It was the last shard she'd had to fill for the evening, and it was still pretty damn early. Romulus had gotten lucky in the park that night, stumbling upon a small group of homeless individuals seeking a relatively safe place to rest for the night. By Romulus' reasoning the night was really only just getting started, and maybe, just maybe, her roommate and partner in crime was just about finished with his own quota, and the two of them could go find some trouble to get into together.
Tucking away her shard into a little inner pocket in the length of one long sleeve, Romulus summoned her compact to her hand to give the senshi of change a call.
Humming quietly to herself, she waited for him to answer the call. She barely registered the feeling of something bright and shiny on the very edge of her perception. Order and strong. But Romulus wasn't doing anything nefarious, anymore, so she wasn't really paying the approaching aura very much mind.
After all, they were supposed to be the good guys.
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It was not the Negaverse he spotted when moving through the park and towards the signature. Not a corrupted senshi. There was no tale-taled sign of a shattered marking on their person.
There was only one side left, and he grinned at the thought of it. He had been restless. He had been pondering. He had been anxious and lost and wondering but now he was hungry. Hungry to start again from where he left off all that time ago.
The DMC was fractured, only summoning their leaders when someone high ranking was in danger or enough of their troops were being harmed. The White Phoenix mission showed that much. But he didn't have that army again, and had to take other measures.
Take whatever scraps you could get and call attention to himself and bring the DMC out to him. Hunt and be hunted.
The senshi was distracted, holding out something as they lost focus of their surroundings. Rookie in mistake. He knew his signature called attention to himself. There wouldn't be much time before even they noticed something was going on, and so he kicked off and rushed full speed at the senshi.
Picking up a branch from the ground, he threw it at the senshi before following it up with a kick.
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There was that moment of clarity when Romulus noticed that the aura was moving rapidly towards her, a moment to realize that she'd misjudged the situation before a heavy branch smacked into the back of her neck and shoulder. It spun her around to face her attacker, startled and wide-eyed, only to find the white clad knight practically on top of her, with the heel of one old fashioned boot striking her in the center of the chest.
It knocked the compact out of her hand as she staggered backward. It bounced once, rolled, and then came to a slow spinning stop a few meters away with the glass facing the senshi of craters as she struggled to get her breath back after the knight had knocked the wind out of her.
"Wha-what are you doing?" The question proved her lingering naivety in this war. Romulus had been sheltered. For as long as she'd been awakened into this life, nothing she'd faced up to this point really prepared her for the opposition blitz attacking out of no where. They usually spoke to her first, asking or demanding she cease her shenanigans, and if they fought, it'd always seemed like they were on equal footing.
This was different. It'd only been one kick, and still she'd felt the strength in it. I might be in trouble here.
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He bounced in his step, utterly delighted at his luck and feeling a release of pent up aggression scream inside him at the prospect of release. Already he could feel that gnawing hunger that wanted to feel flesh tear and bones to snap in half. He wanted to feel desperation returned to him, struggling, and to hear it all around him.
They deserved this. They all deserved this.
As she fell back, she still had enough air in her to ask such a stupid question.
"Why? WHY?" He moved across the grounds quickly to get her before kicking again at her side.
"Because I want you DEAD!"
He stood there, waiting for any blast of power from her. DMCers were senshi after all. They all had their little tricks.
"Ask me another question." He said, and the tone was that of a order, not a request.
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He was too quick. On her again before she'd gotten a chance to recover from the last kick, and this was one was harder. It knocked the wind completely out of her, and she dropped to her knees as she gasped, desperately trying to breath.
"Because I want you DEAD!"
Eyes widening in shock, Romulus felt the mounting panic that'd been bubbling up around the edges roll up and crash over her in a crushing wave. "Don't," she wheezed, breathless and pained. "Don't even know you." I've never even met you, why are you doing this?
Outclassed and panicked, the order was enough to rankle. She could feel her lips drawing back from her teeth, anger trying to push it's way past the fear. Contrite, even now as she faced off against someone twice as strong, and absolutely insane. There was no reasoning with the pure hate she could see in that single eye of his. Hate directed at her, and for what? She'd never met the guy. She hadn't even been here for over a year.
Breathing shallowly around bruised ribs, The dark mirror weighed her options.
She could try to run, but he was faster than her, and he'd catch her. She could try to fight, but she'd lose...
Well, it looked like she was going to lose regardless, and she'd be damned if she let him take her down without a fight.
"C-crater strike!" it came out broken, but strong as the senshi rushed him, magic circling her right fist before sinking into it. The attack wasn't pretty, or especially skilled, but threw that dainty fist up at his jawline in a wild hay-maker.
If she could stun him, maybe she could get away from him. Maybe.
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"You will know me. Some of the others already know me VERY well. But you won't know me long, and when I'm done, I'm going to leave a rosy wet message for Leto and Remauqe. I'm coming back for them, and Zinkenite won't be around to stop me this time." He said, giddy at the idea that there would be no one there next time. He would finish them all. He would taste that victory again before the poison of Metallia's oppression kept him from swallowing.
That starseed would be his, and he would feel it's crystal break under his own teeth destroying it all forever.
The call was sent, and he squared his footing and kept his eye open. Magic was tricky. It could be a area of affect, it could fall from the heavens, an it could just be an overall feeling that weakened your will to fight. He had encountered all manner of magic through the years, and he waited for what he guessed might be a meteor shower.
Instead, she rushed at him, and threw her fight at his jaw, hitting her mark and sending him stepping sideways, staggering a moment before he balanced again and snapped his attention back at her. His eye was side, and he felt the blood pooling in his mouth.
"Good. GOOD! Fight for your life. Give me EVERYTHING you have. I want to feel you thrashing to the very end!" He moved again, rushing at her and threw his own punch. Not magic. He didn't even summon his own weapon. It was just that of a fighter long in the war, with no hesitation to break her in any way, of a once-General to full Knight.
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The panic had come screaming back in the wake of that horrific declaration of his intentions for her. Tanned skin had paled, eyes widening until whites showed all around the blue, and even as she fought to hide it she could feel her hands starting to tremble.
Romulus wasn't going to be walking away from this.
Even as he goaded her on, taunting her, she could feel her heart slamming into the cage of her ribs, blood pounding in deafening rush through her ears. Blood he was going to spill across the concrete. A high keening sound escaped her lips before the impact of knuckles against her cheek rocked her sideways and damn near staggered her off her feet.
She tasted blood, felt the sting of a split lip, and there was an awful second or two where darkness ate at the edges of her vision, threatening to close in around her. Shaking her head to clear it, she spat out a mouthful of copper, bright eyes lifting to meet manic ones.
One more chance... "Crater strike!" She shouted it at him like a war cry, desperate and fierce, and this time the magic went to her right foot as she drew it up and sent her heel into his stomach.
When it connected she didn't stop to see what the damage was. She turned and she ran, racing down the path towards the distant shape of the bathrooms. Bathrooms she knew they had a mirror in.
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She staggered and he watched her sway, gauging how many more hits it would take to render her immobile. Should I break her legs? He thought. It would leave her alive but he wanted her conscious for the final moments before he tore the last breath form her. He couldn't take starseeds now. Her death would just be postponing a fight when she came back in some future, but he hoped it was a distant future and one that would have no leader to come back to. A future that was bleak for the DMC and would leave them few and easily crushable for him when he returned again and again and again.
But she had fight left in her, and he watched with eager attention just for the sensation of her drawing near to his reach. To know and disect what she had, the limits of her power, and to see what the DMC had that put it outside of that of the senshi and Negaverse. More and more often he saw that when it came to fighting, it wasn't much different.
As she came, he forgot to exhale for any punches to hsi body, instead thinking she would go for his face again, and he moved to guard it quickly as she swung, only to see too late she positioned herself low and went up into his gut, knocking the breath from him and causing him to wince inwardly, arching as she held hsi gut and knelt a moment before seeing her run away.
No.
NO!
He couldn't let her leave! He wanted this. He wanted this desperately to the point in pained him at the very idea of her leaving.
Pushing himself up on his feet, he growled out loudly into a shout, before rushing at her. She couldn't leave. She'd never leave. This was it for her. He wouldn't let a DMCer escape like they had during the attack. He wanted to see and taste blood again.
Catching up to her was easy and if it they were of equal rank it might have been an issue that would have caused him to summon his binding weapon, but instead, he followed up and past her before pivoting on a heel to sweet a leg under her feet.
"You're MINE!" He shouted, angry she even bothered running and not fighting to the end. Running.
"How dare you not fight me! Running! RUNNING! Do you think I'd let you get to some mirror! Some glass or pond or whatever else you like to use. Do I look stupid to you?!"
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She didn't think it'd stop him from long, but he recovered a lot faster than she'd been expecting, or hoping, he would. His aura was closing in behind her, and she could hear the snap of his boot heels on the concrete as he tore after her. <********, ********, ******** flash of white and burgundy to her side was all the warming Romulus had before the knight's manic face filled her vision and a foot was sweeping her legs out from under her. She shrieked as she toppled backwards, hands shooting back to try to break her fall, and not quite making it in time to keep her head from smacking against the pavement. Starbursts erupted across her vision, and for a second she couldn't see him looming over her, but she could hear him screaming at her.
There's nothing sane left in that voice. Nothing to reason with. Nothing to appeal to.
As her vision cleared she tried to kick out at him, aiming a heel at his kneecap. "Get the ******** away from me! I don't know who you're after, but it's not me!" Powered or not, Romulus barely counted herself a senshi, she hadn't been at it long enough.
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"Damnit!" He shouted as he was hit in the knee and knelt a moment before he threw his body at her, working to force his weight upon her and grab her arms.
"It's is you! It's always you! ALL OF YOU! EVERY DMCER is it! The whole lot of worthless trash that got spat out from the White Court. Leto's b**** children." He reached for her wrists to get a firm hold of them.
"I'm going to rip out each and every one of you from her court. I'll leave your limbs scattered across this city and your guts at every mirror I find!" He shouted as he worked to pin her to the ground.
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moonkitsune
