|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed May 02, 2018 6:05 pm
Slumped, back bent at an odd angle, shoulder blades hooked cleverly over the wrought-iron patio chair, the young man looked a picturesque drunk in the deep evening. His shirt was pulled so taut to one side that it nearly freed his shoulder and on his chest sprawled a greedy, ineluctable beer stain. Board shorts and cheap open-toed sandals with the DCU logo completed the recently-graduated look. And, naturally, Michelob Ultra sat still sweating on the cut driftwood table. The veranda, cleverly shaded by silk palm fronds, wood latticing, and decades-old ivy, provided enough privacy from both sun and prying eyes that neither of them would risk interference.
Despite the smoke, Faustite cut a normal figure with enough obfuscation. He sat on a mismatched stool with violet orb in hand, soon to be dismissed to the ever-hungry womb of subspace. His vest lay discarded on the floor, his sleeves rolled as far as they could manage past youthful elbows, and his shirt laid unbuttoned over his clavicles. Tyrant temperatures called a heavy sheen of sweat to brow, arms, chest. And even as smoke continued petering from his back, Faustite thirsted for more water. Gallons of it.
But before him sat only a Michelob Ultra, still sweating, and still cold. The ice chest wasn't far. This particular rich youth intended to spend his evening with his friends on a private porch at the back of the bar or spend his time alone with a six-pack for a proper exercise. The chest, too, looked inviting.
He considered leaving before anyone else stumbled drunkenly upon the scene. One passed out college kid, one teenaged boy from a subterranean world. Instead, a daggered hand snapped out to seize the beer and he rolled its blessedly cool sweat across his forehead. Then he poured it into the proffered glass, waited moments for the foam to settle, and dumped the lot of it down the nape of his neck and back of his head. A welcoming cool settled into his clothes, onto his skin. He felt better for the moment.
But it wasn't enough. The ice chest still called to him. The rest of the bar sounded much too preoccupied by the licentious calls and rowdy, dulled voices from the other side of the closed door. He could dally a little longer before he left for more energy.beeeeeejoux hope this works <3 i figure the temperature is like 70 Oops, is also late April
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 06, 2018 10:39 am
The person that ended up stumbling upon the scene wan't drunk, though he would have liked to have been. It'd been a tug of ware between desire and obligation, and obligation had eventually won out for him. Baikal finally had the free time again for patrol, but, he also finally had the time to get out to the bars again. Tomorrow, he'd promised himself. Patrol tonight, and he'd treat himself to a night out of drinking and debauchery. A reward, not just getting out there again and defending the city against the beasts born from chaos, but also for graduating. Usually Baikal spent his patrols seeking out youma and eradicating them, hopefully before they managed to do any real damage. Hopefully. Tonight he'd had the same plan, and had been pleased when he'd found the aura of what he thought was one of the wild beasties. The closer he got though, the more he began to question that. It still felt like a youma, but it was...stronger, different. Like a few different flavors layered together, rather than just the one sitting heavy on the tongue. In the end he'd continued following the trail out of sheer curiosity. He traversed the roofs, it was just easier that way. Jumping from ledge to ledge until he'd reached the bar itself, and then creeping along the roof quietly until he was positioned above a little behind. His immediate thoughts on the scene were a bit muddied. It reeked of beer, as if someone had dropped a full bottle on the patio and shattered it. The smell rose up, baking in the late spring heat, and strong enough to make his nose curl. Distracting. There were only two bodies he could see; a college kid passed out on a patio char, and other younger looking man sitting near them. The latter seemed to be the source of the aura he was feeling, but it didn't... Baikal blinked, pale eyes finally making sense of what he was seeing, and it made him stiffen, cursing under his breath as he jerked away from the ledge. "What the ********?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 7:56 am
Skin scrubbed to raw cleanliness ambled forward, searching, waiting, looking for his own brand of dirt. Faustite stood and crossed to the ice chest. That pristine ache neared and he knelt before the chest, half-waiting for some castigation, half-expecting a diatribe.
'What the ******** it was. Faustite slipped his beer-slick head into the water, still peppered with cubes like distant islands. The numbing cold greeted him refreshingly, pulled gooseflesh from his arms. Anything further in noise from his interruption was lost to water's other world. He straightened then — hair only a thick mop now — and stood from the spot. Water dripped slovenly from his face as he turned his gaze upward.
Behind him, his victim started to snore.
"Man sees in the world what he carries in his heart, Knight." Faustite tugged down his rolled sleeves, caught now in their wet wads. Finally they surmounted the swell of his elbow with talon-picks. And when he shrugged out entirely from the shirt, carefully pulling it outward and upward over pipes, he spoke again. "So what do you see?" He cast his impatient, appraising stare upward to the other youth, though much older he was. Clad in Mercury's horned symbols, his uniform was traced over with arcs of light. Tight like a bodysuit in some areas and trimmed with fur in others. Fitted with goggles to which he frowned pensively. That wouldn't do in a fight.
And fight they might, given the page's curse.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 16, 2018 5:40 pm
When no immediate response, verbal or otherwise, followed his slip of the lip Baikal edged close to the ledge again to peer over it, breath held in anticipation of something, though what he couldn't be sure. The agent below had submerged his head in the ice chest beside him, body bent double to place the smoking pipes that protruded from his back in prominence. And even still Baikal's eyes didn't make sense of it. Not a singularity, but two separate things battling for superiority in his mind. Either an agent, or a monster. It couldn't be both. Except, apparently, it could. Shoulders slumping, Baikal exhaled carefully as he watched the agent below strip off his shirt before turning the weight of his full regard up to him. What the ******** am I even seeing? The question made him frown, and for a fraction of a second he sought for a deeper answer before just shaking his head and going for instinctive honesty. "Conflicting reality." Rumors verse experience. Expectation verse reality. Nothing was as it seemed, and there was always more than meets the eye. Balance is grey. There had been nothing in this powered war that had taught him otherwise. "What are you?" He sounded more puzzled than anything else, pale brows furrowed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 19, 2018 9:29 pm
"So you're the curious type that likes a spectacle. You want to figure out everything that tricks your senses." A pause, then a following smirk as Faustite dipped into sarcasm. "You read the plaques at a museum, don't you?"
This was simply one of many times where he explained his state, though this marked the first time he relayed the information to a knight. The rest of his opposition either knew or saw him for a monster, irrespective of any intelligence displayed. In a way, he preferred those types — they were honest about their prejudice. But for types like this page, like the gawking and bug-eyed officers who met him previously, even more for the ones that tried to treat him as human, he grated his teeth. They were the do-good types, the microaggressive types, the milquetoast types. Either they never wanted to change the world or they never became self-aware enough to realize a need for change. They thought themselves perfect in their observation of others, never once caring to look at their well-hidden racisms.
Hands stretched outward in mock presentation. "I'm a youmafied officer." Pipes glinted with a few snatches of sun where thin ribbons of smoke rose upward. They nearly reached for the page in a quick breeze.
Faustite straightened, then, and hands clasped over his stomach as he felt his temperature start to rise. Impatience begged him to cut their exchange short. His black gaze combed the page's front succinctly, gleaning the necessities out of glowing runes and attire mismatched to the season. "And you're a Mercury page," he observed curtly. "Name?" Expectation demanded that he come out of this better armed with information than the man he faced — their differential in rank and power demanded it of him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 4:34 pm
Shaking his head, the page gave a self-deprecating little smile as he loosened the scarf slung across his shoulders, fingers smoothing along the back of his neck in a familiar, almost nervous gesture. "I doubt I'm as deep as all that. Usually it's enough to just look at the pretty pictures and take'em at face value." There really wasn't a whole lot in life, even this powered life, that he found himself questioning. This officer being a rare exception. He frowned at the answer, brows drawing in as pale eyes slid from the officer's face to the pipes, the smoke swirling up from them before being caught by the breeze. Then back down again to meet that strange gaze. A question--many questions--rested on his tongue, but before he could give voice to any the officer was speaking again. It made him blink, features smoothing back into puzzled neutrality. "Yes, Baikal of Mercury." Hands lowering, he tugged at the half fingers of his gloves, drawing off first one, and then the other. It was hot. Too hot. He'd sort of forgotten how uncomfortable the coat and accoutrement got in the warmer months. The scarf followed a moment after, folded twice then fisted in one hand along with the gloves. "How..." His voice trailed off as he tried to think of the best way to phrase what he wanted to ask. "Sorry for being so direct, and possibly rude, but how did you get this way? I mean," the crease between his brows returned as he talked, free hand moving in emphasis to his words. "You weren't born this way, right?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 25, 2018 12:31 pm
"At face value. How quaint." Simplistic. The lack of thought applied rendered him a grunt at best — a shock troop. A soldier to grow and hew into orders precise. But did Baikal of Mercury have muscle on offer? As the page began to undress, he very nearly waited.
But the page instead fumbled with words and thought, as if foreign and newborn to him, and Faustite returned to cooling his overheated body. Winter stalled his furnace fires; summer stoked them unceasingly. With a smoke-laden sigh, Faustite stooped to splash some of the chest's sloshing ice water onto his face. Relief was short-lived with no breeze to tease him. Perhaps the page had magic that could serve the part. But perhaps not. Or perhaps he knew nothing of how to use that magic creatively.
Finally the boy unstuck his tongue enough to ask and the question left Faustite wanting. How did I get this way. Do you always ask the obtuse? He looked to the page nonetheless, face neutral if taxed with sweat and chilled water. "I was born like you." He stood and cast the excess droplets from his fingers. He spoke matter-of-factly, if dryly, about his own affairs. "I ate starseeds after I was awakened. I ate enough that they cursed me." The black on fingers and eyes were themselves evident — deep cuts of darkness against otherwise pale skin. But jutting nails and dark eyes gave no indication for what he was, precisely; that information was obscured even to him. "The rest is surgery," he added as index fingers swooped in J shapes.
Faustite settled into a slow pace with hands clasped behind his back. "Now, Baikal of Mercury. Show me your weapon."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 30, 2018 5:47 pm
Crouching down on the edge of the rough like some winter themed gargoyle Baikal listened with intent interest as the captain answered his question. Perhaps not in great detail, but to a satisfactory degree at least. Even if more questions sprung up in it's wake. Eating starseeds. Does that mean..? He shook his head, refusing, at least for the moment, to let his thoughts wonder down what he suspected would be a troubling path. The request to see his weapon proved a good distraction, and he hopped down from his perch as he summoned the snowball to his now bare hand. The coolness of it, melt dribbling down between his fingers and off the points of his knuckles, felt great in the late spring heat. "It's nothing impressive, and hardly useful in a fight beyond providing some sort of distraction." Smiling ruefully, he tossed it from one hand to the other. Pale eyes flicked from pale features down to dark fingered hands, and then back up again. "You're a captain, right? Do you have a name?" Was it different for the ones that were half youma? The curiosity was obvious.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 6:31 pm
You say it's useless as you watch a youma captain sweat to death. Observant, aren't you.
Faustite's mouth smoothed into a thin line, and his attention left Baikal's face for the snowball. In all of his approach, none spoke of threat. Of all the questions asked, each promised dewy curiosity over the humid oppression of interrogation. He lacked the practice of Schörl's craft. But in all the ways Baikal simple settled around his proven enemy, Faustite figured he had no great stakes in the war. No promise of glory or grandeur. No interest in sparing the world from its systematic culling. From being reduced to manipulable cattle.
Then he asked a question that earned a sharp look. Faustite rolled his eyes for what little good it did. "Captain Faustite," he offered brusquely.
Now that they stood at level with one another, and his draining victim still snored steadfastly at the table, Faustite stepped toward his foe. His hand raised, open, palm toward the sky and fingers splayed. It was not an invitation for a handshake, but a bid for the delectable snowball. For some answer to the contemptible heat.
"Now. Your weapon." Fingers scalloped into a beckoning motion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2018 7:10 pm
There was a patient moment between question and answer where Baikal's focus flickered from the half-youma captain to the growing coldness palmed in his hand. Then the answer, an introduction, and the page's pale features lit up in an easy going grin. "Nice to meet'cha," he quipped back, tone harmless if not outright friendly. The shine did dim, ever so slightly as the captain approached. The twitch of his lips and the subtle tensing of broad shoulders, but he watched, watching with brows raised and only the barest hint of any sort of wariness. A dark hand lifted to stretch between them, palm upright and fingers scalloped, and Baikal glanced down at it before pale eyes flicked back up to that pallor face. What harm could be possibly cause with a snowball? In Baikal's experience, next to none. He handed it over, curious as to what the captain wanted with it. If the interest went beyond the discomfort etched in the young man's features and the sweat beading on his brow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2018 6:36 pm
The page wore obedience like a crown. King Slave was the oxymoronic monicker he would claim for himself, and he'd wear it with all his veneered pride. Faustite's murmur came colored by a humid, albeit cooling, interest. "So obedient."
The snowball, now dripping, sent its runnels down the valleys between Faustite's knuckles. He raised the lump and pressed it to his neck where its chill spread down his back like lover's fingers. Droplets curled their Cs around exposed pipes, teasing skin and wicking away his discomforts. Chunks that melted off had caught on his shirt, his vest. Faustite minded none of it for how the chill spread and wicked away the day's oppressive scourge. Soon, the weapon wrapped from nape to forehead where he held it, shrinking as it was, against sweat-soaked skin. The knight's weapon was its own cooling balm.
He wondered, then, if those properties would carry into a lieutenant's weapon. If, swallowed black, he could dredge out that same usefulness. That same meek, easily collared helpfulness. "So trusting.
""I wonder." The words hung heavy as the air. "Would you surrender to Metallia if I told you to? Would you drop to one knee? To both?" Faustite shifted, his body ever moving, his feet burning out a restlessness with uniquely impotent steps. Behind him, the young man groaned a fool's groan — that same ancient grown heard from a man who's been had.
"You take great chances, Baikal of Mercury." He strode those last few feet, the snowball ever pressed to his forehead, until he returned it to both palms. Water traveled teardrop-light down his adolescent features, off his underdeveloped jaw. But the dark of his eyes blazed unflinchingly when he looked up toward his conversant. Heat sloughed off him liberally. "I must seem safe to you." He offered the snowball back with mere inches left between them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 5:15 pm
It wasn't the first time Baikal had heard that, but the circumstances were usually different. It left him tilting his head, brows creasing slightly as a puzzled look flickered across pale features. Was he meant to be obstinate? Argumentative? Hostile? He failed to see what good that would have done either of them. What would a fight have done for him? Nothing good, surely. At least this way he was learning something he hadn't been aware of before this chance meeting. Grey eyes watched the progression of the snowball across hot skin, melt running in rivulets down between dark fingers and into the collar of his shirt. Up across a thin skin to cool an over hot brow, and there the snow melted, mixing with the beaded sweat that had already been present there. He blinked as the captain spoke again, focus shifting down an inch to meet those strange eyes. It wasn't a question with an easy answer, and Baikal didn't know what to say. Like so many things, there was no black or white, no right or wrong. If he remembered correctly, Metallia was the head of the Negaverse, the great evil they were supposed to be fighting against. The..the being, or entity, or force that caused the corrupting that painted agents and senshi in blacks and dark accents. A few of which he counted as friends, or at the very least, not enemies. "I came close, once. Before I became a page." It wasn't exactly an answer, but he still didn't know what to say. The captain was moving closer, offering the snowball back to him, and Baikal reached out to push that hand back again, indicating he could keep what was left of it. "I've got more." A near endless supply, he suspected. His lips twitched in a half smile. "Not safe, exactly," he corrected thoughtfully, not entirely sure how to really explain things. His willingness to get close, to take those risks.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:40 pm
"That wasn't my question." That the page answered so obtusely, yet so circumspect, left Faustite wanting. The captain walked his lower lip into his mouth and chewed all his disappointments into it.
"Did you think about that answer? Did you ask yourself if the captain you see would be mollified with a non-answer? If I would nod along to an 'almost but not quite' about the power I serve? No — you didn't." Brows arched with their charge. This page beelined for him like a magnet on its opposite charge. Never once did he indulge in the self-awareness luxury to humans, to beasts, to the smarter youma. And if he possessed any self-preservation at all, he checked it at the door much like the college kid in their midst.
The Negaverse needs shepherds and starseeds. I know which you are.
With lidded eyes, he tilted his head. "But don't worry — you won't have to think soon." Smoke billowed from him afterward in thick gouts, filling the air about him with a screen thick like a stone wall and teeming with particulates. They whorled and sought, probing for throats and noses they could drown in their own industrious mess. beeeeeeejoux Dispersion ;;
Range: 3 foot radius with Faustite at the epicenter.
Duration: 30 seconds
Use Count: 3x
Miss Chance: Circumventing magic, stepping out of range.
Effect: Faustite draws his hands together, and a sound like an opening lighter may be heard. Smoke pours from Faustite in a deafening blast. Those caught in the initial blast endure a ringing in the ears and mild disorientation. Breathing smoke causes burning lungs, stinging eyes, and frequent coughing. Ringing ears and coughing symptoms linger after leaving the smoke for 5 seconds. Any lasting damage is defending player's choice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2018 5:48 pm
The air around the patio they were standing on seemed to cool by a degree or two, or at least that was how it seemed as Baikal watched the captain's features shifting. Unsatisfied with the page's answer, but Baikal didn't have another one to give. He didn't know what he'd do. He didn't know what surrendering to Metallia entailed. How was he supposed to answer something with that much weight at the drop of hat? Not that that seemed to matter. "I don't-" Pale eyes widened at Faustite's words, and Baikal had barely a second to process what was happening before the there was a sound like a coughing smoke stack and the smoke that rose up in thick clouds from the pipes on the captain's back darkened the air around them. Instinct suggested a startled gasp, the page just barely managed to suppress the with a hand hastily clamped over his mouth and nose. It saved his lungs from whatever the noxious fumes might be intended to do, but his eyes watered as he staggered backwards, trying to retreat outside the range of smoke. In his free hand he managed to summon another snowball, eyes streaming as his head whipped back and forth. Searching the thick smoke for any sign of the half-youma. Ready to pitch the icy ball at that pale face if he happened to spot it. I think I may have miscalculated here...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:33 am
"You waste my time, Page." He spoke from the thick, tortuous smoke. It swirled and roiled about him eagerly, ever searching for another mouth to eat. "You're nothing.
"You have no morals, no opinions, no experience, no exposure, no drive. You wander blindly with your neck shackled to the dull, dim doldrums of a modulated curiosity. You obey without thought. You ask impotent questions. And you don't know when you should use your legs instead of your pusillanimous head." How similar it was to facing Heliodor in the beginning — looking into baleful eyes, watching all the life of a man coalesce into a vapid, misunderstood hate. With Baikal, the only difference was the tone of his product. Even less potent than rage was disinterested neutrality.
If the rest of the White Moon adopted such an attitude, then Destiny City would be theirs in a week. Faustite stifled a snarl.
Summer's sticky, oppressive heat stayed his motions. "If I see you again, you die." Faustite melted into the air, then the remaining smoke whispered away.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
