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 Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:12 pm
Even though he was a General now, Jet usually opted to keep to himself. It was easier that way. He didn’t have to get caught up in the people around him or learn about them or care. He had enough to deal with as it was.
So why he approached the Lieutenant he didn’t know that night, he wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe it was his curiosity getting the better of him. Maybe it was because he wanted to figure out more about the Negaverse and how it worked without making it obvious that he’d been promoted quickly without as much experience as many others. He liked to think it was his enthusiasm that prompted his quick rise through the ranks, but he wasn’t entirely sure.
“Good evening,” he greeted as he approached the man, knowing that the other could feel him long before he saw him. That was fine because Jet had nothing to hide; they were both of the Negaverse, after all. Jet kept his hands behind his back as he walked closer across the rooftop, peering down into the alley once he got close enough to look, and then across the street to a good view of the park.
“This is a good location. Did you find it yourself?” he asked, trying not to sound too interested or impressed since he didn’t want to insult the Lieutenant. If anything, this man already seemed to know more about what he was doing than Jet had when he first started. Then again, Jet had been fourteen at the time.
“Jet. I haven’t seen you around before. Were you recruited recently?” he tried to be casual about it, but not sure he was managing it very well. Strickenized Please let me know if you'd like me to edit anything! <3
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Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2017 8:26 am
Faustite expected no company that evening, though he felt the approaching energy. Many a night he spent across rooftops, against Umber's requests to confine his power, and Faustite learned quickly that generals patterned through the area without attention paid to the nearby lieutenants. Often he prepared himself for a civil confrontation when the general simply teleported beyond him in a blink, unwilling to allow him the time to introduce himself or hold conversation. Were they truly so busy? Or did their bloodlust egg them on so convincingly that they forgot what it meant to maintain solidarity? Faustite didn't know.
So when Jet approached, Faustite did not prepare himself with the proper formal stance and the drawn-in breath should he be expected to speak. He didn't ball his fists up at the small of his back or turn from the vast, sweeping cityscape before him. The auric energy grew and grew, scathing across all of his senses and commanding his attention in a manner no thrall could resist, and still Faustite expected the heady disconnect of a teleportation. Yet none came. Instead, a voice assailed him - a voice that sounded young like his. Faustite turned abruptly to take in the source, and found himself face-to-face with a general decked in svelte aquamarine and charcoal black. Epaulettes crowned his shoulders. A lng cape billowed behind him in the lilting breeze. The breadth of the signature was unmistakeable, however, even despite the stranger's age.
"Hello, General." He answered back. There was little reason to act the formal part now, especially when the general looked unfazed by the lack of bravado. There lay a certain comfort in folding his hands behind his back, however, with knuckles tucked up against the bony prominence of his lower lumbar.
Did he often strike up small talk with the lower ranks? Was this a sort of test? Was the general feeling the dreadful spike of loneliness of his position at the top and hoped to find answer for it in his comrades? Faustite's gaze lingered on him for a moment before returning to the prickling lights of the city. "I found that there's a lot of places you can get to with powers like these. I found this spot and many others. It's amazing what you can witness in a city where no one ever looks up." He leaned outward then, and took in the breadth of the street directly beneath them.
"Faustite," he issued in return. "I'd say I was recruited recently. A few weeks ago by a man who calls himself Umber. He's often telling me not to power up until I've finished my training, but I've never been one for restriction." Call it foolish. He smirked then, down at the reaching darkness.
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Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:56 pm
"Jet’s fine, you know," he said when the other greeted him with his title, He knew it was formality and all that, but it made him feel kind of pretentious. He was just a teenager who happened to gain a decent amount of power. He was still ambitious, of course, but now it had simmered into something more matured. Or at least that’s how Jet felt. He was probably wrong.
"It’s nice to meet you, Faustite," he said regardless, trying to think back to how much he knew about the man who called himself Umber, only recalling some of the files he’d read. He hadn’t met him in person yet.
"Seems kind of pointless not to power up when you have the means to do so," Jet said somewhat casually, grateful that he’d had a relatively unsupervised start into the Negaverse. He’d had no one to really tell him what to do, and that was both a blessing and a curse because now he wasn’t as sure of himself as he used to be when he was ignorant and new.
"But what do I know?" he snorted softly in amusement, moving to glance over the edge of the building and into the darkness where Faustite was looking. "You don’t mind me hanging around, do you? I don’t want to interrupt if you’re busy," Jet said after a moment. He could easily go off and do other things if he was unwelcome, but he started thinking that the reason why he approached this Lieutenant was because, well… he was curious. He was young, like himself.
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 9:10 am
"Jet," Faustite corrected himself, his eyes focused on his target and aglitter with muted interest. Three general or equivalent officers he met now, and each preferred not to focus on the militaristic respect accumulated behind their names. He wondered if they each shared the same reasons for it. Faustite was doubtful; Umber declined the honorifics out of a lack of understanding for their function, and Chrysocolla declined them in order to set her subordinates at ease and address them more informally. But what was Jet's reason for dropping the pretense? Discomfort? Impatience? Faustite wondered.
"He has a point," Faustite conceded quietly. "It's safer to wait until I know how to defend myself. He said the Negaverse lost a lot of officers some time ago to an invasion. That's his reason for being hard on me. But he's forgotten that people aren't animals to be trained - that they don't tame quite so easily, and they're not predisposed to lounging at his feet while slavering like dogs. He knows a lot about the Negaverse, but nothing of men." The ghost of a grim smile crossed his features. It's not just him, either - a lot of them have lost that understanding. Chrysocolla, armed with donuts and all the kindness she could scrape together out of her amnesiac mind, couldn't quite reach those understandings of social nuances to know why it's ill-advised to offer an eclair and then take out someone's soul.
But isn't that just part of their charm?
"So that's my reason for going out: part defiance, part interest. It's hard to ignore a whole different side of the world, especially when someone tells you to."
He fell silent for some time afterward as he mulled over Jet's request. He found the question hinging less on Faustite's interest in conversation, as he seldom turned down interaction, and more on his ability to explain himself to his general on why he was out that night. Perhaps that didn't matter. "Go ahead," he offered at last. "What brings you to me?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 9:22 pm
He frowned as the man spoke, not because he was angry or upset, but because it seemed as though someone really was keeping an eye on the Lieutenant, whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Jet had been on his own since he was brought into the Negaverse, or so it had felt that way. Cinnabar had helped him a bit after he’d become a Captain, but it wasn’t long after that that he was promoted to General.
Jet didn’t say anything in regards to the man’s General. He didn’t know Umber, and he wasn’t really the kind of person to take opinions second hand. People who were good for some people weren’t good for others. Personalities clashed, opinions differed, so until he met this man himself, he kept his thoughts off the subject as much as he could.
"Nothing really. I just wanted to see if you were someone I knew," he admitted, not thinking there was any real reason for him to approach the Lieutenant otherwise. "Just saying hello, I guess. Wanted to make sure you didn’t need any help or… whatever," he shrugged. He’d already collected enough energy for himself and Aquamarine, so collecting more wasn’t a problem. If someone was struggling it wasn’t difficult for him to try and pick up the slack.
He knew that there was a potential for people to take advantage of him like this, but he liked being able to push himself.
Jet was also incredibly aware of how boring he must seem. Just wandering around, chatting with Lieutenants that he didn’t really know. Definitely not menacing like Cinnabar could be, although that was partially due to her being part youma.
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2017 6:18 am
When Jet grew flippant in his response, Faustite looked from the city to him. The scowl given was born of disappointment and mild annoyance in both Jet's self-deprecation and for treating Faustite as an afterthought. In a brief shift, Faustite crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his contrapposto stance away from the general. "If you're just looking for people you knew, then don't you have other places to be? Wasting time on an unknown lieutenant is so beneath you, Jet. Aim higher so that the Negaverse might sing your praises well into the next life."
What sense of honor could you possibly have, Jet? Are you any different from Umber? Are you different from Chrysocolla? The Negaverse is inundated with filth and backwash from commodifying lives. Look at Umber and his apathy. Look at Chrysocolla and her flexible morals. When all you've got are souls in your pockets, you can't afford the steep cost of human decency.
Tell me - does it all come from that power you wield?
Faustite breathed a sigh back into the night sky. In the distance, whole blocks of the city winked out as a power plant suffered a terrible strain. The city's ill health grew desperately apparent in its desiccated shells of buildings, in its homeless population, in the tired faces of its denizens. The city was sick with power. He bit back his disgust.
"You're busy, General," Faustite reminded him. "Do you really have time to share your expertise when you're looking for someone you know?" He loosed the question into the air and waited for it to take. He hoped, then, that Jet could surprise him.
If not, home was a short walk away.
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Posted: Fri May 12, 2017 7:59 pm
The look of disappointment and annoyance didn’t bother Jet. Not really. He was used to being looked at in such a way that it didn’t really affect him any more.
But the comment about how wasting time on an unknown lieutenant was beneath him, and that he needed to aim higher made him snort softly in amusement. This was not beneath him. Beneath him would have been to ignore the Lieutenant all together, to continue just wandering the city. This young man standing before him, looking out over the city and talking to him in what many might consider disrespectful, was not a waste of time or energy.
Jet knew because he was once that man, or at least perhaps similar. Or maybe Jet was just a horrible judge of character and only saw parts of himself in the little that he recognized.
“You’re Lieutenant Faustite and you answer to General Umber,” Jet said almost too casually, as though that was so obvious that it didn’t need to be said, but he said it anyway because apparently Jet needed to prove himself to a Lieutenant who seemed to think poorly of himself. “You’re someone I know now, aren’t you?”
He was used to this, though. Perhaps if he was older and looked more dignified than a kid, he might not get the casual snark or questions about his motives. Although, his appearance and actions didn’t seem to bother Gadolinite or Citrine. And Seraphinite and Aquamarine had always stayed by his side, even before they’d been corrupted together. He didn’t know what Umber was doing with his recruits, but Jet hoped that he wasn’t teaching this Lieutenant that he was a waste of time to other Generals and officers.
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 6:01 pm
"Maybe." Faustite wrapped his arms about himself. Agents carried a unique chill in their demeanor that existed not with other people - with normal people. With people who knew nothing of murder and theft, justified against a mechanical regime. Did Jet remember those days? Did he remember when it actually felt wrong to rob someone blind, to leave them for dead? He wondered, jsut as he had with the other agents. He, at least, carried an echo of conversational merit with him. Jet wasn't so lost as Chrysocolla, who wasn't so lost as Umber.
For that, Faustite supposed, he should be glad.
"Do you remember your days as a Lieutenant, Jet? Do you remember what it was like to break the law for the first time and assault someone you didn't know?" The thin sodium lighting offered a silhouetted view of a pair walking down a lengthy street, gender unknown, and motives unclear. They walked at a quick clip as most often did when the city reached a dark hour. So how many people knew? Was it all some kind of terrible secret kept, an unspoken transaction maintained to keep costs low and turnover high? The Negaverse clutched the city so terribly, and yet so many still lived within its confines. Just the same, the Negaverse asked much of its recruits, and yet they stayed despite the internal turmoil enacted.
So Faustite turned to him, his focus on Jet's pale rosin eyes, and asked him directly. "Why do you stay with the Negaverse?"
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Posted: Sat May 20, 2017 12:31 pm
”I don’t think there’s a law against fighting aliens from other worlds,” Jet frowned at the insinuation that he broke the law. Yes, he stole energy, but that energy could be replaced. Yes, he tried killing senshi, but his toll was too low to even bother bringing up with this Lieutenant who was already judging him for things that he didn’t understand. Faustite didn’t know him, and Jet didn’t know Faustite, but there was obviously something going on in the other’s head.
His questions made Jet a little apprehensive, probably because he wasn’t used to being around those who questioned the Negaverse. Aquamarine complained about things, of course. But he was loyal to him if not the Negaverse, and that was all that mattered for the time being.
“My loyalty lies with those who have sacrificed themselves to give me and my family a better life,” he said, knowing how cliche it was to say that the Negaverse was his family, but it really was. He had no one else outside the Negaverse, nor would he want anyone else. Even without those he cared about, his loyalty wouldn’t change.
“Senshi took everything good I had left. The Negaverse saved me. I owe them everything.”
Had it not been for the Negaverse, he would have gone right back into foster care, which was just as bad as torture for him, since he was not physically strong enough to defend himself, nor old enough to move out on his own when he’d been recruited.
“Why wouldn’t I stay in the Negaverse?” he asked with a frown, eyeing the other man now with increased suspicion.
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Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:35 pm
Faustite paused, his fingers wadded up into a fist of knuckles and bones, knocking soundlessly against his thigh. "Interesting." The word felt weighted down as it left his mouth, sagging beneath unmet expectations. He considered the phrases given to him. Cliché they were, to a point - but the sentiment of them did not escape the bitter teen. Mincing words on the matter was simple, straightforward, but Faustite wanted a reply that commanded more thought than that. Jet finally offered a piece of himself, an introduction beyond a name and rank, that offered a glimpse into the man himself. And what could Faustite do with that?
Faustite understood that Jet felt indebted to the Negaverse. He considered continued servitude to their cause indefinitely, which to Faustite, implied two contradictory beliefs in the other man. For one, Jet thought that the assistance provided by the Negaverse benefitted him so much that they deserved his servitude forever more. He sported a great, unshakeable loyalty in that - a loyalty that had him not in a position of leadership, but one of bending knee to a power he held above himself. The Negaverse was the hand that lifted him from whatever fate the senshi had in store for him, and in return, he promised away the rest of his life. Which meant, for two, that Jet considered the ambiguous rescue made by the Negaverse to be worth more than his remaining years, thus he put no great value on his own life.
Peculiar, at least.
"What did they do? The senshi. You said they took everything you had. So what did you have before? Who were you before you were Jet?" He asked the questions without the usual bored judgment in his tone, as if suspended in wait for an answer that may or may not disappoint him. And as the evening breeze stole around them, he paused in his noiseless knocking against his leg. He waited, if only for a breath, to be impressed.guine i am so sorry for the wait
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Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 1:46 pm
Interesting.
There was something heavy in the air around him, making the hair on the back of Jet’s neck stand on end. He didn’t like this mock interview that was being conducted. He didn’t like openly sharing his life’s story with those he barely even knew. He already knew it wasn’t impressive; after all, he was just a kid.
This Lieutenant, though. There was something there in the way he stood, in the way he casually bounced his hand against his leg. General or not, Jet was feeling unnerved for reasons he couldn’t understand.
“I guess you can read my file when you’re granted access,” Jet said warily. “I’m not much of a story teller,” he said in a tone that sounded like an admission, like it was something he was ashamed of but trying to be casual about it, although at this point he didn’t think anything he could say would matter, fabricated or not. He was a horrible liar, but… the way the other young man was looking at him was…
He didn’t know. But whatever it was, Jet didn’t like it.
Jet knew his response hadn’t been helpful, and was definitely disappointing, but he couldn’t seem to shake the eeriness that came from the other young man.
“I’m not special, if that’s what you’re waiting for,” Jet finally said after a long moment, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. “I’m not powerful beyond the strength I already have, I don’t have any special talents that benefit the Negaverse. It doesn’t matter what the senshi have done to me, because my purpose for being in the Negaverse is my own. Who I was before doesn’t matter. This is who I am now,” he said with a frown, trying to ignore the sinking he felt. It wasn’t that he wanted to be impressive. Most of the time he just wished he wasn’t looked at as a General and just as another kid.
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Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2017 8:15 pm
'Who I was before doesn't matter. This is who I am now.'
"Is that so?" He wondered why anyone would give themselves to the Negaverse - to an organization that, so far as he'd seen, built itself on clandestine affairs. On human lives, on energy taken rather than borrowed. The secrets it tried to hold kept leaking out. The men and women placed in charge varied as wildly as the populace themselves, being very much civilians in their own right. But something about the Negaverse drew Jet so readily that he was willing to leave his whole life behind.
His whole dozen-and-change years spent on this earth.
But Faustite had no great insight into Jet beyond the way he held himself and the delivery of his forthright proclamations. He could be a boy built on personal tragedy, or one hardened from a few short years of bad decisions. Perhaps he had little to no family to return to, or enough distaste built up for life that joining a secretive, self-aggrandizing organization sounded far more promising. Maybe they caught him on the cusp of suicide. Maybe they caught him at the height of his accomplishments, and promised to take him higher. Faustite couldn't know. He wasn't sure he wanted to know just yet.
"Interesting." Jet deserved more, of course, than a single, ambiguous word. "Maybe there's something to the Negaverse after all. All the generals and higher-ups I've met seem ready to lay down their lives for it. There's something to be said for an organization when it can convince a man to die for its ideals. You must want to keep your privacy about that. I don't blame you."
He stood, dusting off his clothes. "You're smart, though. I like that. Maybe we'll be working together sometime."
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