Except that wasn’t always the smartest plan, but still.
He stood now on a hillside just up the road from a local bar. Emrys had been watching the patrons with an eagle eyed look, because it was the perfect place for Negaverse agents to drop in and try and steal some energy, and he was not about to let that happen.
Hopefully.
_____
If Emrys was out hunting for Negaverse agents, then he would be sorely, sorely disappointed.
Lovejoy, ever resilient and ever poor, was out on patrol herself that evening and had chosen that particular district for her hunting grounds. Drunk people were easily confused (even without her magic), usually carried bills in their wallets (gotta tip the bartender, of course) and tended to find her outfit more amusing than confusing while in an inebriated state.
Which was perfect, really.
She’d managed to come across two particularly friendly gentlemen who seemed to be drunk as a couple of skunks (whatever that expression really meant) and she kept them entertained for a moment as she debated which to steal energy from first. Her wraith soon busied itself with one man while she focused her attention on the other, successfully distracting him.
“Uh-huh. It’s a cosplay, yeah, sure. I prefer things from… uh, more obscure animes, you’ve probably never heard of it.”
_____
Ask and ye shall receive.
Emrys felt the power signature before he saw the woman, standing a little off to the side and with two men who looked as though they had probably seen better days. She was in one of the frilliest outfits he had ever seen on a senshi; Emrys had to take a moment to squint at it, confusion warring with amusement warring with concern.
Then he got to his feet and moved a little stealthily closer. She’d be able to feel his aura, of course, but hey, he’d gotten this far, and besides, she seemed a little preoccupied with trying to wrangle a couple of deadbeat drunks into giving up their energy.
Emrys raised his staff and gave it a small wave in her direction.
Quote:
Song of the Sea - Emrys holds his staff horizontally and makes a sweeping gesture in midair, several times. Each sweep causes music to emanate softly from it, and the sound of it causes a heavy tiredness and an urge to sleep, though it does not cause actual sleep. The effect lasts about forty seconds.
_____
When the aura came across the scene, Lovejoy felt the prickle in the back of her head like the beginnings of an oncoming headache. It wasn’t quite a shiver down her spine but it was close to it… somewhere, out there, a something was lurking and getting closer (if judging by how strongly the prickle was growing in her mind).
Dark eyes glanced away from her target for a moment to glance around, trying to spot any odd looking individual that she needed to be wary of. She stepped closer to the drunkards, in fact, to keep them in distance in case this fiend planned on sending some sort of attack her way.
They surely wouldn’t attack her when she was this close to civilians…. Right?
But as she stood there, half-attempting to keep up with the conversation, she found herself… yawning. And yawning again. It was like someone was draining the energy out of her all of a sudden and for a brief second, she looked to make sure her wraith wasn’t messing up on accident.
Weird.
It took her a moment before she put two and two together… what if this was some sort of senshi magic???
As the first man tumbled to the ground in an exhausted heap, Lovejoy turned her attention completely onto the other sidewalk pedestrians, focusing her search on the devious individual trying to strike her while she was trying to do some work. Her wraith, of course, was busy sucking up what it could out of the second drunkard.
_____
The bright red and black hair, along with the baby blue uniform, would be a dead giveaway easily spotted once she was out of her sleepy haze. Emrys watched her carefully, saw the way her eyes fluttered as she yawned, and made a mental note to himself of her features for no reason other than to catalogue what she looked like for future reference. You never knew when you would run into someone again, and Emrys was all about making sure he had all the facts, just in case.
The magic wouldn’t stop her completely, but it would at least make her tired enough to slow her movements. Emrys moved closer and saw one of the men drop, collapsing in a heap, and time had run out. He was pretty sure he wasn’t dead at least, but that didn’t mean he could stand here and watch her mess around with people any longer.
Emrys skittered down the side of the hill, ignoring the sharp pain in his leg that this movement brought, stumbling to a halt at the bottom, swaying slightly. He flung the staff out towards her, his heart heaving in his chest.
“You there,’ he said, eyes narrowing. “Stop that. I can’t let you continue with that.”
_____
So there he was.
He finally made his appearance, the sleaze, after casting his WHATEVER magic on her. Sleepy eyes peered out at the redhead, doing her best to scowl when really all she wanted to do was yawn. The wraith was summoned away, the other man looking as though he were about to teeter and collapse right next to his companion. At the moment, however, he looked simply dumbfounded as he stared at the two strangely dressed characters now addressing one another.
Lovejoy stared down at the staff aimed in her direction, heart racing at the thought of what the magical device could potentially do to her. There wasn’t much she was prepared to do to counter - all she had was her silly confusion spells, after all - so she…
Oh! Right!!!
“Super Confusion!”
Her hands flung out as she tossed out her spell, further confusing the poor man to her right without even having to be affected by her magic. LJ knew she probably should have addressed the weirdo before using her magic but… well, if he was gonna use his without introduction, she was gonna use hers willy-nilly too!
“I was just leaving and so were you!!” She chimed in, trying to be as pleasant as possible as woozy feet stepped over the fallen body. It was a chore to try to walk straight, headed straight for the store around the corner that held a bushel of mirrors in their display window but she was determined to get away before the ginger had time to realize what she’d done.
She might not have had all the energy she wanted for the evening but she wasn’t about to put up a fight to get the rest!!!
_____
Why was it that he always seemed to get there too late? The girl, in her frilly black and white outfit (really, just how many ruffles were on that thing?) was looking completely unrepentant at her actions, which was more frustrating than ever. Emrys gripped his staff more tightly, gloved fingers curled around it, and a part of him wanted to run, but the other part of him told himself to stay still and fight.
Except he only half got a chance.
The magic hit him full on, and the next second, everything seemed to melt away. Emrys blinked slowly around, trying to figure out what he was doing here, of all places, and why there were people on the ground.
He didn’t get it. Had he been out for a walk? Had he been with Celsus? Hadn’t there been someone else here? Why did he think that he’d been trying to do something? It was all sort of a tangled muddle inside of his head that he couldn’t quite unravel.
He shook his head as though trying to clear it, shrugged, and turned to leave.
Maybe next time.
[Fin]
