Would it kill them to keep copies in the Citadel? It must be so cathartic to scream 'budget issues' like every other school… The creature captain swallowed down his bitterness as he stalked through the evening. Dying rose long ago rotted to deep blues and finally blacks as night claimed the sky. The evening wound down to idleness, to blaring television lights shooting through curtained windows. The steets sat empty and unused. Such a quiet fell the streets that he could hear the flicker of a streetlight. He hoped that Romano's would show such remorse.
Slipping onto campus was a simple matter — a leap so easily bypassed fencing — though staying undetected proved a challenge. Those (un)lucky enough to attend Romano's faced the unique experience of barracks sleeping, much like a boarding school. The buildings were never fully emptied of their too-routine occupants. Security still stuck around, janitorial worked night shifts, and certainly the chosen few students coined their power in the late hou.
But he only needed a couple minutes of quietude. The books he required were a straightforward find in the schools library. A rucksack's worth of material was all he needed to embark on his next curricular bracket, and finish the necessities for his GED. However he might manage that.
He crossed the long sports field within an arm's length of the fence, with its iron bars sneering back at him in the darkness. Sometimes he reached out to thrum his fingers across the interlinks when steel gave way to wire. Other times left him counting his steps mentally, desperate to quell the thudding of his heart against avian bones. He never cared much for these 'borrowing' stints; he never once needed them before.
And either his senses invented their own bogeymans out of the cool night air, or he felt an eternal senshi on the horizon. Pity for me, came the dry internal quip.
ivynian
maybe this works??? idk too tired to tell
Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2017 1:24 am
Blessed be that times he passed, oft cusping over-late to blind-early, the boarded schools lay quiet of auras. There were undoubtedly students at each that were part of the war, as apparent ages told plain when large scale gatherings converged, but he’d not yet had the (mis)fortune of direct experience. Save this night, at last, where Pitch darker than night ate a hole as the Eternal of Gardens skirted the secured, vast grounds and forested surrounding of Romano's Constitutional Haven. He considered from a place, briefly, near it’s one obvious entryway. Ill walks this night. A captain. May teleport, if visual contact too early. Or may already have someone and rush starseeding them.
High fences and walls were impossible to regular things like cars and people. Less so to those who could jump to buildings or evaporate in, on, or around. Thraen crossed the barrier, careful of gate security personal line of sight, into the bleak training grounds nearest the barracks and kept triangulating the center of the field. Closing. There was a smell. It hadn’t been anywhere else outside the ground to give the impression of a long-burning kiln, wood or coal fired heating. It grew stronger and concentrated, like closing on a hot-boxed hippie volvo. There was a person shape moving, a silhouette making quick work along the fence. The best answer was to take the hypotenuse and try to catch the bearer of the chaos at speed.
But on the other side of the barrier, to lessen suspicion. Fences gave a feel of protection. Thraen moved, leaping again over the fence. Crossed to 'lead the shot' to try and gain the distance for target to hurry into his magic as it bloomed beneath and through the fence as flowers wont by feet. What is burning?
Hissed, "Thraen Annual Planting—"
How it Works - Thraen folds his hands together like prayer, the opens hands and they are full of seeds. He blows over them, dispersing the seeds. Hundreds of flowers spring up, growing and blooming magically. Their scent causes those who stand near them to fall asleep. Range - The patch of flowers that grows is a 10 ft. radius around Thraen Duration - The flowers bloom in the post he casts them. If those in the flower bed or near it do not get at least 10 ft. away from the flowers, they fall asleep like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz. The sleep lasts for 15 seconds. The flowers last for 20 seconds. Damage Summary - This is not a damage magic. No damage occurs from the spell itself, nor is any intended. If the writer of someone being affected wants their character to fall to their knees and then flop over and take no harm at all, that is up to them. If the writer of someone being affected by this wants their character to fall over mid-run and skid to a stop with a broken nose, that is up to them. But there is no damage effect in the spell itself. Weaknesses - If someone doesn't stay near them long enough, they don't fall asleep. If people hold their breath, wear a breathing mask, or cover their mouth and nose with wet cloth can avoid the scent as well. Once a person has fallen asleep in one flower bed, they cannot be affected by that bed again. Only a separate bed would affect them. This is an AoE (area of Effect) spell that effects allies as well as enemies. Frequency of Usage - Twice a battle
xStrickenized
likewise, let me know if anything needs editing~
Ivynian
Cat
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2018 5:17 pm
Senshi energy spread like dawn, poking its fingers into every crevice where it never belonged. It gouged the weariness out of his bones, the dull meanderings from his thoughts, and pushed fear into their place. Vigilance. Tactics. He nearly choked on the word before the senshi realized a circle about him.
An eternal. That aura bled long into the horizon. His pace quickened, steps turned to the long gait of a run, and his hand clawed its way along the bars like a sideways ladder. The library wasn't far, but eyes hadn't yet pilfered their private confines —
Steps thudded harder, heavy, sure-footed. Someone with weight on him. The aura shouted its ubiquitous presence where Faustite troubled to locate it. Left, right, fore, aft — it didn't matter. They felt atop him, smothering him like the smoke from his back. Like the tide rolling in on a juvenile city.
Bright flickered between the bars. He pushed the burn in his legs. A whisper, his foot caught in the slip of foliage and he sucked in all his consternation,
then hit the ground at force.
ivynian
x_x
Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2018 11:30 pm
Sight Confirmation followed as instinct eyes picked up on motion, particularly the dead out run that the captain was booking. There was enough time to get through the thought of He’s terrif-
The Captain skid a flat path through grass and flowers on his face, which was terrible to empathy, but hilarious in slapstick sadism. There was time for neither. Thraen leapt the fence and started at the feet, dragging large hands along seams of clothing and planes of muscle and prominent bone. This one was small but with the strange proportions of puberty, nervous or irregular nutrition, but regular training. So young. One-Two-Three.
And pipes. They smelled, most of all expelled, which seemed in time to the ribs. Four. They weren’t decoration, and rolling him on on his side would be the best for accessing the front of the uniform: confirmation of unfortunate profits. Nine- Ten. The right front pants pocket disclosed energy orbs, the right vest a starseed. Twelve-Thirteen. Seconds were thin to stirring as the Eternal senshi tucked the items into his own sash. Fifteen.
Thraen laid fingers around each of the bird-wrists for control, straddle-knelt with heavy knee hugged to thin pelvis. Neutralize the possibility of starseeding and command the usual center of human balance. “Your name, Captain?”
Strickenized
Ivynian
Cat
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:00 pm
He woke to the scent of blood, cloying and thick and guarding his breathing. A gasp through his mouth announced his wake with pain's added voice. He winced; his unfortunate circumstances crinkled with wet dirt and wrenched grass. His head throbbed while his vision cleared. A root —
No, a boot. A boot loomed before him. Platformed stone. A voice old and graveled as the dirt he lay on. Weight on his hip — immediately he wrenched and struggled, relying on the give of avian proportions to wrench him away from captor. But those gnarled fingers reigned their steely cages over his wrists, and he was trapped all the same.
His heart pounded a prewritten dirge against his chest.
You're caught now. What can you do? Spitting the taste of blood and dirt, he reached for his voice. "Chrysocolla," he rasped. His gaze trained on finger-breaking stone.
ivynian
Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 2:18 am
“Make knowen unto me the interpretation of the energy orbs, the starseed, in your keeping. How did they come to you, Captain.” The officer pulled with strength, gifted by rank. It wasn’t so far different from the violence of a long ago General’s wilted arms. His eyes open and there is still only darkness there. It took his eyes. Does he see from them? They track and seem to watch, turning his face to his hands; our next most important pieces as beings, these meat and bone things for using tools. These thumbs for thimbles.
There is a rhythm in his wrists, screaming against the cages of bone. Fear sometimes lies. I wonder if he will. Hard to catch, like that ravenette in a suitdress lieutenant, unless I find him a second time. Unless as well, unless. Or alas? He could be none left but strange pipes and blackened eyes of remorse, or of freedom of will. Even as captains they can be lost. Even as Lieutenants, they can be addicted to the power.
"And why you walk this place?"
Strickenized
Ivynian
Cat
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:28 am
Skullcrushing stone.
Fear stymied petulance's heavy-handed tactics. His gaze weighed on stone, etched months of sacrifices in bloodwash onto all the pockmarks and raw edges.
"I drained for the orbs. They're from a senshi like you." The stone, the stone. Be defeatist. Answer with your spine bent and your shoulders hunched. Wither. He swallowed, and his struggles slackened against unyielding hands. A burst of smoke echoed a deep breath.
"The starseed is from my General. Standard issue." Faustite searched his face for harbingers — a twtich of muscle, a flicker of the eyes. Nothing.
"And I was going to borrow a book." Look at me. I can't do that in daylight.
ivynian
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 3:49 pm
It was possible. There were fools out there who thought of the short term only, weighed only one wellbeing against the collusion with the Negaverse for the sake of one quota, and that whether or not the agent really was in any danger. Some of them were better actors than others. The mention of books, though, of libraries was a softer thing. It was more confession than the rest, like it might be something that was secretly enjoyed, whether ordered or not, to read. “I could only hope it was Orwell’s 1984. Reading, of all the vices to too much, be the least damning. That I would not hinder, except by this unfortunate circumstance of Chaos and War between us. “
The War remained, nonetheless, writ in the officer's very bones and flesh in more reality to them than to most. Standard issue. Given by the General to the subordinate captain. Things of quotas and standard issue combat kits to heal. Like Zircon, who healed herself.
“Of Willing surrender and donation was it? By combat?”
Strickenized
Ivynian
Cat
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2018 9:09 pm
1984? It's a better future than I'll ever see.
This unfortunate circumstance. You say it's 'unfortunate' like a too-long line to get your coffee in the morning. Like you missed your favorite movie showing by an hour. Like you dropped your beaten copy of 1984 into a puddle.
There's no 'unfortunate' in the scar on your face. In your stone boots. In your grip. You're a misfortune. This war is a misfortune.
It's a catastrophe.
Energy cycled over longer than a week's breadth, but those orbs carried no timestamp. Energy never expired. It was consumed, or it fell apart for lack of concentration, or it found its way into a Sovereign's hands to fill the unknown coffers. It was ubiquitous, brilliant, and dangerously efficient. They may as well drain the sun.
His quota turned over since; Faustite rode that lack of date. "Trade. Energy for information. He wanted to know about youma." Those hands never moved. That face never twitched. Never broke a smooth line of skin.
ivynian
Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 9:44 pm
It would be ‘trade,’ wouldn’t it. Anyone out of their first fool’s coat should be able to follow the line of questions as justifications. And there was no current power in his grasp to detect the lie, if such a power existed somewhere among senshi or knights. “Hearken, Forte don your understanding. “
“Metallia infects, seeks dominion over every will on Earth, in the Cauldron. You succor this being with every quota filled. Stand beside for yourself and others slavery and murder; accessorize and devalue to tools the very rebirth and potential of all souls into dust. Harrowed hell, no, you leave these potential souls, even you own, to annihilation. You must leave the Negaverse. There is a way, even for you, for any of those yoked by chaos in their bones.“
Thraen shifted, considering the eight small carpals in human wrists. “But that is a choice you must make in time of deep thought. Time for this I will give you, only this once. Not unmarked...yet not slain. “
“Suffering is our own river to oblivion, or to find innocence once more. Disce Pati. An veritas, an nihil—lex naturalis est scripta in cordobas omnium. In your heart it is written, truth and goodness. While it yet remains to you. “ It took a roll of foot and a quick slide for the first wrist. Weight. The second.
Strickenized
Ivynian
Cat
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 10:11 pm
"I know my crimes," he whispered to the dirt. I know them better than any of my ilk. I know them better than you do.
Murder is wrong because it terminates all potential experiences that person could have. Taking starseeds and energy is wrong because it treats men as a means to an end. The Negaverse is morally bankrupt. Its acting agents are morally nihilist.
"How pedagogic. Stand against Metallia and join the fleeting allegiances of men. Why? So I can watch my comrades spend their better selves on dalliances? The link of obligation is broken at every opportunity for a man's advantage." Standing against the war machine… I want to dream of that beautiful world. It sings to me in those three powerless hours. But it can't be more than that.
One day we'll all be downloads and databytes. Shadow people left over from our own obsessive harvesting. The difference between Metallia and Google is that Metallia erases your footprint when she's done with you. Google keeps chewing forever.
The ends are all the same. We're still consu—
Avian snaps sounded like broken twigs — small things halved at a child's whimsy, left without thought of repercussion. Of cause and effect. But Faustite felt every last synapse-burning effect, articulated cuccinctly in a monosyllabic breath, and caught raggedly between his teeth in every respiration thereafter. His wrists churned and burned with raw nerves screaming danger and grievous injury, wrenching at muscle to move beyond harm and jolt bone further out of place. His hands hung at the wrong angles. His breaths came shorter. Polarizing cold numbness and hot agony.
Cold numbness. He remembered — if faintly — the struck ice through his chest. Reaching out, a hand whole, for an identical chest.
Faustite scrambled coherence out of pain and pain-wrought memory, and spread from his body his sole deterrent — his smothering existence.
ivynian
Dispersion ;; Range: 3 foot radius with Faustite at the epicenter. Duration: 30 seconds Use Count: 3x Miss Chance: Circumventing magic, stepping beyond radius before execution, stepping out during the attack. Holding breath and closing eyes mitigates some of the effects. Effect: Faustite draws his hands together, and a sound curiously akin to an opening lighter may be heard. With a deafening blast, Faustite then envelops himself in choking smoke. Those caught in the radius of the initial blast endure a residual ringing in the ears and mild disorientation. The blast itself articulates as the billowing black smoke, and those who breathe it will suffer burning lungs, stinging eyes, and may cough frequently depending on their reaction to the smoke. The symptoms of ringing ears and coughing will linger after leaving the smoke, up to a maximum of five seconds. This attack is not intended to produce lasting damage (like lung damage or hearing damage), but may do so at the defending player's behest.
Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 6:13 pm
Know them and do nothing to the elsewise? Of course. Of course the answer is no more than ‘why,’ forever laying the responsibility to do anything other than be horrible at everyone else’s feet. Demand sympathy, demand to be led by their noses. Demand to be forgiven and given a thousand chances to be saved as long at it is them and a bare minimum of effort. The sound of metal on metal, small and sharp, and then something louder and plumed of black and stench and sound. The world was feedback pitch of piccolos. The half youma, even without need of looking or thinking about it, and whether it was a deliberate attack, or a move of panic, or self defense, didn’t matter- stopping the source was of primacy. His broken wrists could be abandoned, too liquid now to grasp for starseeds. Thraen swung violence and forearm onto the black-belching pipes.
They go in. May burn surface callouses. May rattle his inside enough to stop this idea. Counting. No use risking this choking filth. Acidic? Doesn't seem soporific on contact.
Strickenized
Ivynian
Cat
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 10:09 am
Pitch plumed and he felt pressure abate from his hands, even as pain mountain. And even as pain mounted, Faustite struggled for that brief gasp of freedom — so he pushed with elbows and knees to prop himself upright, to distance himself from this marveling executioner of a senshi, but agony screamed loud enough to startle his will.
He lurched, cropped and harried and driven by newer pains. A hollow thrum sounding out a bone-snap echo forced a breathless groan from him. With lamed respiration, he collapsed back onto boneless wrists and bloodied nose. Onto yet-unbroken knees.
But those were next. Move. Think. Breathing knives hampered him. Clutching and choking his periphery was an invitation to silence. Don't let him think you're a threat. Pain mounted its assult, its victories still running out of his nose and throbbing choke points in his wrists. Now a new offensive opened in his back, somewhere around his bottom two pipes. He didn't want to see the damage. Didn't want to feel it.
No mantra prayer of 'stay awake' held the power to prop him upright. Faustite collapsed like a collection of scattered bones.
ivynian
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 5:14 pm
Fitful spurts simultaneous of twitching and furtive dragging; the boy was a half-crushed centipede forced to partial oneness with the ground. Thraen remained unbreathing; ‘tomb-stilled,’ may have been even closer to the mark. The captain’s magic assault was as good a reason as anything else to enforce practice of control over his own heartbeat, holding breath, of everything against panic. Does he make sound, I wonder. Still ringing. A distraction of focus as much as a plausible smokescreen?
The poor thing collapsed, eyes closed fast against world and pain, not that there was a difference. Without sound, there was a quality of slapstick celluloid. Hind-mind unhelpfully filled in the silence with piano soundtrack the moment the association was presented, and with no part of the heroic. A moment’s more hesitation, watching the set of muscles, the posture of bones and breathing in the boy, confirmed it was either a genuine blackout or a possum so practiced he shouldn’t feel foolish about trusting it. He isn’t supposed to die with this, but would that be a bad outcome? He won’t come around. They never do. Zircon. Hypovolemic shock not as likely with wrists. Leave him as he lay. The blacks of his hands...the smoke? Exposure to the elements may do him better for comfort and keeping down swelling.
The line of reconnaissance, information and war effort compared to trespass and a form on nonconsensual sexual or psychological abuse was an exceedingly hazy one. They were both vigilantes in a war that had no backing from any Earth government at a public, formal level. Death and fighting, souls and starseeds: the Negaverse never asks or needs permissions. Disrobing him for study, even if the information would be terribly useful crosses a line. Even where prisons remove to orange uniform the agency of individuals for the safety of themselves and the outside world- here it is arrogant and violation. Even to the very promises of freedom offered. Freedom possible. That at least must remain sacrosanct.
Thraen rose, cautious stepped out from the prone captain, then departed.
