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 Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 9:48 am
Patrols became a normal fare in place of homework. A necessary evil. A mandate by an establishment that parallels in order and standardization. For that reason, Faustite reacted to patrolling in much the same way that he reacted to homework - reluctantly, and with slight annoyance. Patrolling was an interruption. A chore. A liability. Seldom did anything come of patrols beyond slightly more understanding for the way that Destiny City was configured. He hardly crossed other agents, let alone senshi. Largely he just spent the time draining energy.
Which, in itself, was becoming a chore. Faustite sighed down at the unconscious bicyclist, lean and mean, sloped against the side of a building like a heroin addict. In Faustite's hand sat the fruits of his labor - round and robust, humming with strength and brilliance and vivaciousness - and yet the whole affair felt contrived. Boring. Ambushing a bicyclist as they fought with their bike lock took little effort. The yelling, the struggle, the fading activity all grew routine after enough energy draining procedures.
He saw, then, why most of the Negaverse remained ambivalent toward such an act. Repetition was a powerful way to grind the shock value out of any procedure, energy draining and starseeding included. How did anyone fight ambivalence?
Faustite turned from the scene, the energy orb still weighty in his palm, and considered the question. He followed the routine path by routinely climbing up buildings and launching himself between their gaps, to find a routine expanse of nothing. No auras but for the few dancing on the edges of his periphery. Taunting at the distance of the stars. Schörl would say he wasn't being efficient enough, he was sure. That he should find himself a senshi among the sea of nothing. Bring back a new pet, or a new starseed. She'd remind him that moral beings are human beings, and that he should dismiss all petty thought of the wrongness behind inverting someone's life so terribly. Or ending it altogether.
The Negaverse's attitude showed well enough that it was easy to make moral excuses about draining energy. Perhaps even to make them about killing. But, he supposed as he changed direction, other agents found it far more difficult to make moral excuses when looking for something to end.
Out into the stark background of light haze he went, always crowning the heights of buildings - the teeth that gnawed the edge of the night sky.
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Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2017 3:21 pm
Sleep wasn’t an easy thing to hold on to anymore. More often than not, Kari woke after only an hour or two, jolting up and staring blankly into the darkness of her room before attempting to seek unconsciousness again. Sometimes it came, other times it did not, and tonight was one of the times that sleep eluded her utterly.
Of course, it had come to her that if she went out and offered her energy…she would eventually be so exhausted she’d have no choice to sleep. Either that or she’d run into someone who just…well. Those weren’t thoughts she was really willing to deal with, or hope for right now. There was someone…or something out, and it was a chaos aura, for which Kari was very grateful. She would get to sleep quickly if she was lucky. If she wasn’t so lucky, well. That would be something to deal with when she got there.
The closer she got, the more annoyed she felt, Epidote’s accusation of her being an ‘energy whore’ flitting around her mind. Well. This had nothing to do with that.
She just wanted to sleep.
Finally she was near enough to whoever it was she was meeting to see them…and…the first thing that the senshi noticed were…
Pipes? She paused, skidding to a halt before coming any closer to the…captain?
Perhaps she was just hallucinating. It would make sense. “Who are you? You’re not…normal.” Yeah, no s**t. Great work, Kari. You’re absolutely the most observant human on the planet.
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Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2017 8:37 pm
He felt the burgeoning signs of a senshi on the horizon and knew immediately that confrontation was assured. Often enough they beelined to him for his strangeness, and treated him as a slightly stranger human. Perhaps it became human habit to anthropomorphize anything of remote sentience, with greater preference given to humanoid creatures. That would explain the kind words given by… Most anyone but Schörl.
This one proved no different. With eyes haunted by sallow skin she searched him, paused in her step in a harsh, jerked motion, and blurted her observations for the world to hear.
You're not normal, she said. An immediate judgment casting him as an outsider. After the doldrums of her protracted, agonizingly slow observational process, all she had to say about him was that he wasn't normal. He knew as much - normal was whole, normal was white sclera, normal was human. Normal didn't have pipes protruding from one's back or blackened fingers. Normal had a civilian life. Normal had a job, or school to attend, or a family to care for. Normal had nothing to do with a teen suspended out of average life and left to grow as a perpetual officer of a paramilitary organization. Normal stood at odds with ripping starseeds out of the defenseless and stealing energy from the uninformed.
But, he was certain, her sense of normal was very different from his by now.
"No, I'm not normal," he answered defensively. "Neither are you. Nor is anyone running rooftops at this hour." Light pollution occluding the sky left them enough ambience to witness each other. Her attire suggested nothing out of the ordinary for senshi - ridiculous clothes coined from bad fashion sense, cloyingly sweet aura and a built-in animosity for anyone remotely like him.
He strode forward to stand at the edge of a parapet, where a perched gargoyl growled unseeingly into the night air. "My name doesn't matter. You'll forget it by tomorrow, wouldn't you? Why would it matter?
"Most of you just want to strike me down, like they would with any other Negaverse agent. Paint the town red, as they say. Are you here to do the same?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:43 am
She thought over his words for a moment, nodding slightly. He had a point. There was no normalcy in her life, and the little things that she tried to lie to herself about being normal would have seemed utterly farfetched not too long ago…nothing was normal anymore. “I’m sorry if my words offended you…I just…I was…” No, saying she was hoping for someone else sounded too rude…expecting someone else? Wishing for someone else?
“I was just…surprised that’s all.” Kari took a step towards him and held out a hand, shaking her head wildly. “No, no I don’t want to strike you down. I just want to sleep…I was hoping you’d maybe take some energy and I would be tired enough to just…you know…not have to think for the rest of the night? I know it sounds stupid but…”
Her voice grew quiet and she sighed. “It’s the only thing that I’ve found which helps so…I’m more than willing to help you make your energy quota if you’re willing to help me get a few hours of sleep…that sounds like a fair deal in my book, right?”
The more she spoke, the louder her voice grew, filling with just a little bit of hope. There was no way he’d refuse her…right? That wouldn’t make sense…and even if he ripped her starseed…well. She couldn’t honestly say that would be such a bad thing either. While Kari was trying to fight all of the darkness in her head…she couldn’t deny that she still wanted it to end…maybe not by this agent, but she’d take what she could get.
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Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 2:14 pm
Faustite readied a second rebuke. The need of it was almost certain; White Moon Senshi, he discovered, gave little thought to the opinions of their enemy. But as she stumbled through her words, through their meaning, through the best way to convey her intentions to him, he realized shortly that castigating her was a moot point. The way her shoulders sagged and her eyelids bagged spoke of exhaustion. Her shuffling gait pointed to her reticence. She didn't care that he sported acoutrements that no human should have; her only concern was his ability to drain energy.
Which provoked a different manner of ire in his chest.
But he had no use for ire, when faced with an opportunity to meet quota without a struggle. Her plight was for sleep - easily assured and mutually beneficial. Her energy balanced in his blackened palm, weighty and brimming, promised him a 'meets expectations' rating with his general.
But there was consequence to this deal. Reprimand if discovered. Schörl would press him for his reasons against corrupting her. Against calling in a General-Sovereign the moment she begged him for sleep. There, they could reform her life. Carve out the damage wrought in her White Moon self and fill the rest with chaos. Reshape her. Repurpose her. They could grant her a life of stability and structure and servitude, where she would have no want of conscience or agency. That was the Negaverse way.
But disappointing Schörl was becoming its own masochistic game. How long would it take for her to find out?
His hands laced before him. He looked on at her as he weighed the options presented. Taking energy was simple, but he dared not look too eager at his offer. Desperation was unbecoming. "Fine," he answered at last. "But they're going to ask me why I didn't corrupt you. This time I'll do it for free. Next time, bring a friend.
"Now give me your hand." He opened his outward toward you, palm facing the sky.
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Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 8:01 pm
Kari watched his face and she seemed rather bemused with how long it was taking him to answer…it wasn’t a difficult thing to say yes to…it wasn’t going to hurt in him any way what so ever…it would be helping him…helping the Negaverse as a whole, wouldn’t it?
Finally she frowned, then gave a hollow laugh. “The Negaverse wouldn’t want me. I’m utterly and perfectly useless. Besides. I’m much better off as their little energy whore. You’re not the first I’ve…’donated’ to, and I know full well that you won’t be the last.” She placed the palm of her hand on his, not seeming to mind, or to bother to notice the odd coloration. “It’s better for you to just not say where you got the energy from, if you’re worried. And, I find your request difficult as I don’t really have many of those. And I’m not sure what you’d want a friend of mine for, anyway so…I’m sorry but if that’s how it’s going to be, this will be my only donation to you.”
Kari didn’t care if he did end up corrupting her with this. It didn’t matter. Maybe she would sleep better if she were corrupted. No more nightmares of Epidote, at the very least…why would she have nightmares of someone on her side…?
The thought was enough to make her stomach roil. “Let’s just get this over with.”
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 12:27 pm
Faustite responded sharply. "I agree. You beg to have your energy drained. It isn't a hallmark of a good soldier, is it? But Negaverse trust must be earned. My assessment means nothing right now. They would see it as reticence on my part to do the job." He recognized her point - he would not be the last officer approached, and so long as any of them condoned her behavior, that pattern would not cease. She would turn up to countless officers for the same request, play their personal catch-up mechanic for energy quotas, then disappear. She evened the playing field for the lot of them.
And he couldn't have that. Not when lorded over by a general like Schörl. Not when he was expected to provide more than the average captain. Capitulating to her demand was normal, expected. He needed to push further. But she proved so impossibly reticent —
"It's a strange game you play. For every agent you solicit like this, for every guota met or exceeded with your energy offerings, it affects the net balance of energy taken by the Negaverse as a whole. If officers reach their quota more easily due to your interference, what effect do you think that has? Energy quota requirements go up. Maybe that doesn't matter in your case. They can just come put you in a coma. Then what? The rest of Destiny City pays the price. Your friends, your family… They're inadvertently affected by your actions. Six degrees of separation, they call it. Your actions don't exist in a vacuum, Scout. All these requests for your energy to be drained… They add up somewhere.
"It's just a matter of figuring who pays the cost." As he finished, Faustite concentrated on spooling her energy out of her body. Ley lines and chakras and veins came to mind in the process - aglitter with gold, brilliant energy that coalesced in his free hand. Through his chaos, that ball grew progressively tainted until it manifested as a familiar purple orb. Was she feeling the consequences now? Was she too tired to consider her effects on other lives? Faustite watched for an answer.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2017 11:24 am
Kari felt the pull of her energy after only a moment and she gave a contented sigh, letting her eyes close of their own accord. She would be able to get to sleep after this. She could already feel the sweet pull of it now, and it was wonderful. She listened to the captain’s words but didn’t really take much from them. “Does it really matter what happens to the rest of the city as a whole? I’m done with trying to take care of other people’s issues. This is about me, and screw the rest.”
The words sounded so utterly selfish, but Kari didn’t care anymore. She had to deal with her own problems before anyone else’s. She had to fix herself before fixing the world…and when it came down to it…
Did the world even deserve to be fixed? Honestly, it might be better if it all just erupted into flames and started over…nothing was good anymore. There was no trace of any goodness left anywhere. “So long as I can sleep at night, I don’t care what it takes. Drain my energy, drain everyone’s energy. I don’t care. Just make it so I can sleep. Opening her eyes, Kari watched the ball of her energy growing and sighed. “…It really is pretty though. I’ve always managed to notice that. What a stupid thing to be so beautiful…”
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Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 3:27 pm
"Does it?" Faustite echoed. She claimed self-care over the needs of others, but she never practiced it herself. Her plying for energy draining, her inability to sleep, her outward bitterness at the world told of her own personal failings. The way her shoulders hung, the way her body relaxed in the midst of draining — all these signs reflected her wretched position. Was she at her worst now?
Did anyone? He once marveled at the city himself. He thought it enormous and industrious and unique in its own beautifully decrepit manner. But among the oxidized metal and anachronistic buildings, people like Kari basked in their own disillusionment. They spraypainted their own doomsaying across unclaimed walls. They shouted their unrest to all with ears. They roiled and spat at a world that turned its back on them, that left them to succumb to the Negaverse's incessant energy reaping. Some acquiesced, some bargained, some pled for their lives, some fought with deep vengeance, and some still chose to protect others in the face of adversity. This senshi was no different. This senshi was the epitme of the Negaverse's favored opposition - reticent to stand up for herself, let alone the rest of the earth.
He retracted his hand from hers, and measured up the orb in his hand. He bade it to linger a moment when the girl remarked of its attractiveness. "It's potential," he answered. "Unspent and whole. No action has wasted it yet. It's no different than a blank page to an author, or a blank canvas to an artist." His gaze lingered on her for a moment.
He turned then, using his back to obscure view of the newly-gleaned orb. Mental strain demanded that he return it to Schörl soon. "Man sees in the world what he carries in his heart. You see nothing but ambivalence. So what do you carry, Scout? What weighs your heart?"
Faustite spared her a last look. "I should thank you for the energy." With nothing more to say, he vanished into the night.
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