, and then Cerussite was lunging, fists clenched and his leg swinging in an attempt to knock his knee into the other's legs.
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Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2016 10:55 am
As the lieutenant lunged for him, a surprised laugh escaped Triumphalis's throat. So that's a no on the handing it over, he thought. It would have been easy to dodge... but he wasn't that kind of person. Instead, he threw himself into the attack, tipstaff held high above his head. The lieutenant's knee connected with his shin, and Triumphalis fell on top of him with a whoop. "Oh!" he asked excitedly, trying to get a good swing at the lieutenant's jaw as they struggled against each other. "Are we gonna wrestle?"
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:19 pm
Their energy signatures felt similar in strength; and yet Cerussite was so much thinner than this page. He felt significantly weaker, his heart hammering in his chest, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he rushed forward, probably stupidly.
His leg had connected, but the attack caused the page to fall forward not back, which didn't quite seem to make sense in Cerussite's flustered mind.
Definitely stupid.
The breath was knocked out of him. He gave a gasp and then felt pain exploding across his face, through his jaw and upwards, stars winking in and out of his vision. Cerussite bucked up, knee against the page's stomach, and tried to wrest free from beneath him.
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Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:24 am
The lieutenant was scrawny, but he packed a hell of a punch. His knee connected with Triumphalis's stomach, and the page grunted and rolled off of him. Blinking stars from his eyes, he rolled again and pushed himself into a crouch. "Energy," he said, a little bit hoarse - he'd just had the wind knocked out of him, after all. "Give it back. I can keep this up all night." He adjusted his grip on the tipstaff, held it at the ready. "Or are we gonna go for a knockout? Is that what you want?"
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Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 3:43 pm
Cerussite gave a gasp for air as the pressure atop him was suddenly released. Coughing and sputtering, he rolled over onto his stomach and tried to get to his feet, stumbling and swaying on his knees, a hand pressed to his chest as he tried to breathe again.
He shook his head once, lips pressed together.
"No," Cerussite muttered, face flushing, "No, it's - I can't."
He lunged forward again, this time with a fist drawn back, aiming for the page's stomach.
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Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 7:08 pm
The punch connected surprisingly hard - Triumphalis hadn't thought the lieutenant had it in him, but hey, here they were, him gasping for breath and trying very, very hard not to go down. "<********>, man," he swore, shaking stars from his eyes. It dawned on him in a divine flash: this was a stupid fight, and Triumphalis was stupid for having picked it. But he was also not very good at backing down from things, and as long as he could swing his tipstaff he was going to keep going with this. Maybe it would still work out in his favor! (That was statistically unlikely at this point.) Triumphalis found his balance, straightened his shoulders, and stepped towards the lieutenant. "You started this," he grunted, swinging his tipstaff for the lieutenant's jaw. "You prepared to finish it?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 5:45 pm
Cinnabar would have been proud of him, he thought, Cerussite's eyes widening in shock as his punch landed. It hurt his hand way more than he had expected, a shock of pain shooting up through his knuckles and through his wrist (no one had ever told him that hitting someone full on was actually painful -
He stumbled back, and his feet slipped - he heard the page say something, and then -
The tipstaff cracked against Cerussite's jaw, and pain exploded across his entire head, ricocheting from his jaw up through to his temples. He let out a gasp and staggered, stars blinking in and out of his vision as he swayed unsteadily, a hand automatically rising to press against the side of his face.
He overbalanced and fell, collapsing to one knee. Cerussite blinked away the blackness and felt nausea in his throat, his eyes widening as he stared up at the man in utter shock.
His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out, Cerussite frozen in place.
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Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 9:34 am
It was a lucky hit and nothing more, but Triumphalis felt ready to push his luck. "The energy," he said, holding a hand out towards the lieutenant. "Or you can take it back yourself." (He wasn't exactly confident that he'd know what to do with it once he had it.) "Are you done fighting? Because I can keep this up all night." The tipstaff was grasped loosely at his side - the rasp in his voice said he probably couldn't. Triumphalis's ribs hurt. He doubted he'd managed to crack them, he'd been through worse, but - this was definitely the roughest fight he'd gotten himself into. "C'mon, man," he said with a heavy sigh. "Don't drag this out."
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Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 10:23 pm
He felt the humiliation rising in his veins, felt the shame, the embarrassment of it all coiling in his stomach. Cerussite still held a hand to his face, his cheeks burning beneath his fingers, his jaw beginning to swell and grow redder and redder.
He'd failed. And here he'd thought he'd have strength. Here he'd thought he'd have power, and yet now he was on the ground, only proving once again that he wasn't as good as the others. All he'd been through and he still couldn't accomplish even this.
Blinking rapidly against the tears of frustration that had gathered at the corners of his eyes, Cerussite stretched out a shaking hand and dropped the energy into the page's palm, his chest aching.
"Y - " His voice broke, galling him. "You have it, now...now l-leave me alone."
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