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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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 Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:24 pm
The final frontier was ******** up.
That was what she had learned last she tried to go up to space. Whatever planet Anser was... well, it was a place she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to go to again. When she last went, what she had saw was -- well, she didn't want to acknowledge it to herself, really, and she kept burying it down deep, instead focusing on everything else about being a superhero. The powers. The abilities. The teamwork. The enemies on Earth that needed to be defeated. Protecting the civilians of Destiny City from everything that could have possibly happened to--
But she couldn't avoid it forever, could she?
Well, she could, but--
Her brother, Encke, was transcendent. There were glowing lines in his skin and he could heal people, and most importantly, as he had pointed out to her, the Negaverse couldn't make him one of them. That had been something Anser had been horrified to find out, honestly. Not surprising, because they were supervillains after all, but horrifying never the less.
But Encke said the only way to stop herself from becoming one of them, for sure, was to transcend.
And when she asked how to transcend, well, Encke had said he wasn't entirely sure how it worked, but he had said something about how she needed a deep connection to her planet. From what he had seen, that had been a commonality between all of the transcendents he had met -- a deep connection and love of a planet they were working on restoring.
So that meant she couldn't keep avoiding it.
But she didn't want to go back alone.
That was how one Raina Araya arrived at Ignacio Araya's house that afternoon, lifting her hand nervously before giving up and tapping out a text on her phone.
Quote: Hey, out front, wanna come out here? I guess I'm okay with you patrolling with me.
It didn't take long for her brother to come outside, a grin on his face. "Knew you'd come around."
Raina rolled her eyes to the side, tucking her cell phone into her pocket. "Actually, I didn't really want to patrol." The confused look she got in response told her to continue on, and so she did. "You said I need to go to space more if I want to be like," she gestured at him from up to down, "so I guess I'm ready to go back to Anser, but I don't really wanna go--"
"Sold," responded Ignacio, grabbing her hand and pulling her back inside. While henshining in the backyard would probably cause a bit of an auric flare in the area, they would be leaving shortly, and admittedly not as many Chaos auras tended to sprout up in his neighborhood. Considering he could sense them, he would notice if they did--
"I don't think I've gone to a planet outside of the solar system before," remarked Ignacio, as he dug his henshin pen out of his pocket. "Methone and Scholomance are both near Saturn, Pendour's near Neptune," he flipped the henshin pen around, murmured his henshin phrase, and then continued as if he hadn't even just transformed, "Encke's an inner-Jupiter orbit comet, so that's definitely still fairly local."
"Yeah, great," responded Raina, now Anser, unable to keep up the same enthusiasm as her brother.
Encke quirked a brow. "Isn't it exciting to go somewhere almost 300 light years away? People there might have had no idea what Earth even was, and now your starseed ended up here, can you even imagine?"
Anser sighed heavily, turning her gaze away from her brother for a moment. He was clearly picking up the concern, considering he got a bit closer, asking, "Do you really want to do this?"
Did she?
No.
Did she have to?
Anser grabbed her brother's hand and squeezed it, before grabbing out her phone. "You'll see," she responded, and then they were gone.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:24 pm
When Anser next opened her eyes, she found herself in the middle of the sunset skies once more, jarred by the deep red where the skies had previously been a grim grey. Right. Red star. She glanced at her brother, who seemed to be amazed by what he was seeing. He stepped forward in a way that seemed almost ... cautious, but there was a lot of joy on his face? What was the word for that she had heard in class? Reverent, maybe?
"Hermanita," murmured Encke, bending down to inspect some of the tall, wheat-coloured grass, "your planet is beautiful."
Yeah, reverent. That matched up.
"Thanks, hermano," responded Anser, as she stepped closer to him, listening to the grass as it shifted under her feet. It was still weirdly quiet. There was still nothing here but the wind and the grass and the bright red sun and the-- "How do you get used to the quiet?"
"Hm?" Encke turned towards Anser, with a small frown. How did he get used to the quiet? Did he ever have to? He shifted, clearly debating his approach, before responding, "In a way, it's comforting. It's a place that's mine, you know? It's a safe quiet. It's a quiet where I don't have to worry about the shadows." He then reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing. "But it's still odd sometimes. I get memories of what the place was like with people bustling, and then when I come back to reality, it's... Lonely. It feels abandoned. I think the best way to get used to that is working on making it feel more alive. Repair it. Make it feel more like it's in the present. Getting things lit up and getting the electricity going did wonders on its own."
He glanced around.
"Where are the buildings, though?"
Anser chuckled, shaking her head. "I haven't found any of those."
Encke seemed surprised. "Huh." He blinked. "Maybe it makes sense though. This place seems very... wild." Anser could agree with that. "Also I imagine it's probably a lot bigger than a comet or a moon."
"Yeah." Anser hadn't gotten very far last time, admittedly, considering she had been scared off by--
"Did you find anything?"
"Yeah." Anser sighed, taking Encke's hand once more. "Follow me?"
The walk was relatively quiet, only interrupted by the sounds of winds blowing, Encke murmuring in amazement, and the sound of vegetation crunching under their feet. Anser tried to find comfort in the silence, as Encke said. This was a quiet that was a safe quiet. There was no danger here. There was no Chaos. There were no ballerina supervillains, or supervillains with long dreads, or evil crocodile men, or anyone of the Negaverse in general. It was just her and her brother. That was it.
That would be okay, right?
Maybe, but it was still so quiet--
She felt the anxiety rise as she approached the clearing.
What she was approaching wasn't okay.
Her breath must have picked up, because Encke stopped walking for a moment to ask if she was alright. And once again, she murmured a, "It's fine, it's fine," as she tried to straighten out her back and double up her speed. Encke followed, still, curious as to what she was leading him to.
And then he tripped over something.
Anser glanced behind her to find her brother looking down at what he had stumbled over, the expression on his face gradually growing a bit more alarmed as he realized just what it was.
And then she knew what it must have been.
She watched him pick up a long, grey bone with relative ease, letting out an uneasy breath. Anser's breath hitched as she let go of Encke's hand, and stumbled back, away from it. "Is this what's got you scared, Raina?"
"That's--," Anser gulped, glancing out towards the clearing that they were approaching, "that's not the only bone."
"Thought so," murmured Encke, as he moved into the clearing.
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:25 pm
Encke and Anser were greeted by the sight of giant bones of an undeterminable option, bones of legs, bones of arms, bones of what might have been wings, claws that were bigger than Encke's arm--
Encke let out a dazed, "Wow," that sounded like he wasn't even consciously saying it.
"Is wow the word for it?" asked Anser, uneasily, unwilling to fully step into the clearing. "Think I'd go with what the ********." Her urge to run was growing. There was a part of her that just wanted to grab Encke's hand and take them back home. That part of her was admittedly growing stronger with every step Encke took out into the field, and it took all of her self-control to not scream they should leave right that moment. That self-control was a bit tenuous, and Anser couldn't help shifting uneasily, clenching her hands, glancing at everything else except what was in front of her--
Her brother bent down to inspect one of the wing bones, and Anser forced herself to look.
"Years ago, Anser," offered Encke, his tone soft and cautious, "these bones must have belonged to creatures that wandered your planet. Big creatures." Big creatures with beaks with teeth, he noticed, as he looked over at another nearby set of bones. Anser was starting to follow his vision when he continued, "Creatures that only lived on your planet. This is actually really cool, Anser."
"But these bones are huge--"
"I know."
Anser closed her eyes tight and dug her fingers into her fists. This was fine. Whatever it was wasn't alive. It wasn't going to get her. It didn't matter that she could picture this giant monstrous creature in her mind, almost as if she was standing right in front of it, fighting it herself--
And she had.
"Formation!" she screamed, whipping out an arm to those around her. Several people around her scattered, positioning themselves at the ready with what looked to be spears and harpoons. Her eyes darted around, falling upon another person who had drawn in the large, feathered creature's attention, backing away and making loud noises to keep its eyes on them. It was the birdsong she knew by heart.
In turn, she backed away, twirling her own spear in her other hand like a baton, letting her gaze dart back to and focus on the creature in front of her. It was a large one. The feathers would make a glorious reward, the down would make luxurious clothing, the meat would feed their companion animals for months, easily--
The creature lashed out with its wing, sweeping low and knocking the distractor off their feet. They fell down with a grunt, holding up their harpoon menacingly in an attempt to stop the creature from growing any closer. The creature bent down, opening its mouth, showing off its yellowed, sharp teeth meant perfectly for tearing into bone and flesh--
Anser tapped out her foot patiently to a rhythm in her own mind, holding her arm back when one of those behind her almost charged right at that second.
"All in due time."
"They're going to die!"
"No, they won't," snarled Anser, swirling around to stare the other straight in their iridescent eyes. "We never would let one of our own be consumed."
"But--"
"Silence! Do not distract! You will draw its--"
Her words were cut off when the creature snapped its head downwards, mouth open with the intent to swallow their ally whole. There was a sucked in gasp behind her, but she kept her cool, kept her balance because she knew what was coming.
The harpoon was snapped forward, into its beak and through its mouth, and the creature snapped back.
"Now!"
And in practiced formation, the remainder of them charged forward. Harpoons were discharged. Spears were flung. And for her part, she jumped onto its tail, ran up its back, and snapped its neck backward by using her spear as leverage.
And it fell.
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Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:25 pm
When Anser stumbled forward, it seemed Encke already knew why. "You see something?"
It took Anser a few moments to come up with a proper response. "Yeah." She glanced around the field, trying to take in what used to be here. What was once here. That she was once here. "I," she swatted in the direction of some of the bones, "I killed one of these creatures, here. With a group of people. For hunting, I think."
Encke's expression lit up.
"Maybe we were hunter-gatherers or something," offered Anser, referring what she saw back to what she read about in her history classes.
"And wouldn't you want to find out more?"
Anser glanced down to the bones at her feet and let out a shaky breath. Would she want to find out more? Did she want to find out more? Did she want to be part of any of this?
Anser glanced up to the sky.
Did she want to spend more time under this blood red sun?
She remembered what it looked like before, now. The way it lit up those around her was gorgeous. It reflected particularly nicely off the eyes of the person she had looked at--did her eyes look like that, too? What did this place look like at night? Was there a moon? Were there several moons? Did the sunset look appear throughout the day and even at night?
How did they live under these conditions?
There was a part of her that was curious, she had to admit. It was part of why she had been driven to come back in the first place, besides for the whole transcendence thing that her brother had. She glanced over to him, a curious expression on her face.
"I can help out," offered Encke, in a tone that was almost too eager, before he tacked on a softer, "if you'd like."
That relieved her in a way she didn't realize she needed, and Anser let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
This stuff was scary, but maybe it would be easier if she could get other people to come with her. She had Encke, after all. And Basiluzzo, she supposed. Maybe she could convince Cybele to come with her, or maybe Nicodemus, or maybe even Mimosa. If they came with her to this... planet, maybe it would be easier to explore. Maybe the bones wouldn't be so daunting. Maybe the skies wouldn't seem so strange. Maybe the silence wouldn't make the hairs on her neck raise a bit too high.
Maybe she could get more memories to explain all of the things she was seeing around her.
The bones weren't so scary the longer she stood by them, anyway. They were ancient bones of an ancient creature that apparently once wandered a planet that in some way belonged to her. That was kinda cool, wasn't it? Even if these bones were huge, and this was all scary, she had defeated this thing once before. It wasn't like she couldn't do it again if one of these things showed up, right?
Well, maybe if there was someone else with her--
"Alright."
Anser smiled, confidently this time.
"Let's get this bread."
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Codebreaking Conversationalist
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