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 Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2018 1:51 pm
Ashley was a simple dude. A simple dude, in a simple world. A small simple bubble world. His simple small bubble world consisted of him picking up his groceries and taking a walk in the evening, enjoying the cool brisk air because it was a nice evening.
Snow still piled off to the sides of the strees, and some people still had christmas lights, despite it being close to end of winter. One more month and then they'd be dancing in spring showers and flowers.
Ashley adjusted the paper bag he carried, humming as he turned down his favorite alleyway, and only paused when there was....two figures in it! It wasn't a well known back way, so he was surprised to see people here! As he moved closer, he could see a smaller woman, doing something....to someone else. Who was making not happy sounds.
Oh my god, he stared, was he watching a mugging in the alleyway?!?!
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Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2018 8:48 pm
As a general, Zircon had other things to worry about than simply collecting quotas. She had her research to compile and her subordinate officers to manage, as well as a strict regiment of training and therapy to keep her in shape in spite of her injuries. It left her little time for personal projects such as this one, which meant discretion was a lower priority, but it was worth every chilly night collecting energy to free up Harmotome's schedule. After all, the lieutenant had a specialized skill set, and Zircon wanted to make sure she had the time to properly use it.
There was little resistance a civilian could offer against a general of the Negaverse--all Zircon needed to do was teleport behind them, move them to an alleyway, and hold them against a wall until they stopped struggling. However, despite the businessman's healthy appearance, he only drained for a moderately small orb of energy before losing consciousness, lulling uselessly in the general's grasp. Zircon huffed, letting the suit and tie fall to the alley in a heap of unconscious middle management.
It was then that she noticed she was no longer alone.
Zircon's gaze snapped to attention at the sight of Ashley, her amber eyes trained on his every move. Frowning, she stowed her quarry in a pocket for safe-keeping and turned towards him, considering her options. It was bad PR to let someone go after they'd seen a draining--this young man would just make for one more testimony that the Infiltration branch would have to suppress later on, and she was easily enough described to have the blame pinned on her if push came to shove. It was an oversight in her planning to be in a place where she might be visible--now it was her job to clean up the mess.
With a sigh, she stepped forward and pulled herself through space, appearing within arm's reach of the man in an instant. "You should have looked the other way," she told him softly, her expression blase as she reached out a hand and began to sink her fingers into his chest. It was an inconvenience, to have to explain a murder to the General-Sovereigns, but she could always use his starseed for her research. Waste not, want not.
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Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2018 4:43 pm
Ashley had no idea what he was witnessing. He hadn't heard of events happening in the city that required more of his energy and time besides random crimes. Every city had crimes.
"W...What?!?!" Ashley yelped, as the smaller woman literally appeared in front of him. His eyes darted to the alley where the body of another was slumped over and thoughts raced through his incredibly slow and thick skull.
"That person is dead." He managed to get out, as the first and already obvious statement. As her hand dug into his chest, he yelped again, grabbing at her wrist/arm and trying to pull it away.
"No...No. Please don't!" Ashley was not some manly man, he had always been a kind of doormat. But he was a doormat that wanted to live!
"I'll....I'll do anything! Please!" Ashley begged, "Please, Whatever you want, just don't kill me."
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Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 7:26 am
Zircon huffed, rolling her eyes. "He's unconscious, don't be dramatic," she responded curtly, her hand through his chest up to the knuckles. She watched him dig at her arm with an unimpressed stare, so pathetic in his attempt to cling to whatever life he may have had. The general didn't see what all the fuss was about, truly--if he spent his days skulking around in alleyways interrupting other people's business, then she was doing him a favor.
Then again, he was begging her, and she had rarely spent this much time in conversation with someone meant for youma fodder.
Her fingers brushed against smooth stone and her instinct was to pull away, sever the connection as quickly as possible, but she stayed her hand, if only for the moment. Zircon leveled her gaze on the man, considering his frightened countenance and the possibility that he might actually be useful. "That's a pretty tall order from someone who got caught snooping around," she explained dryly, curling her fingers around his starseed with a squeeze. Even then, her impulse was to pull, to drain, to pour chaos into him until he shattered, but she forced herself to be patient. Something about his desperation was...refreshing.
"And why should I let you live?" Zircon swept his legs out from under him with a brush of her toes, but held him steady as she lowered him to his knees. "Do you have something more valuable than your silence?" Amber eyes bored into him, searching for something of worth in his meager attempt at survival. His life, his death, his future, all of them coexisted as a warm pulse of energy in her palm. It was fascinating.
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Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:13 pm
"He looks dead!" Ashley didn't think arguing would help though, and he was sitting in the most pain he had ever been in his life. How did he sell himself to someone he had never met before? He just didn't want to die.
He was too young to die.
""This was...my way home!" He huffed out at her, "Wrong time, bad luck."
He winced in pain again as she squeezed, but the most sound he exhaled was a small sound of pain. "I'll work for you. I'm....I am a quick learner." He held on to her hand painfully.
His body was shaking, but the gaze met with hers. "I'll do anything for you. Whatever you want, I'll do it. Run errands, be a b***h boy. Fight." He tried to shove the arm away but she had such a solid grip for a smaller woman.
"I will become useful, just don't kill me."
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2018 11:55 pm
"Unfortunate," Zircon quipped back, raising her eyebrows. Bad luck wasn't a good enough reason to merit saving him, not when people died for their bad luck every day, if not by the war then by happenstance, terrible accidents or disease. She could work with a quick learner, though, someone frightened and malleable, and she liked the way he continued to struggle despite the pain he must have been in. It was endearing, in a way.
He also made eye contact, which was critical for any job interview as far as she was concerned. Boring into his gaze, Zircon's lips pursed as she considered the merits and the risks of having another lieutenant, all the while holding back the reins on her impulse to take, to consume. He wasn't much of a threat to her, now or as a lieutenant. If it turned out he was too much of a liability, she could always kill him later, but there wasn't exactly a way to kill him first and ask questions later.
"If you live, it is to serve," she stated, her eyes steady and searching. Zircon began to squeeze on his starseed again, but this time she did so with directed focus--she called on the chaos that made her the general she was, let it billow and coil in her chest like a cloud of dark smoke. "Whoever you are now doesn't matter--going forward, you belong to the Negaverse." And then at her command, she directed the chaos out of her starseed and down her arm to his chest, where she let loose the impulse to take and pushed the dark energy into him until it seemed he would shatter.
When she felt certain he could take no more, she released him, putting a finger to her lips while she silently assessed of the look of him dressed by Metallia. Though she didn't show it, she couldn't help but feel a little pride--for the first time, she had brought someone into the fold without sovereign assistance. For the first time, this lieutenant was hers and hers alone.
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2018 11:13 am
Ashley didn't understand the look in her eyes. There was such a firmness and resolve. She was assessing him, and perhaps assessing the way he handled the struggle they were in. It was like he was....albeit forcibly....in a job interview.
His arm froze as she made her call, the immediate relief coursing through him before immediately being drowned away. Pain, hot and vicious and cold and stabbing assaulted his whole body, and the betrayal of her words did not meet her actions. His face whipped up as he looked at her, clearly angry and deceived.
Negaverse, he didn't want to know what it was, but whatever it was cause the pain racking in his body. He almost felt like he was breaking, and then the pain eased. It eased away and encompassed him in warmth and Zircon in front of him felt, dare he say it, welcoming. Like a mother to a child.
His hands came down hard on the cement, his breathing labored. After a few moments, a few blessed moments, Sinoite stood and looked down at his clothes, a uniform of burgandy red replaced his loose comfortable clothes. He was even wearing....heels.
His eyes narrowed and then he looked at her. "What is this?" He stood back taller now, and since he wasn't dead, she would probably clearly explain her intent for such an outfit and.....the assault of whatever he was feeling now. "What is the name of this?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2018 2:36 pm
"It's a glamour, caused by chaos," Zircon explained, a little matter-of-fact while reaching into her jacket for what appeared to be a pen. She snapped it open, where it formed some kind of tablet, and with one hand she began to thumb through the database, her brow furrowed. It was inconvenient, not to have all of the paperwork on hand, but she supposed that was the price she was going to have to pay for being so off the cuff.
"You survived the chaos transfusion, which means you're a lieutenant of the Negaverse now," she continued, thumbing through a list with a pensive tilt to her brows. "Lieutenant...Sinoite." She nodded once, and snapped the tablet pen shut, glancing back at the newly minted officer. Zircon scoffed a little at how tall he was, and in heels to boot. She vastly preferred the sight of him on his knees.
"My name is General Zircon. As an officer, you report directly to me in all matters, unless a General-Sovereign intervenes." She walked past him with a small beckoning motion, an instruction to follow, and she walked back towards the slumped suit in the alleyway, scuffing the unconscious body with the toe of her boot.
"If you aren't aware, Destiny City is the last foothold of a hostile magical offensive that threatens to consume the Earth. As agents of the Negaverse, we are the only line of defense between ourselves and White Moon Senshi." She didn't kneel down, but she let a hand hover over the man's body, and after a moment's concentration, it began to glow, sapping light from his figure into her grasp.
"The senshi and their knights are all imbued with strange supernatural abilities, fueled by off-planet sources," she continued, coalescing that light in a single pearl of energy. "The power you feel right now is Metallia, but she can't power an army of her own will, so you will be tasked with providing her energy in return. It's the price we all pay for admittance." She held out her hand and the small bead of light for his perusal.
"Your quotas will go to me, and I will bring them to Metallia. Do you understand?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2018 11:16 pm
He didn't believe what he was watching right now. She was matter of factly just writing on a tablet, an electronic device available anywhere that appeared literally from...anywhere. He dared not interrupt her in her business of what it was so far.
"Sinoite?" He couldn't grasp it at first and then slowly it dawned on him. Her name, his own name. Minerals? They were codenames. Military did that. Was he in the military now? A chaos....military? What did Chaos mean? He had so many questions but fear was running far and deep.
He followed after her, dutifully following in step with her as he was taller and it was harder not to pass her walking gait. His gaze looked over the item before raising again to look at her.
"You didn't kill him then?" It was important for him to understand, "If we are the last defense, why are we....what are you doing to this man?" He waited, "Why does the news not say anything about these...." he mulled on the word. "Off world beings? How did they come to Earth? Why are we not peacefully negotating with them?"
The questions stemmed quick and unsteady. "We're an army?" He waited, "Metallia is what?"
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Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 12:31 pm
Fear and questions. Two common responses, and both the sort that Zircon could work with. "Lieutenant Sinoite," she corrected softly, a gentle nudge in her voice to remind him of his place. Now that he was part of the Negaverse, it was on her head to make sure that he survived, and to do that he would need to understand and respect the hierarchy in play.
She regarded the downed body with an unimpressed stare. "No, but we could if we needed to," she explained flatly. "What I've done is drain him of his energy, and this essence fuels Metallia so she can in turn give us our abilities. It's a trade-off." Her lips pursed, but she allowed the rapid-fire succession of the other questions--better to seek this information from her than to try and get it from a less reliable source.
"The public at large is not prepared to understand the threat we deal with, and prone to panic," she responded in regards to the press, dismissing the tiny orb of energy and gesturing vaguely at...all of Sinoite. "We don't negotiate because what they want is fundamentally in opposition with our right to live. You can't negotiate with someone whose goal is your death. I've tried." Her lips pursed, and she gestured vaguely at herself, where the width of her leg sharply cut in to a construct of metal instead of bone and flesh.
"As for the senshi..." Zircon shrugged, turning her back away from her victims. "They're born on Earth, but they derive power from celestial bodies. They have an entire galaxy to populate, but they choose instead to try and take this one from us. Metallia is...difficult to describe." She paused to think, tapping her lips.
"She's from the Earth, like we are, but she's more than human. I've seen her shade, but she's more...the force that powers each of us in the Negaverse. She gives us the strength to fight." She glanced Sinoite down and up. "Well, her powers and a standard training regimen. We'll get you up to speed, don't worry."
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Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 11:40 am
"I see." He stiffened at the tone in her voice, his body coming to stand rigidly before her. His gaze only dropped to her leg for a second, before raising again, and regardless that she was smaller then him, he still felt completely overwhelmed.
"If they are born on Earth, why don't they just join Metallia as well?" He didn't understand, if they were all beings on earth, why couldn't they share?
"Oh. So she's like a god." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The events were taking a toll on him and while he knew he was suppose to impress the general who spared his life, he was exhausted. Being corrupted, begging for his life, surviving and now becoming basically enslaved.
"Training regimen?" The words slipped out on a sigh and he froze, "Pardon my rudeness general. I've never been in a....army."
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2018 4:15 pm
“Sometimes they do,” Zircon responded with a soft tilt of her head, thinking of the ones she’d taken before. “They’re only human, some of them are capable of seeing reason and being sympathetic to our cause. But you can’t trust any of them until they are a part of the Negaverse--any being not of the Negaverse is dangerous, and will likely wish you harm.” Taking little stock in the body slumped beside them, she stepped one foot over the other to the other side of the path, ignoring the businessman like he might have been a discarded garbage bag.
“Some people see her that way,” Zircon nodded, but did not elaborate. Sinoite would not be the first to inject some sort of spirituality into the Negaverse, but for Zircon it felt a little bit of a leap to refer to Metallia as some sort of divinity. But then...what was she, if not that? Zircon didn’t care to think on it much. Those semantics weren’t worth her time when there were quotas to be met.
“Apology accepted--we all have our first days.” Looking back, she offered up her hand expectantly, on the other side of stepping over the businessman. “Come. It’ll be easier to show you than tell you.” There were fewer things more sobering than the strange severity of Negaspace and the castle therein. Perhaps that would lend her new lieutenant some context.Pixie Nyxie HEY I am so sorry we should be able to end this on your tag?
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Posted: Fri Sep 07, 2018 10:48 am
She wasn't even going to let him rest. Did she realize how much pain that he was in after she had snagged his starseed? Corrupted it or did whatever he did? His body shifted again.
He had no choice but to take her hand, as only a fool would not do it. "I see." What choice did he have left now?
This was the end for him.
Drama intended.
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