Now reaching autumn, the sky grew darker earlier, sparing youma and their counterparts precious minutes to cloak their existence to Destiny City at large. Faustite held part of his fall harvest in a black-white palm, where a starseed glitter-gleamed up toward the starless sky. Cloud cover long overtook the stars and their senshi saviors, where now nothing looked down on DC's denizens. Faustite minded it not; the air was thick with the scent of rain and easily disguised his smoke.
His smoke which, even now, puttered lazily toward the ground. It traced its languorous circles about a prone woman's lipstick-flecked mouth and pierced ears and mascara-laden eyes. It settled around her collar, ironed and folded against a sharp violet vest, and slipped between the folds of her fitted jacket, and drifted about a floral pleated skirt, and swept across nylons that obscured the week of growth from avoided shaving, and drifted down into well-kept stilettos. Soon it evaporated, like so many too-passive lives, and new smoke from new breaths took their place. The alleyway then smelled of his transgressions.
She laid next to a rain-soaked cardboard mat, and next to that was an opened and used-up Sterno can. One bettered pot with a broken handle sat atop that, and in it were the blackened remains of attempted refried beans. But their attendee had long left, likely another victim of the Negaverse, likely someone with Faustite's upbringing who traded their morals for more fashionable ones every season.
Beyond that was a wall to one of Destiny City's most successful banks. Beyond that, another alleyway where the cops liked to wait for their favorite teller girls.
But Faustite found a teller girl that avoided such arrangements, that now couldn't afford the cognition to recognize her mistakes. And with her soul now sparkling in his black hand, Faustite straightened, leapt, and crowned one of the old black buildings that comprised the city's oldest county jail. A handful more starseeds and he might affect the rate of healing in the Negaverse's now-packed infirmary.
xxxseiana_zi
hope this works! just having him starseed people to help recoup from the autumn event! as a recap, encke and cybele get to gangbeat him a bit until kiuchi steps in to create an escape.
xxxstari_maga
see above!
xxxsleet tempest snape
just showing you this exists! i'll quote you again when we need you
Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2018 12:15 pm
Cybele hunted. Of course she did. The memories of the recent battle were still fresh, the one where she'd done almost nothing but hurt her own allies, where she'd broken the face of the girl she'd stepped in to protect. She remembered, even when she was powered down, and she felt useless.
She needed the feeling of something evil under her fists.
Perhaps it wasn't the best coping mechanism, she knew that. She half-hoped that the hunt would lead her to a specific type of person, instead. It would be nice to find someone Order and ready to talk about their feelings, but the youma and the rest still needed to be dealt with in the meantime.
The aura she caught wind of was Chaos after all. She sprinted after it, her silver heels splashing through puddles in the asphalt. At least the speed kept her warm. This was getting to the time of year when her outfit started feeling very impractical, but it was hard to think about cold or about anything else when she was on something's trail.
As she got closer, the aura started to feel suspiciously strong. She darted into the alley, ready for a confrontation, but instead there was just a stashed body and a familiar smell of smoke. A chill made its way down Cybele's spine, even as she noticed that the woman was still breathing. There was hope then, but where was he?
Up, the aura told her, and the shiver reached her toes, but there was a starseed, most likely, on the line. She gritted her teeth and made the jump before she could stop herself.
It was fine. The roof was solid. He was right there, in her line of sight, and if she kept her gaze on his smoky monster eyes, and not the fall right behind her, she could keep from freezing up.
"Oh, you again," she growled, as stepped quickly as far away from the edge as she could while giving him his smoke bubble.
Strickenized
Seiana_ZI
staripop
Offline
Seiana_ZI
Codebreaking Conversationalist
Offline
Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 8:22 pm
If he thought his urge to patrol could not be any stronger, it turned out he was wrong.
His sister was involved in this s**t.
His sister.
It was bad enough that his Arra had gotten himself involved by accident after getting drained by Captain Smokestack and his apparent squid friend. It was even worse that it seemed that every event he and Richard went to was now doomed to be invaded by the Negaverse. It was even worse that so many lives had been lost that day, no matter how hard Encke had run back and forth, how much fainting from smoke inhalation he had risked.
His little sister was a senshi.
And not only that, she was severely concussed. At home. To say Raina was dazed was putting it lightly; his mother hadn't even trusted Raina to stay home with her while she was in this state. His mother had too much work to do, and Encke didn't have any active performances right now, so she was staying with him. That, of course, somehow made it worse, because he saw what she was going through every day.
It left him antsy.
When Richard returned home, Encke said he was just going out for a brief patrol, he promised. He would be back soon. He needed to make sure the street was safe for them, for both of them, and the sensation of a monstrous force nearby was not keeping the streets safe.
He had taken to the roofs to move a bit faster, but it turned out, what he was looking for was already on the roofs.
It took all of his well-practiced self-control to not launch onto the captain like a bat out of hell the moment he saw him.
stari_maga
Strickenized
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2018 8:36 am
The aura, the voice, the disdain. If there was hurt, she covered it with a callous so thick that Faustite couldn't detect it. And if there wasn't hurt, did she belong in white?
Faustite slowed, measuring engagement with a level shrewdness, starseed still in hand, smoke still billowing its sinusoid waves into the sky. He half-turned. Another cusped a building like a ravening crow. Why do they want so greedily? The question falters, flickers, gutters out on the tongue before his mouth could open to the word. Silence better fed the tension in the air.
Fed. Wordless, Faustite put his prize into his mouth, held fast by tongue and wanting. They would come, but he could choose how best to bargain — for a life not yet taken is a balm to their conscience. In their consciences festered debt from the Autumn, collecting interest until paid off with unrelated good deeds like rescue and the purchase of years to a stranger's life. They could see the hope between his teeth, whole. Untaken by teeth.
The one to his left punched her comrade by the whim of Ceraskia's magic, his teammate only a call away, yet his bargaining chip silenced him. And to his right, the eternal senshi he'd met before — the one who dutifully chased shortsighted saves. Did he know about what happened? Did they know each other well enough to cooperate? Faustite waited with bated breath. If neither engaged him, he would move for the edge of the roof equidistant from the pair.
stari_maga
seiana_zi
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
staripop
Offline
Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2018 7:22 am
This couldn't just be simple.
It couldn't just be him, the scent of him almost enough to make her gag before he even started trying to. It couldn't even just be him at least thirty feet above proper, solid ground with a starseed in his pocket so she could do her best to snap his neck through the smoke. No, he had to be carrying it around in his mouth like some sick trophy, and a trophy that meant she couldn't break his teeth.
She hesitated.
There was another aura, one that she hadn't paid too much attention to, as it was a friend, but someone else leaping up onto the roof caught her eye. A senshi. An Eternal, and a stranger, but the look in his eyes said that he meant business. "Careful," she called out, and gave a bit of a nod towards the starseed, hoping that he'd see it across this distance. That was all she risked. If the theater fight was any indication, the monster did not like like her giving orders.
Of course, she only cared so much what he thought. She wasn't about to let him prance off with someone's soul just so she didn't have to see him eat it. She waited one more second until he started to walk, and then she sucked in as much air as she could and then she started to run.
There was no punch this time. She would try to hold him, to pin his arms if she could, so that he couldn't hide once the smoke hit. It was stupid, but maybe the other senshi could help her.
Strickenized
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2018 9:52 am
The tension was lining Encke's body.
He forced himself to stand in place, even though his instinct was to ball his hands into fists. He forced himself to stand in place, even though all he wanted to do was launch on the smoking captain, tear him limb to limb, perhaps even beat him with his limb, tear those damn smokestacks off his back, certainly they were providing some kind of advantage to him, some kind of way that he was using to survive, and he needed not to survive anymore if he was going to be anywhere in the vicinity of one Richard Bell--
The careful barely registered in his ears, but he dully noticed it after the fact, some of the tension in his body melting away as he took a moment to step away from his rage and into the reality of the situation. Right. That ******** was just standing there with a starseed in his teeth.
Why did the Negaverse have to be so hellbent on eating souls and mocking them with it?
There was no way he was letting him leave with a soul, but the question was, how did he get it out of his teeth? The idea of the other senshi appeared to be somewhere around charge him and tackle him, or at least, charge him and pin him. Maybe if he was pinned, Encke could reach in and snatch the starseed out of his mouth?
That was just asking to get bit, though. Or, worse, the man would just swallow and crunch it before Encke even got over there.
If Cybele successfully pinned him down, though, he could actually launch his attack without the little s**t trying to run away. That was an idea. Encke edged closer, but he didn't break the distance just yet.
stari_maga
Strickenized
Seiana_ZI
Codebreaking Conversationalist
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:02 pm
Insurance pinned between teeth wasn't enough to stay the brazen monster hunter to his west. Even as he edged toward the parapet methodically, each step slow and deliberate, measured, precise in its pronouncement of the word retreat, the silver senshi answered with advancement. Heels pounded tiles pounded pulses. But what would not hinder her stayed the other senshi —the plasma one looked on beside his meek sense of responsibility for every life in the city.
His equal crossed the roof in a flat second, met with blooming arcs of smoke. They mirrored her reach, grasping at nose and mouth and eyes as her arms ensnared his. Faustite computed the stakes in half a breath. The starseed sat spit-covered, unbroken, under tongue.
Faustite could cycle his smoke. Drown her in it. Wrench an arm free and distill smoke down her throat like an acrid alcohol. Force her to retch. Break free. Call down sovereigns while that purple one was still pinned by his own impossible optimism for human life. Secure a new soldier alongside a new draining dummy. But these were vestigial, comic book opportunities.
What baseless dreams. The reality was that he was caught, held, and basted a senshi in his own smoke to maintain a stalemate. The choices were plain. Few, but sharply stated.
Faustite tried to wrench himself and his captive-captor toward the building's edge. The starseed poked its hot points into the bottom of his tongue, begging a baser nature to betray tactic. And what a taste it would be, that marvel before the fall. What a three-pronged battle.
seiana_zi
thank you for your patience as i worked through old tags!
stari_maga
the starseed is still whole, so feel free to recover it as you two see fit
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:50 am
The smoke hit her harder than before. She hadn't had time to get her magic up. That would have made all the world about getting the monster's heart out of his chest, snapping his neck, taking her prey to the ground. The price for trying to get to the starseed was an explosion that sent her ears ringing and a world of thick, terrible gray.
She had no eyes. She had no ears. Her breath was quickly running out.
She did still have her momentum, which sent her barreling towards him and grabbing once she hit something. A pipe, right in her stomach. That knocked the breath out of her. Her body gasped. She got a lungful of the smoke.
At least she got him, too. It was only a certain amount of satisfying. She was not gentle. She held tight, hoping that her fingernails would find something soft to dig into, but at this point it was only a little because of any sort of strategy and mostly because he was the only thing that she was sure was solid up here as everything caught up to her and she was sent weak-kneed and coughing. She coughed in his face, at least.
Where was the other senshi? He was an Eternal. Hadn't he dealt with lost starseeds before? There was a chance that it would get eaten, now, but it was a sure thing if they let the monster walk off with it, and Cybele couldn't wiggle her way out of this lose-lose situation on her own.
She'd try, though. Weakly, she shoved a hand up towards the monsters mouth.
He moved. They moved, Cybele too bound up to separate and too weak to stop him, too fast, towards what could only be the edge.
The fall.
No no no no nonono.
Strickenized
Seiana_ZI
staripop
Offline
Seiana_ZI
Codebreaking Conversationalist
Offline
Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:22 pm
Oh, <******** reached for his sash and yanked on it hard to get a sizeable piece of it to snap off and quickly tied it around his nose and mouth like a bandana before surging forward, knowing that he wouldn't be able to see but at the very least trying to prevent himself from choking on it. Seeing where the super senshi was positioned, he figured his best approach was from the side-- come around, perhaps throw him off track and hopefully stop their descent towards the edge.
Captain Smokes had the damn starseed in his mouth, so he would be fine, but he wasn't so sure about the super senshi. They could jump high up, sure, but he wasn't sure if that compensated for unexpected descents--
It wasn't his preference to work blindly, but with the smoke around, he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. When he was sure he was close enough because suddenly, even with the fake bandana, he felt his nostrils burning, he shoved his foot forward towards the monster captain's side in an attempt to jar him enough that he might become distracted from his intentions.
Hopefully, it would also jar him long enough to spit out the starseed.
stari_maga
if I got the vision of what was going on wrong please let me know
Strickenized
hopefully this works okay!
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:28 pm
She held fast and Faustite bent, wrenched, tried to press pipes into her yields. Tired to core her of skin and meat and blood. But she would lurch here or there, and his spatial orientation faded, and neither saw in all that black. His smoke only clung to them dutifully.
Dutifully enough to block all view of parapets or rooflines. Stagger she did, and Faustite compensated, and his heel stutter-slid-fell from the last tile. He wrenched that foot back with a drawn gasp. The starseed shifted.
It shifted and he felt it — the eternal moved. With the other senshi shifting and coughing and clinging to his back, to his sides, hands clutching, fingernails digging, worming for some way to his own starseed through all that patterned cloth, that eternal sauntered closer. Starseed stuck near his back molars, pristine, so precariously close to crushing a corner if he clenched his jaw, Faustite felt too many ways distracted. Watch the super and his feet and the starseed and the eternal and the ever-coming-countdown to his cover smoke. Feel for a free opening to teleport out of this mess.
Feel the foot striking above his hip. Coughing was only a reaction. Coughing was what came when that foot pressed his diaphragm up into his lungs. Coughing ejected the starseed. Coughing cost him that safety.
But Faustite wasn't worried about the starseed — he worried for the empty air beneath his feet. The ground that wasn't anymore. He twisted and reached and grasped for that overhang, fingers rife with adrenaline, heart blazing against his chest.
Two senshi or concrete. What odds.
stari_maga
seiana_zi
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
staripop
Offline
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2019 8:30 am
Being blind was bad enough when trying to fish a starseed out of someone's teeth. It was worse when hurtling towards an edge. It was worst of all for Cybele hurtling towards an edge, coughing smoke with nothing to stop her from seeing the edge of a taller building, flames licking at her heels, a cat she couldn't save.
The monster jerked. Was this the edge?
The panic-scrambling continued as the other senshi finally got closer, although now she was mostly trying to dig her feet into the ground. Her grip loosened. There was an impact. He'd finally caught up. It didn't matter. Starseed or no, this was one thing Cybele couldn't just push through anymore. One of her own heels hit open air and she let go.
She stumbled to what solid ground she could and then she froze, every muscle in her body painfully tense and her red-rimmed eyes locked open. She tried to breathe but between the panic and the smoke it was all small, choking gasps. Everything was increasingly blurry. She needed clarity, now.
"Hunter's Deadly Grace!" she managed, not loudly but enough for it to take, and she released the magic upwards, hoping the other senshi would be in a better place to take advantage of it.
Seiana_ZI
Cybele summons a bigger bow with three arrows. The speed boost they provide is slightly more noticeable than Hunter's Grace. She shoots the bow straight up, and the arrows automatically target her and up to two nearby Order aligned beings (including cats). However, if there don't happen to be enough Order aligned beings around, the remaining arrows will randomly fall, and can be easily or even accidentally intercepted by anyone else around, giving them the benefits. The arrows can target Order aligned beings within five feet of where they are fired from, but arrows without targets tend to fall closer to that spot. The effect lasts for 30 seconds. She can use the bow to threaten people, under the same conditions as before. She can use this attack twice per battle.
Strickenized
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2019 10:05 am
Encke heard a cough, even if he couldn't necessarily see what resulted of it in the burning smoke; he hoped that the other senshi had managed to get the starseed. At the very least, he didn't see it go flying off in the other direction.
If he did, honestly, he might have gone chasing after it.
For now, the main concern was getting the senshi away from the edge and getting Captain Asthma away from her, even if that meant knocking him over the edge to do it. Especially now that he didn't have the starseed in his mouth, presumably. Considering what he had done, considering what he had continued to do, considering that he had shown himself to be a threat time and time again and even a threat to the love of his life...
Well, Encke had no qualms with throwing him over the edge if he had to.
The call of her attack caught his attention, and at the very least that confirmed for Encke that the other senshi was in a secure enough position to use her ability. What did it do, though? He tested it, edging forward, realizing he moved a bit faster than he intended a moment afterward.
Aha.
At that moment, Encke broke the distance to the edge where the captain had dropped, and, despite the burning in his eyes, attempted to shove his boot against the other's face to forcibly shove him back and down.
stari_maga
Strickenized
Seiana_ZI
Codebreaking Conversationalist
Offline
Strickenized
Garbage Cat
Offline
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2019 9:51 pm
Faustite remembered the sound of her magic, knew the boost it implied. Knew how she chased him through smoke and sear. How she dogged him with a finesse unnervingly similar to his general's. Clutched to the roof edge like a child to a mother's breast, tendons bulging, knuckles stiff, Faustite saw no outs.
Calling through his communicator required a hand he couldn't spare. Dangling there, his legs kicking against his own inertia, there wasn't an outcropping to hold him. A lack of firm footing barred teleportation to safer straits. Reasoning was beyond the pale for the silver one. Perhaps the violet one, too, for his vitriol glow — his neon derision. His boot poised and searching for some part of Faustite that yielded.
Like his face. There wasn't space to dodge, wasn't time to sling himself along the roofline. The captain bowed his head and took the brunt force to skull, splitting a headache down through his teeth, the jolt numbing the base of his lower jaw. Neck jerked, shoulders tightened. Fingers slipped under the weight of his situation, slicked with sweat, wet with city grime and condensation. His left hand fell free as the impact resounded jarringly through his body. A desperate rasp of a grunt escaped him. He'd die, he was sure of it, as he looked down that long drop, that staccato of windows like ladder rungs to nowhere. The great expanse of his possibilities becoming exactly that floor.
Uselessly he pawed at the air. Bones sore, reaching for purchase strung pain through his body. Two nails broke off his right hand as his fingers curled for slipping purchase.
Faustite thought frantic against his hummingbird heartbeat. I'll fall —
sleet tempest snape
rescue time
stari_maga
seiana_zi
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2019 9:42 am
Mirrors were placed all about the city, things that most people likely ignored and gave no mind to. Those few people who had powered lives might give the mirrors, most well hidden, a second look but perhaps figured someone was just tossing away a mirror or something else. Most likely didn't know, or think, that the small court had mirrors all about the city for easy travel. It was luck, and not his own, that would have him stepping out of a mirror not far from the signatures of three individuals.
Normally he wasn't one to investigate such things, not wanting to get mixed up into such affairs, but he was curious and so he did make his way towards the group of signatures. Taking to the back alleyways, since his uniform did stand out, the eternal was just rounding a corner when he saw someone hanging from a rooftop. It wasn't just any someone though...he knew this someone.
Legs moved faster and closed the distance quickly. Body already in motion it was no shock when he decided to use his own magic as well. Just as he got close enough he called out his magic - just as the Captain fell. His magic was already moving up towards the falling figure. He just hoped it would do what he needed it to do right now. He needed it to bubble the other and keep him safe for impact, never mind the fact he was moving in to try and catch the other.
"Faustite." Shouting out, hoping that the idea of someone here to help might reassure the other in some way - because falling had to be scary..
Strickenized
seiana_zi
stari_maga
Quote:
Eternal Sailor Attack: Gorgon's gaze As Kiuchi calls this attack his attention will focus in on a single person and as the attack his called his eyes will glow for a moment and as he blinks the light will leave his eyes and race towards the target in a fan pattern. The target he focused on and anyone within a seven foot radius of them will be frozen inside of a barrier. While unable to move it does not leave the people vulnerable to attack as the barrier around them, made up of a sickly green light, will deflect any and all attacks for a full forty five seconds. This attack can only be cast once in battle. The barrier around these people are individual, so all people hit are safe - even from each other. This attack can only be used once in battle.
Sleet Tempest Snape
Noble Vampire
Offline
staripop
Offline
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:41 pm
In some ways, the clouds lifted. The smoke cloud quite literally was gone, and in an instant Cybele shifted from not being able to see an inch in front of her face to the predator's sharpened vision that her magic gave her. Not everything was cut through so cleanly, though. Her muscles were still tense, her breath still too light to do her much good, but her eyes were locked on her prey as she hung in the balance.
She watched as the Eternal kicked him in the skull. She heard the thud of a harsh impact, and something dark deep inside of her smiled. As she was already at the edge of the building, she kept watching as he fell. Then, her focus flicked past him to the ground below.
The height, actually. The fall.
There were stories of air between her and the ground. The streets themselves were in shadows back here, and to Cybele they looked like cracks that were heading deeper down, to something dark beneath the surface of the earth or worse, just something endless.
If she hadn't broken the rule of don't look down, her magic might have snapped her out of the panic, but instead she sucked in a harsh breath. The Dark Mirror and his magic barely registered as anything to her, let alone as a friend or as an enemy. The problem of the DMC and even the problem of the monster were suddenly much lower down on her priority list.
She stepped backwards, away from the edge, and then collapsed hard onto her knees, her breath coming shakily and her eyes thousand-yard glossy.
