Screams silenced at least a minute ago, reduced to wet digging, scraping, snuffles and chuffs. Youma in the Rift had ready, ambient energy all around, all the time. They proved hungry, and opportunistic for energy and starseeds wherever they could get them, but they weren’t any more ravenous than regular unlife depicted zombies. Drawn outside the Rift, they expended themselves rapidly just meandering around to commands. They hungered keenly to keep their dust together- at least that seemed the only option for why, given opportunity while it’s General was draining energy from who buildings, Skeiðbrimir regularly took the opportunity to hunt out one of the mortals at the edge of the effect to tear asunder in mix of bodily violence with Chaos-driven tunnelling through to eat their starseed.
So far he wasn’t sure what, if anything, should be done about it. The results were grisly, but the creature was boosted in each case to finish off a long patrol. If ordered to stay at his side, it didn’t sneak off, but looked dejected and drooled. Other than being an unnatural being, starseeds and energy were its food, and he wouldn’t starve any other beast to death he didn’t think. Could Youma starve? Would they revert to ash and the Rift if they were just kept in the world and not allowed to feed? Or did they die permanently in such a case, like vampires shown the sun?
His musings were interrupted by Skeiðbrimir’s angry bear-lowing. There was an aura, an eternal, RIGHT near the Youma, no further than at the other end of the row of brownstones. Too distracted. Act.
He teleported to the hood of the F350 that was parked at that end and visible from the roof 5 doors down, “Kom hit, Skeiðbrimir! Kom!”
Whimsical Blue
Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2018 5:47 pm
She had heard the screaming and felt the unworldly wrongness of the youma, but as fast as she had been, Ida had failed to be fast enough to save the person laying on, and across, the concrete. She couldn't even tell what age they had been any more... and the youma dripping gore filled her with a rage she rarely felt for anything else.
They were wrong. They preyed on life, they hungered incessantly, and they were so many things anathema to the bright light in her chest.
The glowing bow hummed against her hands as the young senshi drew back the invisible string, its light catching in her dark hair and across the curve of her cheek. She would have ended the youma then, but a sudden bass voice, shouting something intelligible, fowled her aim as she startled. The shining arrow shot free like a small star, the bow dissolving, but it was wide of her target and burrowed into the ground before it exploded with a low boom.
Ida jerked about, searching for the source and new potential threat, but the man who had joined her was familiar, even dressed in newer armor than she was used to, metal scales rattling with his movements. A traitorous flare of hope fluttered through her chest, warmed with joy at seeing him, even though the change in him worried her. He was the same man. She knew him, or thought she did.
Greetings would have to wait. She pushed back the urge and swept her arm up again, calling another bow into her hands.
"Heavenly Orchid Arrows!" ida called as the arrow sprang to live and hummed again between her hands.
Skeiðbrimir was shambling around the building and for him with the exaggerated front back seesaw of weight of a bear sprinting. It gave a plaintive, trilling or growling moan. Senshi magic was so fast, knocking a weapon to readiness in the moment it was spoken. There wasn’t time for remembering the specifics passed on years and years before about youma- whether it was dusting in general or the permanent sort or both that cause the crippling, soul-weary pain that drew lines of grim sarcasm beside the Obsidian’s leer. Titanlåvenite teleported a second time, between the youma and the eternal senshi, armored arm raised to shield inevitable impact.
He’d not had a chance to test the new stuff against blade or bow, nor Ida’s sort of magic as a General. He didn’t know what to expect for the effects. He wouldn’t turn into ashes, though.
Whimsical Blue
Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:07 pm
"Titan!"
The arrow released and in that breath he was gone from the hood of the ford and suddenly in the path of her bow. She could no more stop the arrow's flight than she could the sun, and it roared across the space between them to impact his upraised arm with a flash of light and a boom as it exploded.
Logically, she knew it wouldn't kill him. Strong as her arrows where, they had never managed that feat against anything but a youma. Still, the impact was harsh, and he had made no motion to dodge it. The cold january air slid sharply between her lips as she suck a breath and held it, brown eyes wide with worry. She allowed herself only a few concerned steps forward before she stopped herself, enforcing distance between herself and the bloody monster that moaned with something approaching... plaintive behind him. It might not hurt a... general like him, but she didn't have that protection.
"Titan!" Ida called across the space that separated them, the concrete blown clear of snow from the pressure of her attacks. "Are you okay? God, you can't just jump in front of those... I don't want to hurt you, but I couldn't pull it back!"
Worry put the edge into her voice and her hands curled against her stomach for want to touch him and be sure the magic hadn't done anything serious. It made the distance between them feel like miles, while in the back of her mind she felt the warmth of arms around her and the bass rumble of a voice rattling her chest. Not real... none of those memories were real... but they felt real enough.
Eternal Sailor Attack: Heavenly Orchid Arrows! [What it does] An out-flung hand casts a trail of petals that form a bow-like shape. She takes it up and uses it to fire arrows of light with hardened petals as arrow heads. The arrows have an 'aura' of power to them and explode on contact. The explosion is more concussive, causing a pressure that can push a target backwards a foot or two, but doesn't do much in the way of actual damage. Unbalanced enemies could be knocked over, if they were caught unaware. Particularly heavy opponents may not be moved by the attack, but could be distracted or slowed by the pressure of it. Each arrow takes a lot of power to cast and her limit is three, which exhausts her and can force her to retire until she's rested.
It was the worse of options, the quirk of her arrows as magical things of force and not of biting metal. An arrow through-and-through wouldn’t have sent the arm’s worth of nerves white. Two years on since the grafts were made, but Titanlåvenite had given small time to Björn for things like quelling, retraining the surface skin from dead diamonds and livewire latticework. As the magic blew itself out, his armor creaking over itself and boots digging trenches for a foot, the muscles crawled along the scarred side of arm, shoulder, and edged flank that led to his back. They seized, hard, and refused regular command. The arm dropped and hung not limp, but at show-like flex, hand fisted still.
The General breathed, but only one lung really drew unhindered. “This one is mine. “
“I will protect what is mine, arrow or sword or spear. Skeiðbrimir will protect me. Your attack on one attacks the other. “
Skeiðbrimir turned about, nosing under the good arm to offer a bulwark of weight to lean against if it’s master needed. The small, bear-like eyes regarded the eternal senshi with no particular revenge, but with rapt, generalized, violent attention. She would taste better, taste longer, than civilians. There was a strong and singing starseed.
“Is this your glove?” The gauntlet thrown down in challenge.
Whimsical Blue
Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 5:37 pm
She didn't want to hurt him, and had she her way, she would have given him the benefit of the new bracelet she wore to ease any bruising and straining her attack had caused.
Would have, but those thoughts ground to a halt as the youma came to him instead and he leaned on it... as though it were a great, oversized dog.
This one is mine.
"What?" Ida gasped out, struggling to comprehend what he was saying. It was so... unlike the Titan she remembered. Your attack on one attacks the other.
"Titan, that youma killed someone!" She said as she dared a step closer, waving spread hands at the gore dripping from the maw of the beast to the gore that reddened the sidewalk. "Was it a civilian, or was it one of us? Did you... did you order it to do so?"
Deep in her heart, she had always held the perhaps childish belief that Titan was a good man, a man who didn't kill people, though she knew as a soldier, he did his fair share of fighting. They all did and even she had done her share of hurting someone on the other side. But this? This wasn't something she could reconcile against a truth she had thought immutable.
"I don't understand." The senshi felt her voice catch as it stretched thin, more plaintive than she had intended it to be. Surely a promotion couldn't change a person that much, but she had no explanation for this. Ida hoped, perhaps irrationally, that it was all a mistake, or an accident. She didn't understand the bond between officer and youma; maybe he just wasn't able to control it, but didn't want it destroyed. Maybe it was an accident. They were monsters, nearly as much abominations as the ascended, but chaos obviously twisted the still-human officers into... some degree of blind-eye to their actions.
But it didn't help whomever the youma had ravaged tonight.
“Ja, they eat of lives. It is their only food. “ Once his own chest had been clawed at by a valravn, or what he’d taken to be a myth-beast at the time. It had been a Youma. He had been as any other being with a starseed, the feel of being hunted in one’s own land, own home, and it not having always been such. It was something forgotten and now horrific to people, as when one or two people died to a cougar in the woods. It echoed the outcry for dogs of certain breeds to be put down, just because they were frequently bred for fighting rings. How dare things threaten Humans, regardless of the billions of animals killed every year for food, more for pure sport, by Man.
“Youma cannot be vegetarian. It was not by order. “ Titan quirked at the strangeness in her voice, “It was a civilian. You are the first Power we meet tonight. ”
“Civilian or Power, it does not matter to the Youma. Does it matter to you which it was? “
'Which' was strange, though accurate enough to the question, he thought. The problem, though was probably more of a 'Who'. People cared about people, about ' who's ' more than about classes once things were stripped down to panic. If there was a difference to her, and what it was, though, was important to hear.
Whimsical Blue
Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:41 pm
Not ordered, but a civilian. Good, and bad.
It tore at her, the horror of it and the conflict that it was him, and not, say, Labyrinthite, or Painite, or any number of others she knew to be savage and cruel. Titan had never been either of those things, even when they had fought each other. He hadn't held back, by any means, but it hadn't been for the pleasure of it... it worried her, what she saw now.
How far a step was it from uncaring, to enjoying?
"Yes it matters!" The exclamation was pulled from her when he asked, with a hint of accusation to her tone. "Didn't it use to matter to you too?"
Her lips thinned as her fingers curled, pressed against her stomach for the comfort of holding them close.
"All the lives here, powered or not, matter to me... but as a senshi, I have accepted the risk I take when I power up and face off against Officers. We all accept that risk, knowing it might kill us. But these people..." She waved a hand at the bloodied maw of the bear-thing. "They're not soldiers! They didn't come here to fight! They don't... have any defenses against things like that, which isn't even as appalling to me as that you just seemed to imply that people are.... food for youma. Like it doesn't even bother you..."
"Did you really change that much, or is this how you've always been?" Ida said as she drew herself back, calming the outrage that had crept into her voice. "How did you go from a man who would surrender an unconscious knight to me, just for beating him in a fight, to someone who thinks nothing of letting a youma prey on civilians, who have no way to fight it? Was that some sort of... play put on for my benefit, or have you really become that... cowardly?"
It didn't address the concept of people as food, but it seemed as though he had simply accepted it as the way things were. Attacking the honor she had seen in him was the only opening she could find... and she worried it was a weak one. Would he laugh at her attempt? Had he fallen that far? He'd been a general before purifying before, but she couldn't reconcile what she saw with what she remembered. Had she just always been blind? Too hopeful of someone's inherently good nature? She needed to know where he stood... how he justified, or didn't, what had happened.
What was the connection was between Youma food and cowardice? Ida’s extreme of feeling on the matter was obvious. She looked small, starting wild, then going something...else. Titan’s own cheek and brow tried to meet on one side, mimicking slow motion something like a wince. With the starseed already swallowed, Skeiðbrimir sated and the corpse probably in a state of torn apart like any other bear attack, there was no fixing the situation to the sort of sensibilities that followed her demanded questions. Whatever he said, or felt, the wrongdoing remained permanent.
She wasn’t asking questions.
Even if she was sounding like she was. She probably didn’t even want answers. Just apologies, grovelling and magically making it undone. It wouldn’t be less cowardly that way, either. If he was looking to be cowardly or not? Did Ida have that sort of importance or authority? In memory-dream she’d been a princess with no knights of her own House. A year and more on, and he’d heard of no Kenisite. No Kedavradite, either. None of those shades that had haunted those visions had materialized.
He slowly shook his arm, from it’s shoulder joint. Electric needles flowed in waves along the diamonds down to his fingertips. “You are making accusations, not wanting answers. You have already decided what you think of me. You already decide what you are going to change what you thought of me. It doesn’t matter what I say to you. “
I wonder what she did think. What she saw. Maybe it is forgot, just that fast. Is seeing the starseed taken, or eaten, different than knowing it happens? Is it different if it is ordered? I did not think it was different….I do not think. If Laurelite ordered me, or if I chose to take a life. It is still killing. Civilians, though. The fears of the valravn and General Obsidian’s smile, his promises of forge fires and usefulness came clear to memory. The shivering nights came back as well, where he’d turned over the alternative if he’d died. Anna would have lost her son a lot earlier, but cleaner. Safe to the whole family. Colin would have gotten a new roommate and never had a broken heart. Hvergelmir and Kairatos wouldn’t be curse with empty waiting. Ida wouldn’t be feeling some strange betrayal that he’d been putting on a play. He was no sort of actor. It made no sense that she thought it was so. Maybe we never understood anything about each other. Not before, not now. Did not answer her aim. Does she challenge to battle.
“So what are you going to do about it, Eternal Senshi Ida. You don’t have much magic left. ” Skeiðbrimir struck the ground with a great claw, gouging out a furrow in threat. It’s ears pinned and unpinned, not yet decided and listening.
xWhimsical Blue
Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2018 11:11 am
Ida pressed her lips together, her cheeks pinked with frustration as much as embarrassment. He hadn't risen to her baiting, when she had hoped prodding at whatever honor he felt he had might have prompted some sort of response from him. She found it difficult to believe that he didn't care... but there was no sign he felt any remorse for it. Was he hiding it, or was this the truth? Had he changed, or had the chaos changed him?
There had been a time, in the future-that-wasn't, when he had worn that same rank. And he'd done things then, she was sure, she wouldn't have approved of any more than she did this. But she remembered when he had let go of it, and crossed over. Freed himself to stand tall and straight again, in command of himself and his own actions.
Ida had trusted him without question, then. The present was not as clear cut as memories. There was still a chance that none of it would ever happen, both good and bad, but there were parts she felt, deeply, that were meant to be. The thoughts turned over in her head, spinning in mad little circles of indecision before she took them firmly in hand, and pushed them aside.
"I still believe that under all of this..." She said, waving a hand at the blood and the black. "You are a good man. A protector, not a predator. I know what you can be, and its so much more than this."
What are you going to do about it? Ida took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"I... care, very much, about you." I love you. False memories or not... "But I can care and not agree with what you're doing. Could you promise me not to hurt civilians, unless they tried to fight you? Surely you can feed that... thing without killing people to do it. If you can agree to that, I can walk away. All I want is to keep the people in this city safe."
I don't want to fight you, I hope you know that. But I think you know I would, if I had to.
It was an answer, in a way of being a non-answer. Ignoring his words in part, and substituting subtle, unpleasant ultimatums through what was unsaid like a snake of a politician. Titan frowned mightily, then the side of his lips opened in baring teeth. She is going to demand me make promises and concessions? For what? On what account? To please her?
“My oath is to the Throne of this world, and it is owed all my promises. You are the trespasser here, Eternal Ida, belonging with your heart-star of a world far away. Promises are not owed you. Or what? You speak in your silence with crooked words. Or we will be enemies? You already attack what is mine, what is Metallia’s. You make orders without a scepter. Without a house.” His hammer drew to his good hand, the weight of it lifted and rested on his pauldron. “Will you promise to take the knee?”
“I will protect what is mine, arrow or sword or spear. Eternal Senshi Ida, you don’t have much magic left. This is my glove, thrown down.”
Whimsical Blue
Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 4:12 pm
He wasn't going to back down, and maybe that was her fault for mishandling things. She wasn't very good at stuff like this... when someone's view of the world, their values and morals, conflicted with her own. She felt like she needed to apologize, but what good would that do? She wasn't sorry she refused to turn a blind eye to murder... she was only sorry it had to be him.
There was a good man in there. She'd seen him, known him. Even before the memories. Her eyes pinched with the flutter of pain, but she straightened, watching him lift his hammer.
Good people could make the wrong choices. Good people could be swayed, when filled with Chaos, to think what they were doing was justified. Or even when they weren't.
"I'm never going to be your enemy, but I'm not going to stand aside for you." She said, and her mind whirled with what to say to him, what would fix things. Was there anything? "I didn't think I needed a scepter or a house to be worth something to you."
It was maybe best to stop trying, for now. She couldn't give up her values to please him, just as he seemed to want her to accept his as they were. She had as much validity as he did, didn't she?
"I'm not a trespasser, I was born here just like you were. I didn't ask to come here, or to have this starseed. Did you?" Ida took a deliberate step back before she settled herself into a defensive position, her hands up by her chest. "I won't bow to an... usurper to become a slave, and I won't stand idle while you hurt people who can't fight back. You're right, I don't have much magic left, but if you can't be swayed, then I won't either."
She didn't have much, but she accepted that. He could potentially hurt her very badly, but she accepted that to, even if her heart didn't truly believe it. She couldn't just walk away from this, not now. At the very least, the youma had to be dusted.
"Let's go." The senshi said before she rushed him, hoping to duck under his guard and hit the youma beast's face with crossed, braced arms and her full eternal strength.
“This is land of the Queen. “ But she kept going on and on, like a speech. Then she was trying to cross the bowshot that remained between them, like that wasn’t time to prepare, wasn’t the trade of melee weapons and distance ones.
“You remain here,” The hammer was shifted up, like she were a railroad spike to drive down, or a thorn into the soil of the Earth she didn’t belong to. Ida did not understand at all. Consent didn’t matter when none had the power to overthrow the Sovereign. She prattled on with pride about how right and good and just her position must be. As if his thoughts on worth mattered. “Her law. “
Even so modified a blow, requiring less of his own arms to power it, was too slow. She was onward, past him as she wanted and at the Youma Bear. The Hammer struck the ground. The bear, though, was still a General’s Youma instead of some basic mook from the rift released for wild havoc. It had the time of her approach, her dodging and weaving, and prepared. It took her attempt to its face with open maw. Many teeth, too many there than nature, only some of which smashed and ashed. The rest bore down on those gauntlets and wrists with multiplied force beyond that of the bite strength of polar bears or grizzlies.
Hold senshi it thought, it tried. Hold her and crush her for its General to do the same.
Whimsical Blue
Posted: Thu May 17, 2018 12:53 pm
The shadow of the hammer slid across her as she rushed past, a silent prayer sent into the ether that she be fast enough... and she felt the breeze as it passed, heard the whistle of air being torn apart with it's fall just behind her.
He was large, and more powerful now than she was, if she were truthful with herself. But her size gave her speed that he lacked, encumbered by his size itself even beyond the hammer he swung about. She was past and the youma filled her sights... far larger and more menacing up close than it had appeared from a distance. Ida braced herself as it's maw opened, ready for her, and she slammed into it full force.
A pained noise escaped her as the monster bit down, what teeth she hadn't destroyed finding flesh to pierce as her bracelets rattled against them. It wasn't just a savage attack, though... It didn't rip and tear alone, but gripped and held. Pain burned up her arms as she jerked herself backwards, attempting to release herself, but without the right leverage it's grip was tighter.
She had to make it release... and all she could think of was hurting it enough it did out of surprise or a desire to escape the pain. With her arms held, all she had was her legs... and Ida jerked a knee up with a grunt, folding herself in half to bring it up into it's lower jaw... or whatever she could reach.
Shattering it's jaw seemed wishful thinking, but maybe she'd at least get it to let go. Titan was still behind her, and the longer the monster had hold of her, the more time he had to turn on her too.
Skeiðbrimir chuffed through the closed maw, ashy spittle making a cloud with the impact. In the dim malice of it’s mind, it hoped the senshi suffered with the impact of the teeth and pressure on the arms in the same jaws that she kicked, Terrible Senshi. It braced, certain the third blow coming to both would ash the rest of what remained of its mouth: its General pivoted while the eternal jerked, his hand already letting go as she bucked her knee upwards. Black knuckles swung out in a backhand for The Enemy caught between.
She speaks of protecting the people of this city. Oaths to the Throne are Oaths to not a city, but the whole of the Earth. A foolish thing. A foolish thing to argue. Why should there be battle here? What battle is there between a city and the world that city is on?
