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 Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 10:12 am
Anthony Darrow was on his lunch break. It was the middle of the day, and he opted to go to lunch at a nearby cafe that he liked instead of eating at the library's coffee shop. He liked to mix things up, sometimes, from bringing lunch or just eating out of a vending machine. Anyway, that vending machine hated him, and he knew it.
Eight times out of ten, it just ate his money or got the item stuck. He tried it all the time, anyway, though. He was just a guy for second chances, and always hoped things would work out.
He was walking back toward the library when he was pulled into an alley. He was not expecting it, and had no time to power up in response to it, though he would not have been able to anyway until he saw just what was attacking him. Giving away his identity would have been just as dangerous, in many ways as being attacked. Something heavy hit him in the back of the head and bright lights flashed.
He hit the ground hard dropping his cane and not feeling it as he was dragged further down the alley. Every time he felt consciousness creeping closer, he'd hear a voice somewhere above him, apparently in the middle of some raging dialogue, and then something else would hurt. He'd be kicked, or hit with that same heavy thing that got him in the head, and he'd pass out again.
Nighttime was creeping closer, the library having to get closed by the employees when Tony never came back from his lunch. Crocoite was sitting over Tony's body in the alley, watching the night settle and not yet feeling satisfied. He had so much more to say, so much more anger inside him for the life he had been forced to live because of his brother, who did not even bother to remember he ever had a sibling. The one son, the favorite, yet hated, son, that ruined it for Robert.
He kicked Tony again, but he was well and truly unconscious for now, leaving Crocoite to ponder his next move. He had let his anger seize him, and rolled with it, but now he had to figure out what the hell he was going to do. He couldn't just kill Tony, it would be too easy. He wouldn't suffer enough. But he was there, and vulnerable, and just asking for it.
It was a tough choice for the Lieutenant.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 10:50 am
Today had been a slow day. Sarah was at summer camp; Kyn had sent her off almost as soon as she'd been attacked by the Negaverse agent to protect her. Harmony was thankfully still in Europe taking photos. She thought about calling her home but didn't want to scare her. It wasn't likely the man was going to go all the way out there to hurt her. It wasn't his style, at least she didn't think so.
It was a big chance to take.
Ever since then she'd been hyper vigilant about her family, hiding and keeping tabs on as much of them as she could. The mother lion did not want to play around when it came to her cubs or her husband. Speaking of Tony she had made it a habit to check in with him a few times a day, at least via text, to the point of possibly making a nuisance of herself. Not getting a response to one or two wasn't immediately cause for concern, the library did get busy, but now that he'd missed four and evening was beginning she was in full blown worry mode. She quickly walked away from her neighborhood, powering up somewhere safe so she could cross town quicker.
She felt a Negaverse aura as she got close to the library, which made her heart sink.
Pinpointing it she dropped down into the alley and saw first the agent that had menaced her and then she saw her husband lying unconscious on the pavement. Her heart dropped though she was quickly flooded by anger more than fear or sadness. She had no forgiveness, not for this crime. Her hands moved to the metal ends of her garland, holding the metal tightly, completely willing to use it. Protecting Tony was her first concern; everything else was secondary.
"Back. Away." Her eyes narrowed. "Back away now."
Her powers weren't the most offensive, but she certainly knew how to use them.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:13 am
Crocoite felt something powerful heading his way and frowned, standing up and calling his cane to him. He held it in front of him, standing near his fallen prey protectively. No one was going to take it from him, now that he had taken the risk to attack him. It was not exactly as he had planned, but his impatience had gotten the better of him. Now he had to deal with it step by step.
This was a very powerful knight, he could tell that much. Like his General, as far as the impact of her aura, which meant he was well out matched. But that was not going to stop him from fighting her. This was his story, his life: no one had any business or right to get involved in the revenge that was so rightfully his.
"I'm not going anywhere, Knight," he snarled, lifting his cane in front of him. He usually chose the flight option, when it was all too clear that the fight side of him would be sorely beaten. In this moment, though, it was not a matter of cowardice or bravery: it was simply his hatred fueling him. For a very brief moment, he felt the will of Chaos inside him, and called back to it.
This was what he was given these powers for.
"This is none of your business. Get out of here, before I call my General to help me. She won't like you sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong."
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:43 am
Shalott felt a strange sort of calm descend over her. She was somewhere beyond anger, beyond fear. She just wanted the happy life they were supposed to have together. The until death part had come too close too many times for her to feel comfortable with it anymore. She pitied this man, whoever he was, and everything he represented. She'd still hurt him if she had to, but she wasn't panicked about it.
"I'm not afraid of you or your general," she promised lowly, growling. "And no matter your threats I'm not letting you hurt that man."
He was already too hurt. She needed to get him to a hospital as soon as she could, a place she hated to have him where he'd been all too often. The Darrows ought to have their own wing by now, considering all the injuries they'd sustained in the line of duty.
"Let me guess, you work for Painite?"
What other female general seemed to have it out for her family? Tony told her the general was changing but from this, her underlings beating a civilian half to death, that was hard to believe. Besides, like her husband with knights the General seemed to get around, influencing a lot of the Negaverse agents she'd met. She'd fought her on a few occasions and while her spear was wicked looking and deadly, she held her own mostly.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:54 am
Crocoite snarled. He knew lots of people were fond of Tony, so he did not question why a knight would want to defend him. The local librarian was a commonly known face, he supposed, but that was just one more reason to hate him. Why should he be so well loved? He deserved to be forgotten, and Crocoite was determined to make that happen.
Or at least if not forgotten, then mourned.
His eyes flashed when she guessed his General, though, clicking his tongue behind his teeth. Painite had a bit of a bad reputation, among the White Moon. Which, really, was a good thing. He used it to his advantage, hoping threats of calling her would aid him in battles. Right now, that did not seem to be the case.
Still, he took a moment to send her a message on his tablet, making a show of it so the knight knew he was serious about it.
"Yes, General Painite trained me, and did a very good job with it. Like you are not afraid of her, I am not afraid of you. You might be more powerful than me, but you still have weak points." All White Moon did. He took his cane and jabbed it down into Tony's back, making the librarian groan in pain. Maybe he could keep Shalott at bay by using Tony as a shield.
He was unaware of the irony in that thought.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:16 pm
"Then she's trained you to be as big of a fool as she is." She grinned, unconcerned when he started texting her. "You can tell her Shalott sends her regards. Apologize in advance for beating her underling."
From what she could tell the Lieutenant was about her age so she had no qualms about doing what needed to be done to stop him. It wasn't like she was fighting an impressionable child. This man made his choices and could live with them like every other adult. If he wasn't afraid of her now he would be soon. Painite, though, when would that b***h leave her family alone? So much for her theory about change.
When he made to hurt her husband again she immediately summoned her magic, causing thick thorny vines to wrap around his legs. What she knew that most did not was that if he didn't move they wouldn't hurt him. However, no one ever just froze. They all wanted to struggle and run and that worked against them. As she focused she took steps toward him, bringing the metal Earth symbols up, preparing to hit. She enjoyed the sight for just a few seconds before letting the magic fall. As soon as switched her focus the vines would begin to wither.
She threw a punch as hard as she could to his face using the metal in her hands as a weapon.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:37 pm
Crocoite did not take it personally when she insulted Painite, as he had no real fondness for her. His General was a means to an end, though he felt he was lucky to have gotten a strong one. Even if she was a detached leader that mostly showed him contempt and taught him through tough lessons. It was easier to learn that way, he supposed.
He certainly knew how useless a gentle heart would be in the Negaverse.
"Shalott, hm? I will see if she has any memory of you," he said, though Painite had mentioned her before. Another one she hated, though that was a long and seemingly always growing list. Sometimes he thought she was just making things up.
He was startled when the vines wrapped around him, though. He never really fought a full fledged knight before, and had not witnessed their magic. He only knew senshi spells, and mostly first rank ones to boot. This was vastly different. He moved to try and pull himself out, but that quickly showed to be the wrong move.
"Damn you-" he started, looking up from the vines in time to see her coming at him with a punch. It sent him sprawling, the vines now gone, and he hit the other side of the alley. Leaning on the wall, he shook his head, snarling but now away from Tony.
That. Had. Hurt.
Snarling, he charged back at her, swinging his cane, though it was a little wild from his anger and the ringing in his head from the hard hit he'd just taken.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 2:06 pm
""She'll remember" Shalott promised, knowing she for damn sure would never forget the General for as long as she lived.
The second he was away from Tony she stepped subtly between them, determined to protect him as best she could. If she called for Chaonis he probably would, just to get his dad to the hospital, but was that giving too much away? She didn't have time to enjoy the hit or contemplate her options before he was barreling toward her to launch his own attack. She let out an angry cry, blocking most of the hit with her arm. It started throbbing immediately.
"b*****d!"
She brought the metal back up and threw another punch to his side, following it by a kick. The skirt wasn't the most practical thing for that, her old uniforms had been better, but she managed. After all, she'd studied martial arts for years and wasn't going to let a long skirt hinder her. It was supposed to symbolize how she'd matured, she supposed, but it didn't feel like it to her sometimes. No matter how she tried to swear it off she always found herself right back here, fighting.
"Are you so much of a coward that you have to pick on a helpless man?"
She didn't mean that in a bad way, at least not toward Tony. He was certainly the heart of relationship but out of costume he wasn't much of one for fighting.
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Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:04 pm
Crocoite felt something crunch in his side, very unpleasantly, and he was sent sprawling to the side. Fighting a full knight was not a good idea, he was quickly coming to understand that. He was out of his league, by leaps and bounds, but it only furthered his determination. This was the kind of power he wanted, except he did not want to be bound by false morals and 'duty'.
He wanted to do what he wanted, when he wanted.
But that was still, clearly, a long way off.
"I do what I have to, to win. And he is not as innocent as you would like to believe. Still, I have no need to explain myself to the likes of you," he growled, getting to his feet as he spoke. He grimaced, favoring his side, but a sudden burst of dark energy came as a sudden wave of relief around him. Standing in front of him, spear in her hand, was his General.
Painite watched Shalott with her cold, yet deceptively innocent looking sea green eyes. She made a face, disapproval, and turned her head back toward Crocoite without fully looking at him.
"Get out of here. I'll finish this."
"General, I can assist-"
"No, you can't. Leave, you weakling. Get out of my sight. And you," she pointed her spear at Shalott, "who do you think you are, bullying my lieutenant?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 11:18 am
"Well, if you aren't going to explain I'll be happy to end things here and now."
Shalott growled and advanced on her enemy when a strong dark aura materialized. She didn't need to look to know who it belonged to but she did anyway. Painite. Just the thought of her never failed to induce rage. The woman hurt her husband, hurt her son, and hurt others that they cared about. There was nothing in her that believed the woman was anything short of evil.
How had she managed to fool Camelot into believing?
Her attention was solely on Painite, her garland still in hand. The biggest threat was the most important one.
"Painite," she snarled. "Coming to protect another coward that preys on civilians, are you?"
Well, at least she was already in a fighting head space. She'd have to tell Tony about this when he woke, once she was able to get him to the hospital. She hoped this fight wouldn't take long as that was a pressing need now. He didn't look too well and who knew how long Crocoite had him like this before she arrived?
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Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:25 pm
Crocoite snarled, looking from Painite and Shalott and, in that moment, not knowing who he hated more. She was embarrassing him, his General, but he supposed he had been too weak to succeed. He shook his head, then moved to run off. The pain in his side was fiery, and he was pretty sure something was broken. Ultimately, he was glad to get out of there, but he would never say that to Painite.
She watched Shalott, frowning and holding her spear at the ready. As soon as she felt Crocoite's energy get too far away to be of any danger to her, though, she lowered her spear and glowered at Shalott. Her eyes were tired and dark, and she looked away with a scoff.
"Take him. I don't care what you do with him, just get out of my sight before I change my mind. My minion might be too weak to beat you, but if I were in a better mood, you would be in trouble. So treat this like a gift, and run off with his starseed, and all your limbs, still accounted for."
There was no way the General would share how she was truly feeling. At least, not without a real fight.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:43 am
"You'll never change, Painite."
She wasn't sure why she was pushing when she'd been told that she could take her husband and run. She should be running. Something about it all bothered her in a big enough way that she couldn't let it go. Her hands were still balled in fists by her side and she was unable to expend that energy without a fight. It was all just so...confusing. Pointless. Every instinct was screaming at her to take Tony and get him to a hospital and let this be the gift that it was, which made her cringe to think so. She couldn't, because it proved her right on one thing she didn't want to be right about.
"You had Camelot fooled. He told me how you changed and I couldn't believe it because you've caused too much hurt, too much chaos, to just let it all go." She frowned, feeling that she was vindicated by this display. "You keep siccing your dogs on innocent people. You keep pushing and threatening everyone. I can't abide it! You'll never change, Painite."
She picked up her garland and wrapped her hands through the end pieces. She was pretty sure this was tantamount to declaring war with the general. So be it; it was a long time coming.
"You can't keep hurting people I care about. My husband. My children. My friends. You've caused us all untold pain over the years. You: the root cause of so much of my heartache. Now you pretend that letting me escape with that civilian is a gift? You can't begin to atone for all the evil you've done."
Better mood or not the General was in for a fight now, no matter how Tony felt about it when he woke. If she had a chance to make sure they were protected, at least for a little while, she had to try. Shalott threw a punch at the woman's head, not pulling her blows. She knew the witch could take it and knew that she'd be fighting with her best foot forward, too.
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Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:58 am
Painite frowned at Shalott, unsure why she was still there, yelling and ranting, when Painite had given her a great chance to get the hell out of there. She had shown restraint, hadn't she? Even close to kindness? More than any white moon soldier had ever gotten from her before. It was a gift, and should be treated like it.
She growled.
"There are roles everyone has to play in the Negaverse: what my minions do to further their own careers is mostly their responsibility once I've trained them. Don't yell at me because they're good at their jobs. And if you really want to fight me, I'm all too happy to oblige. It doesn't matter to me."
She was tense, lacking the usual fire behind her words that she usually had. She could hardly argue, fighting thoughts like the ones Shalott was yelling at her in her day to day recently. She was well aware of how awful she was, how evil and how much fun it had been. How much she liked it and, in a way, still liked it. It was just that now there was guilt tainting her memories, changing the way she saw the things she once did so freely.
"You're going to let a man bleed in the street because you're bitter about how I keep beating you? You're supposed to be the good guy, not me." She pulled back, teleporting from the swing that was coming her way and reappearing not too far away.
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Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:52 pm
"Choices, Painite."
Her life was all about them and right now she was making one and hoped that her husband could understand and forgive her for it. The world was safer without a certain Negaverse general and maybe it was a little pent up rage from all of her nights of worry and grief over the same petite woman that stood before her now. It was hard to keep herself from trembling with that rage, perhaps better suited to the Negaverse than she would ever allow herself to dwell on. It was a thin line that divided them, but for the moment Shalott felt confident in her moral superiority - at least she was fighting for a righteous cause.
"Not me," she growled back. "You could do whatever you wanted to me and I wouldn't hate you as much as I do."
She moved to engage the General directly, wary of the spear in her hand. She wanted her to hurt the way she'd been hurt. She wanted to send her to the hospital for once. She wanted someone, somewhere, to have to wait for news about her safety. Her eyes flashed fire that her husband might not have been altogether comfortable with.
"I hate you for hurting the people I love. You and your dogs, but mostly you. You haven't just hurt the people I care about - you've trained other people to do it, too. You've left me alone wondering if I would ever see my loved ones again if they don't come around for a few days. Your evil has caused me to live my life perpetually in fear because we have to fight people like you just to keep civilians safe. Knights. Senshi. We're the protectors and you've done a damn good job of bringing hurt to each and every one of us."
It might have been a compliment in other circumstances. After all, Shalott admitted cold that the General was good at her job. It was likely the only time she'd ever admit to fear and moved to kick her, keeping her on the defensive.
"You'll never change."
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2018 6:49 pm
Painite frowned at the female knight, though she could hardly argue with what she was hearing. She was a monster, and she knew that. Ever tied with the doubts that now clouded her heart, she understood what Chaos meant to her. What she had done, and might yet continue to do, in its name. She had no idea, really, where she stood. Or where she wanted to stand. Her past, however, remained constant. Those were choices that would never change, could never be changed, and she was not sure she would try even if she got the chance.
Stranger things had happened in this war, after all.
"You think I'll never change, eh?"
She teleported to escape the attacks she saw coming her way, reappearing behind Shalott, standing just over the unconscious librarian on the floor. He was not unfamiliar to her, though she had no idea who he really was. Just another face she had hunted in the past. She pointed her spear down at him.
"I chose to let a civilian live tonight. You chose not to let me do that. We're both just doing our jobs, but it looks like we're just as bad at it as the other one is. You're not protecting anyone, leaping into fights that only you want. And me? I'm not so good at letting people live."
She stabbed down at him suddenly, but her stopped just short of his temple. She did not take her eyes off of Shalott, her eyes clouded and difficult to read. Maybe even a little teary.
"You can hate me all you want. I'm not here to argue how good a person I am or I'm not. But you should take a gift when it's given to you. I don't think I'm going to do this again."
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