|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:37 am
Heliodor was ever the trial. Stubborn, headstrong, bent on his own demise, the super senshi fought every rule, order, and request out of a misbegotten demand for a love he never earned. He wanted his old life. Wanted his family. Schörl said such antics reminded her of Faustite. Then that truth splayed out before him, so obviously and so effortlessly, and yet Faustite could not correct him. Someone else did — someone out in Chicago gave Heliodor enough correction to make something of himself. That first step wasn't Faustite's.
That was the mulligan. Now ey faed a second chance in the newly recorrupted Wolframite. The half-dog supplicant fostered a mix of traits, some close to Heliodor's with his stubbornness and refusal to grant similarities between himself and others, but lacked so much of the self-loathing and impetus to die. Wolframite appeared quite happy with Faustite's design, with his own body, with the way his future shaped out in the grand context of the Negaverse. Seldom had this former knight applied thought to where the future led, though he appeared no worse for it. He accepted Faustite's lead, accepted Faustite's touch where they both needed to suss out the details of Vitriol's new body, accepted the augmented training regimen meant to match those findings.
But there was yet more to do. Vitriol was emotional, impetuous, prone to outbursts. He wasn't the hardened general that once built a reputation upon that name. Schörl said as much herself before leaving em the work of a nation-maker.
How ey chose to make was now at eir discretion. Back straight, shoulders out, a great breath taken that stained the midnight sky, Faustite pulled with all eir black force through the nothing before em, pulled thought of Wolframite through Metallia's eternal connection. There, in the dark of Romano's campus, with no more than the barest, brutalist architecture surrounding them and tightly trimmed foliage circumscribing them, they faced no immediate threats before a patrol.
A patrol — what a benign term for what they would make into more. Vitriol looked nothing like the one-eyed knight that teethed after the Dark Mirror, and soon, he would act nothing like the defeated husk that Gevaudan became.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:33 pm
Vitriol had felt grateful to have Faustite as its general and be under his charge as it couldn't imagine anyone else that would know it well enough to understand the full scope of what it was and it's history. The officer had risked much before corruption was ever brought up and in that time showed himself a trusted ally willing to risk life and position beside a knight. In all that the officer had given him, it felt a endless debt it could never repay for life and opportunity given. Now that it returned to Metallia's embrace, it also knew that it was a burden in that it was unused to authority and unfamiliar with being around anyone.
Even as Wolframite, he had rarely patrolled with anyone aside from the occasional lesson to a new recruit. He had never adopted a team even when it was a general or even took a lieutenant under his command. Gevaidan had been just as solitary. He had hated senshi and wanted nothing to do with them and found most knights lacked solidarity and his lack-luster personality came off as abrasive or cruel. He had been cruel. But the knights wanted to keep their uniforms pristine and their morals spotless. Gevadaun did try with some Ganymeade knights but there had been no glue of a common goal aside from their coat colors to bind them.
It hadn't been on a team since Enterprise almost 8 years ago and it became apparent with each order and scolding demand that it had lacked something vital in that absence. Its interactions with Helidor had been telling and it tried to meet other officers under a facade of positivity and a attempt to train itself to be fully devout in giving itself to any usefulness. Humbled - there were still moments that it's defensive nature touched on more and he would find itself saying sorries upon realizing too late.
A perfect soldier it was not.
Faustite however had started plans quickly. Boot camp had been started when the slime of afterbirth dried and wobbly legs became more sturdy. There was no time for idly recklessness and no energy for insobordination. There had been no outlet that wasn't exhausted and between the constant training of its body which it expected, Faustite demanded more and worked it's mind and demanded chapters from books until it's focus blurred into triplicate.
Exhaustion was it's bedfellow but after all that, it was on the other side.
The air was sweet and away was the chill of winter and the scent of snow and pine wood. Compared to the quiet and electrical lightening if the Negaverse subspace, even the remote spot felt loud and pulsing with energy. Breathing deep lungfuls, it stretched its arms out and sensed nothing close.
Somewhere it felt the smallest pinch of nervousness over the possibility of meeting the Dark Mirror Court.
"Is this a straight forward patrol?" It asked. It was curious but boot camp had made it more a habit to hush out too much idly chatter. Not when there wasn't tea to allow it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 2:16 pm
"Mmm. No." Faustite savored the sonance of it. Looking upon Vitriol now, so changed from what he was, scant could ey believe he and Gevaudan were the same. This eager thing acted livelier, as if made better through discipline and control. Like that was what he needed as a knight — not a comrade, but a commander to hold the leash.
Maybe it was fate that kept pulling Faustite toward controlling lives. Non nobis solum nati sumus. Ey looked again toward the puffy creature, then about-faced in an oily breath to the black forest. Through there was the straightest access to the park, where so many senshi tested their burgeoning game. Like such a place was sacred for all the memories they invested in it. But there would be time to wax poetic after they asserted themselves, time further after the war was won.
"Poor is the soldier who never changes. Tonight is a stealth challenge: we will patrol a square mile, gather our quotas, and return without being seen." Faustite's fire projected itself not far, barely enough to flicker off the fencing, but the human eye could find it a mile away. Faustite knew this, counted on it. Senshi would see them, feel them, and come.
Faustite pointed to the woods. "We start slow. Through here. Keep an eye for draining opportunities." With a beckon, the general began their challenge by clearing the fence.moonkitsune *[Cicero] Not for ourselves alone are we born.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:57 pm
Stealth. Energy draining. The first it could handle, but that had been with a different body. There was added weight, but time and training allowed it to at least be familiar with how to handle its body. Though this was all in the Rift and Negaspace. The woods was a different kind of terrain. Sticks. Leaves. Rocks. The open expanse of wind and tree branches that broke and carried scent, sound, and shadow.
"Right." It responded, and took the fence after Faustite, accounting for added weight, and stepped in the grass. New budlings were just coming out. Spring. The earth was soft as it thawed but in the woods there were still the remnants of autumn left.
It feels as if no time has passed all this time and yet the season since that time is gone.
Nearly two months. By now everything was resolved no doubt with its past life. Melted with the snow and just as easily forgotten.
Vitriol headed Faustite's warning and knew it was more to warn his more impulsive nature to fight and not think. Go slow. Don't rush this. Be stealthy. Don't be as quick to action. Mind yourself and mind me.
It nodded.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 5:08 pm
Theirs was not an easy journey, nor would it be. Detection was unavoidable in this city, itself so much a perpetual battleground. Senshi darted to and fro in the black night as they looked for challenges to their morals. They looked for victims prostrated by starseed removal or fatigued bystanders whom they could interrogate. They wanted violence and hatred and indiscriminate ill will to befall others enough to justify themselves as anonymous saviors. And when a general's aura so thick and distempered as Faustite's spread over the area, it promised that senshi would find their self-aggrandizement. That promise grew with Vitriol's quieter aura, encased in Faustite's umbra, nearly gone to all but the keenest sense.
And there were senses splaying out in the distal part of the forest. The first sense was nearest the park — idle, suspended. Something saccharine lingered near it then vanished like a guttered flame. The one that remained was simple, its aura tightly condensed.
Faustite stepped carefully, eir practiced searching for winter's discarded remains leaving no obvious sounds in eir wake. Only the crunch of compacting deart or the unavoidable leaf crunch sounded out eir presence, but eir fire cast long shadows of their surrounding trees. They were yet high and thick, with bracken cluttering the area but for the few instances of trails. When they reached one, gravel crunched underfoot, and Faustite felt the too-sensitive thrill of paranoia for all the ways an eye could spot em. It felt inevitable as a broken promise. The possibility of eyes set on eir skin and ey felt the whole forest looking at them, from owls to foxes to distant senshi who looked for their next greatest moral quandary.
Faustite halted on the cusp of another trail. Water rushed below, gabbing meaninglessly to itself, covering unpracticed footsteps. "Show me what you've learned. Choose the way. Earn back your name, Vitriol." Under the pretense of moonlight and cavity fire, ey laid eyes on eir young lupine lieutenant.
Ey brandished a finger. "Weigh your options — non enim videbit me homo et vivet — for man will not see me and live."moonkitsune basically faustite is making wolfy choose how he wants to proceed, if he wants to risk attention by draining the people in the woods or go elsewhere
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:40 am
Vitriol followed, to the side and mindful of the other's movements in the event of a quick signal or directing gesture. It was jarring to be in the dead of night and hear so much still, its ears moving and working to make sense of it. At this point, weeks from the corruption, the jarring change in senses and hearing had tampered away to a more controlled ingestion of hearing. The headaches had settled away from spikes and pressure to dull thudding here and there. There were moments where it debated if something came left or right from hearing along but each day was better.
But a sense of auras was not something it forgot and had years of practice and application to know.
A senshi was nearby. Further off, and it was the scouts decision of it would investigate or concern itself with it's own preservation.
The couple they saw were gathered by a brook and illuminated by the fire. A good cover for the General but not for his aura. They were unsuspecting but because they were not singular, both of them would be occupied draining. That mean the senshi could come. It was still a lieutenant and it couldn't assume that Faustite would be assisting.
"The senshi is close by. Draining would take time. Can we wait to see if they come closer?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
