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 Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:14 pm
Andronicus of Uranus, knight of the Gale Staff and resident renegade in the fight between Order and Chaos, wandered the streets of Destiny City on her usual patrol. It was a wide circuit and tagged all the normal places the two sides like to have their engagements: the park, the docks, the alleys behind the downtown area, that one parking garage that was usually deserted. She wasn't necessarily looking for a fight, but she was looking for those who were trapped in the middle of fights.
All in all, it was a slow night so far.
She caught wind - a.k.a her internal power radar went off - of a relatively powerful Chaos signature down one of the alleys, and tracked it for some blocks before she found it.
She didn't quite recognize them at first, though by the height there were only so many people it could be. Andronicus paused just inside the shadow of one of the lamps and summoned her staff. She held it casually behind her, large top pointed down, and waited. The general would know she was there; Andronicus could not mask her presence (though that was a great idea of something to look into).
It was only a matter of time.AMItotic idk what that title is HOW DO YOU TITLE
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:43 am
Nothing comes from nothing.
It was a simple principle, one with broad and sweeping implications that Zircon often explored. On her own, she was nothing, she'd made nothing, had amounted to nothing, and these truths were less to elicit pity than to illuminate cold fact. A good student, an obedient daughter, a hard teacher, none of these laurels were anything of substance worth resting upon. By her own inaction and passive compliance, Suri had made herself worthless, nothing, and nothing comes from nothing.
Luckily for her, Suri was not the only thing living in her skin. Beating in time with her heart was the will of Metallia, who breathed power into the husk of her broken body and made her something. When she was Zircon, she couldn't feel the aches of where bones had been broken and reset. Zircon would not find herself winded by an hour of standing. Zircon was still broken, but she was not weak, and she paid for that power with her service to a dark queen with unclear and sinister motives.
If nothing comes from nothing, then something must come from something.
Zircon let the body of the person she'd drained fall gracelessly to the pavement, more a series of shapes under fabric than a person. She turned slowly to face the knight, eyes sharp but apprehensive while she pocketed the price she paid for power. "This doesn't concern you," she called out to the silhouette, trying to make sense of the vague outline of the person, the hints of color out from the shadows. When her eyes were better adjusted to the light, her eyes narrowed, and she rubbed her nose.
"Why don't you just turn around, Andronicus?" Zircon raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms to hide the way her hands shook in the aftermath of the dread prison the knight had seen her in last. She made no efforts to hide the leg, the terrible way the slope of her thigh ended too soon and cut inwards to a skeleton of hardware and metal. Let Andronicus see the price she'd paid to be where she was. Let Andronicus see the slope of her cape, feel the general's aura, dark and strong and beautiful. The forecast for the future had been broken. She was finally something.
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Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 3:14 pm
Andronicus raised an eyebrow as Zircon pocketed the orb of energy, but paid it no mind otherwise. She stepped into the light, her own status a beacon of light against the general's embodiment of darkness. Zircon had paid a price for the power she wielded, Andronicus could see that much. It pained her, on some level, to see the other woman not quite whole anymore. It was a nice looking peg leg, all things considered though.
"Well, well, look at you. It seems even lost causes can gain status if they give up a leg," said Andronicus as she gestured at it with her free hand. The Knight could have been civil - probably should have been civil - but with Zircon it was just too easy to get agitated and push her buttons. Perhaps it was because Andronicus always saw her as the uptight, good little Captain who could do no wrong and was the 'perfect little soldier'.
Maybe if she riled up Zircon enough, she could beat sense into her. Or something.
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Posted: Sat Dec 16, 2017 8:29 am
"Oh, this? That was one of yours, actually, after we talked in that cell. He took offense to my practices, so he--" Zircon choked on her words, fighting down the bitter traitor of fear and rage that reared its head in her chest. Even now, she couldn't say his name--it had been stolen from her just as much as the feeling in her hands, the health of her legs. She couldn't stop the rise of heat to her face, the dry constriction of her throat, but she could hold the tides at bay with a tight jaw and clenched fists. Andronicus wanted a fight. Zircon wanted to survive. Even now, she was feeling out for other signs of order, any indication that this might be a trap. She needed to keep her wits about her.
Zircon sighed, shook her head. Breathed until she found her voice again. Her capture did not define her. She was her own person. She was a general. She was not afraid. "The Negaverse doesn't suffer a lost cause--I earned this promotion on my own merit. What did you do, frolic some with the wind to get that staff?" Zircon had only borrowed memories of Uranus, but it was a place she recalled all the same, hot and dry and desolate in its isolation. Her other half had seemed to think that, given enough time, she could have heard truths whispered between the gusts, that something of her wonder would save her from the crushing loneliness of not knowing. It had been pathetic.
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Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:03 pm
Andronicus grimaced. That stung and stung hard. She'd meant to just poke fun, but that wasn't the fun she was aiming for. The knight regretted the jab almost instantly, but Zircon was ready for a fight. Or to defend herself if Andronicus attacked. She wasn't so sure she wanted to. Yet, here they were.
She glanced at the staff next to her and snorted. "Hah, I wish. Naw, I found a basement in my tower were my... past life, I think it is, died along with several refugees from, get this, a lack of air," said the knight, nonchalantly, as if hadn't terrified her and kept her from genuine sleep for several nights. Andronicus rolled a shoulder, still watching Zircon.
"We don't have to fight, Zircon. I just come prepared. Negaverse doesn't play fair, any more than Order does," she said, taking a few steps towards the General cautiously. She felt no other Chaos signatures around, but that didn't mean they hadn't figured out a way to cloak themselves yet.
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2017 6:02 am
Zircon scoffed, but was more amused than insulted. It would be the fate of someone with the command over the wind to asphyxiate in a darkened tomb in the presence of people they had failed to save. The general found a certain satisfaction in knowing that knighthood was no special shelter from the storm, that they suffered and died without the warmth of chaos to sustain them. It made the idea of seeking to join their ranks even more preposterous, when she knew there was no safe shelter to be found. Order, Chaos, all of them died the same. At least as Zircon she had the reins on her legacy, could choose who she would be.
"And yet you're the one who came with a weapon drawn," Zircon responded, eyebrows raised as she held up empty hands to make a point. "You're the one who chose to seek me out, make some backhanded comment about my condition, and you're still moving closer." She looked down at Andronicus's feet and one of her hands twitched, but she resisted the urge to call for her weapon and truly make it a fight. Instead, she grappled with her breathing to keep it low and calm, keeping the halls of Negaspace firmly envisioned in the back of her mind. It was not cowardice to make a tactical retreat, if need be.
"So it begs the question, Andronicus, if you're not looking to fight, then why are you here?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2017 12:22 am
Andronicus' knuckles cracked as she gripped the shaft of her staff. Anger bubbled up in her chest, a hot gust of just wanting to shut Zircon up. The General was very good at pushing her buttons. She bit back trying to explain herself, eyes simply hardening.
'A'ight, let's do this. I'm tired of hearing you talk," she said, swinging the staff up to point it at her. There was no essence of Zoji La left in that woman - if there had been any at all, she wasn't sure anymore. Andronicus had taken no oath of neutrality; she could fight whoever she damn well pleased, for whatever reason she wanted.
"I was here, patrolling. Didn't ask to find you, or seek you out. I wasn't even gunna get on your case for draining civilians, because, I get it and it's not like you're doing it out in the ********' open. But, come on little Zoji, let's dance." Andronicus shifted her weight and focused on her staff, the large blue orb in the middle beginning to glow.
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Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 7:28 am
Zircon bristled at the sight of the staff's glow, shuffling a step back with a critical stare. The sensible part of her thought of the cold halls of Negaspace, urging her to be reasonable, that there could be others hidden under the suppression of a Mauvian. Still, Zircon's lungs burned when she heard the name Zoji, and the chaos under her skin seethed. There would be no Zoji La, in this or any future. Zircon had changed her fate, she would never be that wilting desert woman, and she soothed the fury in her nerves with that simple truth. She couldn't afford to let her temper rule her--that's when she made mistakes, and this wasn't a training spar.
Her nose crinkled when she glowered, but as her expression tightened she relaxed her hands, letting the fingers fall free. "What happens here is on your conscience, then," the general sighed, lifting her hands above her head. Her giant boomerang crackled into existence, rending the air above her in two, and as it started to fall she used the momentum of gravity to swing it around her and release, lobbing in a wide arc for Andronicus's position.
She had little interest in seeing what that staff might do.
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Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2018 6:34 pm
Dare say she was almost impressed at the giant weapon Zircon chucked at her. She found it ironic that Zircon would still have a weapon of air when she's burned Zoji La out of existence. Andronicus watched it spin towards her as she charged, launching herself into the air at the last second. The Knight arced over the weapon, staff raised behind her. Wind that had tore at her clothing vanished as the stone in the middle of the staff flared brighter.
Andronicus did not ignore the irony of this - though it was not Zircon she'd attacked in such a fashion - and let her features fall grim. If Zircon's boomerang did not return fast enough, and if Zircon did not teleport to it, this would work.
She reached the apex of her jump, and fell.
Andronicus shifted in the air and she swung her staff hard, arcing it down below her towards Zircon's torso. A gale of wind shot out of the staff towards Zircon, the secondary threat to her attack.
Be hit by the staff or the gale, which would Zircon do she wondered.
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