|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon May 28, 2018 10:24 pm
Ochre felt a lot better after Xenotime returned home, though it didn't completely offset the displaced nervousness he felt all the time. Sure, he did what he could to figure out where his brother went, and he got help out of Sylvite to pursue any loose ends, but he never actually found Umber. And turning the investigation over to Schörl left him feeling even more antsy instead of relaxed.
So while his life took a turn toward the good, it still wasn't great. But it was good enough, Ochre decided, that he could start branching out again. Maybe he wouldn't just be wandering around meeting new people this time. Maybe he'd do something else, like pick someone off the list of new lieutenants to spar with, or look up some of the newest corrupted senshi, or —
He couldn't keep putting it off. Ochre sighed to himself; he knew he needed to reach out to Sylvite. And nervousness wasn't really an excuse, either — even if he wasn't used to treating people like subordinates, he needed to try his hand at maybe guiding some of the newer Negaverse agents. It was with needling anxiety that he called his tablet communicator from subspace and held the microphone to his mouth. He took a breath, faltered, then looked out at the vast expanse of empty courtyard before him. It was as good a place as any for this kind of meeting, but — nope, he was doing it. No more time to waste.
"Um," he faltered into the silent tip. "Lieutenant Sylvite, this is Ochre. Well, Eternal Sailor Ochre. But we already know each other's ranks, so…" Wow, bad start. "Uh, can you meet me in the courtyard of that weirdo new development that nobody asked for? You know, the one on the other side of North End Park. I mean, I can always summon you here, but it seemed a little nicer to ask. Less intrusive or something.
"Anyway… Yeah, uh, that's it. See you soon, I hope. Ochre out." He sighed again; pretending to be a superior would take more work than he bargained for.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2018 7:19 pm
Sylvite’s response was, for better or for worse, immediate. It wasn’t like she spent any time she could be powered up as not powered up, after all. Also she couldn’t really claim to be doing anything important. She was kinda doing backflips off a fancy bank. She stumbled a bit on her landing, not that anyone was around to see, and then with a little sigh she plopped down into a sitting position and pulled out her communicator. “Hi, Ochre,” she said. “Yep, it’s Sylvite! Yeah, I can be there! See ya!” It did sound like he was at least trying to be formal, but since Sylvite had actually tried her hardest on the whole investigation thing and was doing okay on the energy front, so she was pretty sure she wasn’t in trouble this time and wasn’t too bothered on trying to sound fancy. Blinking at her communicator, she realized her mistske in sitting down. She groaned loudly into the night, maybe annoying some late night workers. Then she felt way better, got up, and started bouncing across roofs. She knew basically where she was going, so it didn’t take her too long to get to the park and then to the weird construction zone. First she just saw a couple of of those big yellow machines. She walked past them, though, into the more finished side of things, and yep. There was Ochre in all his fancy hair and clothes. She grinned and waved. “Hey.” She started heading over. “Sorry, I didn’t have cookie cash this time, but there’s always the candy if you’re interested?” She plopped down cross legged in front of him. “Anyway, what’s up?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2018 2:11 pm
Sylvite didn't take long to arrive, and Ochre was pretty glad for it. He knew he was really good at rumination and second guessing himself — he didn't know how many knots he'd twisted into his braids over the years for exactly that — so the little time she spared him was pretty relieving. Ochre breathed a slow sigh, let his shoulders slump for a moment, and clapped his hands together.
"Don't worry about the cookies, really. I sorta get into trouble with those anyway…" His stomach churned as he considered the offer. Wow, you could really fatten someone up if they were stuck on desk work. A few extra coffees, some scones, and a bunch of cookies later, and they get like fifty pounds overweight.
"But, um," Ochre chewed his lower up. A ringed hand strayed to his hair where he pushed the pads of his fingers through a brilliant red braid. "Okay, so, I thought you did really good with taking to Haüyne and Faustite for me. It's not about what we found out, and more about how well you did with the assignment, you know? So I wanted to thank you." He smiled, albeit wearily. "It means a lot." He wondered how much it really meant to say that. Thanks didn't pay bills, or gain quotas, or replace the commanding officer that left her by the wayside. Thanks didn't give her a sense of accomplishment. Thanks didn't give her cookie cash.
And Ochre couldn't help with most of those. He couldn't help with a lot of things, including his own brother's disappearance. Again, he wound and unwound one of his braids around his fingers.
"And I wanted to return the favor, you know?" Ochre sunk down into a seated position as well, though he kept one leg straight and the other bent to press a heel against his knee.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2018 6:00 am
At the praise, Sylvite's eyes went big. It wasn't the usual sparkling, bright big, but more of a slightly glazed, almost deer in headlights look. She thought back to those interviews, which to be honest were kinda a struggle and then the paperwork which was just as confusing and way less fun. Plus, she wasn't really used to people in the Negaverse actually being nice about stuff that she'd done. Like, what? Still, it was pretty cool. She broke into a little giggly grin. "Oh, thanks," she said. "I'm glad I made sense and everything. I'm still trying to get the hang of the whole interview thing, but it was actually pretty fun." She leaned forwards onto her palms, going properly bright eyed. "Okay. So like obviously you Nega senshi are the best, and Haüyne was kinda different, but in a cool way, and then Faustite." She leaned in even more. "Faustite was like, part youma. But in a cool way, it was weird." Him saying that he wanted to repay her got her attention. She stopped talking and blinked. That one she really wasn't expecting. That one she really didn't know how to react to. She sat up straighter and smiled a little and blinked more. "Oh. Uh, okay," she said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:33 pm
All the praise she spread around left him grinning bashfully, and he felt like an idiot for doing so. Most Negaverse agents and senshi strove to be serious and intimidating and seriously intimidating. They wanted to be seen as these fearsome, respectable pinnacles of their rank or something. But Ochre lacked that sort of temperament — he knew it — and Sylvite didn't strike him as the type that needed to be cowed into servitude. In fact, she responded to his requests really nicely without him having to bring up some kind of punishment.
So Ochre tried to get to the point. Again he resumed fumbling with one of his braids, where fingers pressed through the wefts and met each other through each iteration. He hummed first, then answered in a stammering tone. "Um, I was thinking… I mean, you mentioned you don't have a commanding officer, right? So, uh, I dunno if you want one, or if it would be a good thing, like…" Jeez. This is starting to sound pathetic.
"I could be your commanding officer if you want? It's not, like, a super great reward or anything, but it's a lot easier to pull strings for you as a formal subordinate, you know?" Ochre felt his face catch fire.
She's gonna think you're lame or creepy. At least he tried.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2018 7:12 pm
She sat there, her grin turning into a frown as she watched Ochre grow more and more nervous. He said he she'd done well, right? So this was really weird, but then he'd been kinda nervous before, too. By the time his fidgeting progressed to mumbling, she said, "Hey, if it's gonna stress you out you don't-" But then he finally managed to spit it out and she stopped and cocked her head with that same curiosity. "Wait. What?" She blinked. You can do that? She bit her tongue on that question. No need to stress the dude out more, even though she'd never heard of senshi taking on agents like her. He was all proper about things. He'd know. "You'd do that?" she asked. Usually, her grins came all at once, but this one came slowly as she blinked up at him, not quite believing it. Here he was, though, offering. "You would?" She could have a real commanding officer, and not just that but a cool sweetheart senshi who'd already managed to keep track of her and give her a fun mission. If he could pull strings and get her out of Lieutenant finally that'd just be icing on the cake. She clapped her hands together, eyes properly sparkling now. "Ochre, that'd be like the best thing ever."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 11:58 am
He wasn't sure what to expect at first. And when she stammered out a what, he thought maybe he'd said the wrong thing, or gone too fast, or she already had a superior officer and Ochre just didn't know about it, or something else that he never even thought to consider —
But as he saw her face start to light up, surely, his nerves relaxed and he exhaled the breath he never realized he'd been holding. She wasn't mad. She wasn't about ready to deck him for not realizing she had an officer. And she wasn't going to brush him off like some weirdo flake who was trying to do something shady. No, he was actually being taken seriously as an officer of the Negaverse, even if he was a senshi with a rocky history. That was a first.
A really cool first. Ochre grinned too, then nodded. "Whew, I thought maybe at first you'd be like, 'no thanks', you now? But it's really easy. I can get the paperwork done tonight and then it's just however long for them to update the database. And that's just to keep it official-looking." As far as he knew, they didn't need to wait that long to start doing training and looking into where best to apply Sylvite's skills. Nobody was going to raise any objections — least of all his brother, sadly — so there weren't going to be any questions raised about it either. Just another floating lieutenant scooped up into the hierarchy.
"Just, um, let me know if I'm doing a bad job, okay? And I'll do the same." He'd have to as the superior here. This was going to be a weird change.stari_maga iirc she's been put in for captain, so is there something specific you would want feeding into reason for rank up? if not, are you ok with going over her quota stats being their first order of business?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:44 pm
Still hopped up on the excitement of it all, Sylvite practically slammed her hands into the ground and wiggled as she leaned back, almost knocking herself over in a failed attempt to go more relaxed. Recovering from that, she let herself lean forwards instead, her knees still bouncing like mad. "Oh, don't worry. If I was gonna say no to you, you would know," she said with a quick eyebrow waggle, "But it's not like that or anything! I mean like I said I probably need some guidance. It's just..." she trailed off and sighed and in a second she was sitting stock there on the ground. She swallowed. This wasn't the kind of stuff that seemed good to talk about, but if Ochre was gonna be her superior she could be a little more real with him, right? Plus if he was getting all worried or whatever he especially deserved the truth. "I just didn't know if you could or like if it was even gonna happen? Like yeah back in the day I was kinda avoiding Umber a little but but I always figured he was like in the background watching and judging me or something, I don't know how this stuff works." She was usually a fast talker and now her words were tumbling into each other. "And since he's been gone I just figured no one else wanted me either, and like I didn't know who to ask or which of the other generals were jerks, y'know?" She hadn't cared for a long time, but as she'd been getting into more fights lately her lollipops had started feeling more and more silly. But wow. She'd just been trying to make Ochre feel a little better and now here she was rambling like a crybaby or something when this was a good day. "It doesn't matter though! We're here now." She grinned again and started rocking back and forth. "You're gonna do great and I'll try my best for you." She really would. Strickenized Oh yes it's time for Sylvite but with knives. Quota is fine, possibly encouraging her to update the database would be good.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2018 7:12 pm
The truths she was beginning to give were a lot more difficult than Ochre expected them to be. His mouth pulled into a sympathetic frown while Sylvite related the story of the Negaverse's benign ignorance with her. Once abandoned or watched or stalked by Umber, now she was left to her own devices with nowhere to go and a reticence to turn to anyone else. Ochre could get that. He'd felt that same level of abandonment in his early years.
But maybe that was what the Negaverse was going for? If everyone got neglected early on, then the stronger ones would succeed and eventually promote, leaving the weaker ones to flounder. Or that's how they looked at it, which was a lot like how Umber looked at it.
"Um, well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I definitely want you around. If other people don't, then…" Ochre pursed his lips with a hum. "I guess they just don't know anything about you yet. I mean, not everyone walks into the Negaverse knowing what they're good at, you know? Or how they can contribute. That takes time.
"But… Okay, hold on, give me a second." Looking down at ring-laden fingers, Ochre mentally counted off in esoteric arithmetic. Fingers extended, then retracted, then extended again while he recited to himself the long list of demands placed on their agents. When he spoke again, half the fingers on his left hand still stuck out, forgotten with a mostly finished exercise. "So, you already know how to energy drain, right? Let's start by chatting about that. Um, I'm sure you've been around long enough to learn about all the quota stuff. How have you been keeping up with that? It's not too much trouble, right?"
Which, he realized then, he could check Sylvite's quota values. But was all that written into the Database? He couldn't remember. He should talk about the Database next anyway…
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 7:48 am
After the whole gut spilling session was over, Sylvite went a little red, but she smiled at Ochre's compliments, but that didn't really stop the blushing, and it didn't take long before she was a full on ball of flushed up cheeks and mushy emotions. "Thanks," she mumbled, getting it together enough to talk. "It really does mean, like, a lot, that's what I'm trying to say, and, uh, I'm working on finding my place and stuff. I liked doing the investigation for you, so maybe I can find more stuff like that?" Ochre was moving on to practical concerns, though. Quotas. Right. Of course. If having a superior officer meant more paperwork and like, evaluations and stuff, she wasn't quite sure how she felt about that, but since it meant having someone to help her out with all the Negaverse stuff, it would probably be worth it. Also, maybe she'd been spilling her guts a little too much, 'case he seemed pretty concerned about the basics. "Yeah, I know how to drain, Ochre," she said with a playful giggle. "I'm not floundering that much." She pulled out her ball of energy to demonstrate and held it in her palms, watching the swirls in the light as she pursed her lips in thought. "I'm pretty good at getting my quota in. I've only been short a couple times and that was because of stupid knights." Knights were the worst. "But other than that it's not bad. It's actually kinda fun." The energy orb went back into her pocket, and she grinned.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 10:34 pm
"You never know. Sometimes officers weren't really taught all that well? But you seem pretty quick to pick up on things? So um, I guess that was a little insulting, huh? Sorry about that." Of course she knew how to energy drain. That was basically the first thing they taught someone besides what their new gem name was, right? That and senshi suck and hooray Metallia. Maybe a little bit of hierarchy stuff, but definitely energy draining. And Sylvite said her stats looked good; it was pretty easy to check and see if they were properly being entered into the system.
So Ochre pulled his tablet pen out of the same nowhere that kept his civilian clothes and his house keys, and opened it to start the database connection. "Knights are completely awful though, you're right." Soon it booted and opened up to a minimalist login screen, belying nothing of its purpose.
A few taps, a keyword search, and Ochre found Sylvite's file. Someone actually kept her file up-to-date with quota levels even in Umber's absence, which was a leg up for her. And just as she said, only a couple shortages were found. "That looks really good." He scrolled a few times, fingers petting the surface, then stopped the search. Sylvite looked model for keeping up that responsibility.
Still, she could use a little more… Something. She'd been a lieutenant for a couple years; Ochre wanted to get her some upward mobility. "Um… Have you updated the Database before? It's been kinda lagging behind lately. I mean, it's not really my area of expertise, but it'll look really good on your file to put in a few entries." She didn't need him to figure out how to put in an entry, either — she could probably figure out what worked best based on what was there.
"But I think that's like… The closest thing we can get to an investigation for now. Until I've got more of an idea of where to go with Umber…" Ochre collapsed the tablet into its pen form.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 2:24 pm
Sylvite frowned. "Really? There's people that don't know how to energy drain?" That seemed really weird. "I mean I guess it makes sense that some people totally fall through the cracks even more than me, but I feel like if didn't drain at all for this long I'd totally get in trouble." She shrugged. It didn't matter anyway, as she'd been keeping up with her quota and having fun, so, no trouble. Also, she wasn't about to get mad at Ochre since he'd been her commanding officer for about five minutes now. It wasn't like he was going to know all of her records or anything. She waited while he pulled out the tablet, still feeling almost nervous for some reason, but all that dissolved into warm fuzzies when he agreed that she'd been doing a good. "Oh, thanks!" she said with her usual big grin. The database wasn't something she'd heard as much about. There was a link for it in the tablet, she knew, but she hadn't poked around in there too much except briefly during the Umber investigation when she'd found that she couldn't see any information about Negaverse officers. It seemed like it'd be right up her alley, though. "No, I haven't updated it," she said. "That does sound like it could be fun, though. Do you know anything else about that?" She got out her own tablet pen and tried opening it up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2018 10:46 am
"I dunno what their circumstances are," Ochre admitted. He met a couple, but whether they slipped through because paperwork got lost or if they never powered up or something else plain escaped him. He stared at the floor for a moment while he tried to come up with some better explanation, but only found himself frustrated afterward.
In any case, he didn't have to worry about it — Sylvite seemed more interested in moving forward with her own tasks, which was great for Ochre. He smiled lightly when the screen glow illuminated her face, casting the shadow of her nose and softening the features of her collar. He realized she looked like she was around his age; maybe they had a little more in common than he thought? More than the Negaverse, anyway.
"Um, it's pretty straightforward stuff." Ochre placed his hand on his hip as he looked over her shoulder at the display. Names, numbers, occasional images flashed in her perusal. "Basically what we try to do is, uh, catalogue every White Moon senshi or knight we come across. Dark Mirror senshi, too. So, like, say you meet one, and you get their name, and you look them up after. They don't have an entry. Then you just make one with all the information you've got and it's there for anyone in the future. Oh, and, um, if you notice there's an entry in there with no name and it matches the description of a senshi you just met, you can update that database entry. Same goes for if they're a different rank than what's listed when you met them.
"That stuff goes through some kind of approval process. I think with the Information branch? Then it gets posted to the database and you're credited with the entry." Ochre nodded, his usual shorthand for closing an explanation.
"The updates can really help make you look good for promotion."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2018 11:53 am
She hadn't played around with her tablet too much just yet, and she grinned as she made her way through a couple menus and then, yep, there was a database in front of her. It was a little boring at first glance, just lists of information in stark black in white like a lot of the Negaverse paperwork. Even half focusing as she listened to Ochre, she could see that a lot of stuff in was actually kinda interesting and would be very useful. Names, attacks, that kind of thing. It really needed some color, though. Sylvite felt like the Negaverse could do that much, at least. Maybe she could try figuring something out, color coding would make it way cuter and more practical- but no, she was just a little lieutenant, after all. She could have fun with her energy draining but she didn't think anyone would want her messing with any programming. It was fine, though. She probably wouldn't even be thinking about that stuff if Ochre wasn't bringing up promotions. She glanced back up at him. "You think so?" She did a quick flip through the last couple names and then nodded. "I mean, yeah, I guess I can probably try to do a little more, and this seems pretty simple and cool." Even though it mostly seemed like the basics, if she wanted to learn all the cool secrets she was gonna have to prove that she could handle the other stuff first. That made sense. Then, there were the branches. Right. She hadn't thought about those in a while, but maybe looking into them wouldn't be a bad idea. "Are there like, requirements for joining the branches?" she asked. "I think I might be able to do Information stuff."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2018 5:03 am
"Not really. I mean, they want you to get recommended for a branch before you transfer, but that's it." At least, Ochre hadn't needed to undergo some kind of transfer test before officially becoming part of a branch. Neither had Umber. And a lot of people got cleared out of SpecOps after that meeting, he heard, but more people had probably transferred in since then.. Or he helped so; it would suck to leave that branch empty for too long.
"Okay, um, updating the database will be your first assignment then. Just report back to me when you've done it and I'll put that in your file. Um…" Was there anything more he needed to say? Ochre chewed his lip for a moment. He looked at a nearby tree, then the pavement, then Sylvite, then the sky as he walked himself back through their conversation. No, didn't seem like he forgot anything. And if he did, well… It was already forgotten.
"You're dismissed?" Ochre cringed a little at the finality of the statement. "I mean, you can hang around if you want, that's just… What they want us to say when we're done giving orders and stuff. " She probably had other things to do, like homework and chores and friend obligations. Dismissing her was a good thing.
And Xenotime would call it good practice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
