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 Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 1:10 pm
Four in the morning was perhaps the most peaceful hour of the day. It was after the majority of the drunkards had retired for the night, but before the bustle of the working-class could begin. If Nataniel could only ever be out at 4AM, he would be. He liked the dark. He liked the quiet. He liked not being disturbed. When he had a schedule to keep and personal matters to tend to, that was where he wanted his focus, rather than on outside sources.
Every morning, Nataniel woke at 3:30. He dressed in appropriate attire: moderately loose track shorts and a tight fitting tee for the hotter summer months. Even with the sky still dark, he wasn’t about to be at risk of overheating and passing out on the sidewalk. He stretched, he secured his long green bangs to the side of his head with a simple black clip, stuck a reusable water bottle in his backpack, and left the student apartments right at four.
On the dot. Schedules were important to keep, and he had been keeping this one for several years now.
His path was familiar to him, and as static as the time he kept: a circuit around the outside edge of the campus, with almost no deviation from that. There was enough to see on the route. He passed a handful of other apartments, and across the street from the school were a myriad of cafes, bookstores, and bars, sports stores, pizza shops, and smoke shops.
Students must be the most easy and simple-minded creatures in the world… It happened no matter where you went, young adults were all interested in the same things. Food, freedom, and booze. Nataniel would’ve liked to say he held himself to a higher standard than that, but…
His gaze flicked briefly to the neon sign of The Queen’s Head bar as he jogged passed and then back to the road ahead. At least he kept to schedule. There was a time and place for such things. It wasn’t now.
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Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 2:17 pm
Vitriol might as well have been nocturnal. The negaverse had no sun and he woke up when the Negaverse was the busiest which happened to be in the evening to the morning. Needless to say, he didn’t get out during the day much.
The late night to early morning was the best time to go energy draining. There were barely any people around that, while it made finding any victims harder, it did mean that when you did find anyone, they were usually so far from anyone else that attacking them wouldn’t alert anyone. Even the police patrol became lax after 3 when everyone from the bars and clubs took their shuttles from any pit-stops for food to then head home to sleep off an guaranteed hangover. Most people were not waking up for their morning shifts yet and the late night wasn’t leaving during this time.
The one good thing about Destiny city was there was always someone up at some ungodly hour of the day or night.
Vitriol had only passed through the campus in hopes someone was coming back form a bender but stopped when it heard the steady footfalls of sneakers on ground. It was such a surprise that it first thought it was an animal, but the steady sound of only 2 legs was much different to a lighter, 4-legged animal. Moving to the side of a tree, it watched as a jogger came forward. College students sure were ambitious and it seems almost sad that the one person not destroying their liver and doing their body some good would be punished for it. Oh well. He should have decided to go for a run when it wasn’t this early. It would be a lesson to him to keep him from getting mugged later in life.
Knowing the man was in his own zone, Vitriol simply just stepped in front of the path and stood there, waiting for the man to realize what was standing there and stop. After that, it could take him out. Regardless of how clearly fit that man was, his body visible under shorts and a workout top, Negaverse corruption did wonders for powering up a normal person. Having both trained for years and being a mutated person now, Vitriol had little worries that this man would harm it aside from maybe a good punch. While the dude had a backpack, he wouldn’t be able to reach in there in time to pull out a weapon either - if he even had one. You never knew these days and it had dealt with way too many tasers in its time.
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Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 3:58 pm
Generally speaking, Nataniel’s preference was to not be disturbed. Face-to-face social interaction of any stripe wasn’t his forte, and he limited most of his interpersonal relationships to frenzied, brief flings that fit into his schedule once a week, with people he’d never see again and didn’t care to know. It was the simplest means to an end, and beyond that, Nataniel stuck almost exclusively to his computer. He didn’t hate people, but he often found that there were other, better, more beneficial ways to occupy his time. ‘Friendship’ did not come with the same chorus of congratulatory sounds as a level-up in his games did. The benefit of dedicating his time there was more obvious. Easier to measure.
And so when Nataniel saw anyone who did not have an immediate and obvious purpose to him, he tended to ignore them, no matter the outside circumstances. He did not make friends in his classes. He did not communicate with his teachers. He did not send texts or emails asking about how his family’s days were going because he simply did not care, and he didn’t want to be bothered.
He kept his earbuds in often, because he wanted to look like he didn’t want to be bothered. Even at four in the morning, when Nataniel expected to encounter few passerby, let alone anyone who wanted to disturb him, he kept them in.
To be fair, despite the intense judgement he felt for the world at large, his taste in music wasn’t particularly ‘high brow.’ The Last of the Real Ones played as a figure- a child, as far as Nat could tell- stepped out in front of him.
A furry child, donned in pointed ears and fluffy tail and actual paws. The children were committed to their fetishes in this day and age, at least, and it did not seem particularly strange to him to see one out at this hour, next to a college campus, along a street filled with bars and clubs. If there was a place for doing anything you felt like doing, this was probably it.
He kept going. No reason not to.
It did not hold any interest for Nataniel at this time, as most things tended to not, when he was focused on other activities.
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Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 4:41 pm
Being ignored was not a reaction it appreciated and it decided that the other clearly wasn’t taking it seriously. Seemed that humans could just excuse anything they saw and really, despite how what it was should be terrifying, it was easier just to think it was in a costume.
A costume at this early in the morning for some reason.
“I don’t like that.” It said, but even it could hear that the man still had earbuds on.
It moved towards him as the man continued to move past him, not caring to stop, and then rushed in to punch him right into the gut. If the man wanted to run so bad, then it would just make it unable to make any progress.
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Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 2:51 pm
Why. Nataniel was not blind, and though he considered himself successful in ignoring others, sometimes it happened that they demanded his attention. But for God’s sake, why they would want to was beyond him. With his dark gaze up, he could clearly see that the boy’s focus was undoubtedly on him. Immature children in masks and costumes seemed to be the ‘fad’ going around. He would’ve thought they learned better after enough clowns had been run over, but many people were too stupid for their own good. Nataniel hated stupidity.
He would’ve been content to continue on as though there was simply nothing before him. It would- should discourage a child from continued attempts at disrupting him or any other member of society.
It didn’t.
It was due only to the amount of space still between them that Nataniel managed to duck to the side as the smaller boy ran at him, avoiding an obvious attack. In just the periphery of his thoughts, blocked out mostly by sheer unwillingness to grant a stranger any compliment, however internal, he was aware that the smaller boy was fast.
Faster than Nat, who did not consider himself slow, given what he was doing out here to begin with. He stalled to a standstill as his shoe slid against the concrete, momentum from his own efforts in getting out of the way. “Can I help. You.” Each word was concise, clear, and pointed as he stared (Nataniel didn’t glare or glower) at the boy now next to him.
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Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:00 pm
"Now I have your attention." It snapped back.
How quick people gave a damn when violence was thrown into the equation. It was startling how easy the man was taking this all in and even seemed just annoyed rather than full blown angry at being attacked out of the blue. Some even freaked out and started calling for help.
"And you can help. Just stay still a while - or don't." It would be good practice one way or another.
It pivoted amd spun down, trying to sweep the man's legs to bring him down. Being that build, for, and taller meant it was best to get him on the ground, low, and immobile as fast as he could. It didn't want to have to deal with a Chase if the man decided to bolt to the nearest college building. Then it would take have anything to turn up for its quota tonight.
Already it was calling up the poison in it's mouth to start up. Small as he was, they were still close enough for him to fight and the size difference often worked to make it harder to hit in the head. Minor blessings.
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Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:45 pm
The boy snapped at him, and if Nataniel had been miffed before, it solidified at that. What did this child possibly have to be upset at him about? Nat had been minding his own business, performing a routine action which was not unusual for him, until someone had stepped in, disturbed him, and ruined it. Nataniel had cause to be annoyed. No one else could say as much.
But it was ruined, now. He hated being bothered, and it did not generally please him to have to talk to people. Especially not at this hour. Should he just go home…? It would be a bit of a wasted effort to not follow through with his norm, but he was agitated, and it would be all he thought about if he kept going.
There was no benefit to allowing this to continue to even be in his thoughts.
Nataniel sighed, and shifted to stand in a less immediately defensive position, standing straight instead. “I’m not interested in whatever fetish you’re trying to fulfil, so go home. Stop disrupting people-” His attention was on his phone, lowering the volume of the music still playing through his earbuds.
Children were uncooperative. Nataniel hated children.
The furry boy dipped and swept, kicking out at Nat’s legs and causing him to fall backwards. But it was senseless, absolutely agitating. Nothing to be gained for either of them. It wasn’t like he carried money during a workout, or anything. His backpack kept him from hitting the concrete, and as he pushed himself up onto his elbows, he was frowning. “I don’t have anything to give you, you know.” It came out as more of a low hiss than a statement.
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Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:58 pm
It was good he stayed on the ground, but his lax attitude really didn’t fully comprehend the full scope of the situation. It was annoying but it knew that the little people assumed people like him could do crazy things like break a man’s limb or steal their soul then the better in the long game.
“You do actually. If you struggle, you’re going to get badly hurt. Take it easy and I’ll leave after I’m done and you can resume your life.” It said, watching him.
“Don’t worry. It’s nothing like you’re thinking.” It assured him, knowing how something like that could be jumped to something far from what Vitriol wanted to do with him. Well, maybe in another time and place but not now.
“Not that you aren’t good looking.” It admitted. What did it care for this guy knowing how he swung anyways.
Moving over, he extended out his hand, and moved towards him to go down to reach for his neck as a way to keep the man down and controlled. Claws wrapped around neck and Adam’s apple of the other and held it in a tight loop but enough to keep him from blacking out. The other went to his chest and started to pull energy.
“Don’t try me.” It warned, glowing yellow eyes staring right into the other’s.
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2019 7:16 am
‘Hasty’ was not a word Nataniel used to describe himself. It was inelegant, rash, careless. He considered himself too intelligent to be ‘hasty,’ and had always thought there was more to be gained by waiting, observing, gathering what information he could before he acted too abruptly. He hadn’t known why a small, costumed male would make the conscious decision to attack him and invade his personal space.
Nat still didn’t know.
He was irritated, of course, because of how easily one action could throw off his routine, and how little he expected his attacker cared, and Nataniel didn’t understand why. He wouldn’t be a fraction as annoyed if he simply had a viable explanation- well, maybe just a fraction, anyway.
Nataniel watched the other no less intently than he was watched in turn, dark red eyes following as the boy slunk over to him and pinned a paw- ridiculous- over his throat. ‘It’s nothing like you’re thinking.’ Nataniel’s brows knit. Not money, not sex, not murder- presumably, if the boy was to be believed. Then for what purpose?
Another paw landed on his chest, and Nat’s gaze flicked down to observe. He didn’t have answers for anything. What a waste of his time. What a waste of his thoughts. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t his money or his body or his life, Nataniel’s time was still being taken, and he didn’t give away anything for free.
When he moved, it was slow and deliberate: one hand coming to rest over top the paw on his chest, and the other moving further up, fingers pushing at the rim of his glasses to properly align them with his eyes at the new angle.
“‘Try you?’” Nat repeated in a quiet murmur.
Very little phased him. Not the dark of night. Not fear of the end of his life. Not pain. Not a small and unarmed boy wearing a fluffy ear headband and glowing contacts. And the thing about paws was they tended not to have too great a grip. Nat held the paw against his chest tight against him, not flinging away, but rather stealing momentum by refusing to release it. His other hand cut upward, aiming a blow with the heel of his palm toward the other boy’s chin as he did.
He twisted in the same movement, using his knee to push the boy’s body away while still holding his arm, and curling his leg around the other’s back to force them to flip. “I’m not unreasonable,” Nat hissed, now looking down at the stranger. “Tell me why-” His favorite question. “-you’re here, and I might oblige you.”
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2019 8:33 am
The paw under the man’s hand was not stuffing. It was firm, soft like real fur, thick even, and there was heat radiating off it. When the grip moved, muscle flexed under the man’s palm.
Staring down, it noticed nothing in this man. Just staring back blankly, curious as if devoid of any experiences in life that should make it reach for the instincts of self preservation. While annoyed, angry maybe, it wasn’t much more than that.
This man was strange - and in that, Vitriol wondered if he was unhinged somehow. That maybe a man who went jogging at 3am in the morning alone must have a lot going on in his head.
A hand pressed against his palm and for a moment Vitriol wondered if the jogger wanted this. If he knew what was coming and was inviting him to do his worst. What it would have liked was to corrupt him, but the most it could do was either kill him or take his energy. It was a lieutenant and was limited in what it could do these days.
It must have been thinking too hard when it felt a palm shoot up into chin, making Vitriol n** it's tongue painfully before the larger man's weight threw it over to it's back. It was stupidly foolish of it to be distracted even with a civilian and it scolded itself mentally for such a mistake. Luckily the man didn't look like he carried a weapon in all that form-hugging clothing but the man was large and fit, easily able to pummel Vitriol in the face I to unconsciousness or worse if it wasn't careful. Blood pooled in it's mouth from its bitten tongue.
The man however did nothing. It just asked.
"I'm a monster sent to take your energy." It didn't care to lie. The man had gotten the upper hand on it and that was commendable. No one in the hospital or on campus would believe this happened anyways.
"I could take more though." And with that the claw against the man's chew sank, swimming into intangibility into the jogger's broad chest. In the floating abyss that housed all, claws gently touched the man's starseed. Vitriol felt the warm glow like a full star against its palm and slowly closed its claws lightly around it. Yellow eyes looked into the man's, locking it's gaze.
"Get off." And then it started to squeeze the starseed.
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:15 am
A monster sent to take his energy. Nataniel’s sigh was impatient. While he didn’t have a particular disbelief for things like religion, ghosts, witches, or anything else with that supernatural element, neither was he prepared to put stock in everything without some degree of evidence, tangible proof of existence. If others wanted to believe it, fine. It wasn’t his place to ridicule openly, but as with social functions in general, he preferred that it wasn’t used as an excuse to bother him.
It was too late for that now.
“Are you in some gang? A cult?” He could never tell if other people actually, truly believed what they themselves said, or if they just wanted to try and make Nataniel believe it. Those types of cues were lost on him. But some kind of cult dedicated to… he didn’t know- the moon? Some werewolf demon? That would explain the getup, at least, and perhaps raise the likelihood of being out at this hour.
He kept himself low and close to the other boy as he hovered over him, thinking of proximity as a measure against having the tables turned around on him again. The smaller man had started this. It stood to reason that he wouldn’t be afraid and remained so confident, despite being beneath someone bigger and more notably fit than him.
Nataniel frowned. “Am I stopping you?” From doing whatever the boy thought he was doing, anyway. He hadn’t pushed him away, hadn’t tried to escape him. It did not offend Nataniel’s sensibilities to let him try to do whatever he thought he could do.
From a standpoint that let Nat feel as though he had a reasonable amount of control over the situation.
The question had still barely passed his lips when the paw on his chest moved, and Nataniel’s own fingers met the solidity of his own chest. For a brief second, his focus shifted, dropping from the boy’s face, to the hand inside his chest cavity.
Was he drugged?
No, no. That wasn’t a reasonable thought. There would have been some other indicator beforehand. He hadn’t eaten anything, hadn’t been stabbed by anything. He supposed it could be some kind of inhalant, but he hadn’t particularly smelt anything abnormal, either. Maybe he wouldn’t have known, even if he had…
A stab of sharp pain pushed the thought from the forefront of his mind, and Nataniel snarled, fingers now grabbing the other boy’s arm and holding that, in place of the hand that wasn’t beneath his, anymore. It was a pressure that shortened his breath, a heat like acid down his spine… But he wasn’t afraid of pain, and he did not yield to threats, regardless of the source it came from. “No,” he hissed softly.
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:23 am
"Do you know what I'm holding? It's you. All you ever were. All you will ever become. Your entire existence is in my hand. I can take it and have it. Eat it even." It gave another little squeeze.
"Your eyes aren't human. You know that. Something is wonderfully wrong with you. If I was able, I'd make you just like me. I'd keep you. " It whispered to him.
"You have a choice. Die and never exist again. Or let me take what little energy you still have left. You will just be tired and go home. Live your life. Maybe take something like be a little more seriously next time. You decide." It said and loosened its grip on the starseed to just a faint touch to allow the man to collect his thoughts and speak.
The smaller man watched him, pitch black blood staining its lips as blood dribbled down the side of its mouth from the tongue still gushing blood.
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Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:37 am
So, his heart, then. It stood to reason that if there was a hand in his chest, that would be what it was grabbing. Why anyone would want to have it or eat it was entirely beyond him, as organ meat was particularly disgusting. Disgust and judgement were among Nataniel’s strongest of emotions, easily outclassing something as fleeting as pain, and they showed now as an obvious pinch of his brow and tilt to his lips.
The pain did, however, keep him from responding with more than a soft, “Tsk.” to the smaller man’s claims that there might be something ‘wrong’ with Nat, no matter how he disagreed over it.
Though he did suppose ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ were maybe too subjective to flat out deny the truth of it. Nataniel was as he’d always been. This was normal to him, and so ‘right’ in its normalcy. Frankly, he wished more people were like him and put proper consideration into their words and actions before acting on them.
But they all had that pesky, senseless ‘fear’ in them, that Nat did not feel quite so strong a need for.
His fingers trailed down the arm in his grasp, flicking lightly over the smaller man’s shoulder and catching quick at his throat in such a way to lift his chin. “You do not listen,” Nat rumbled. “I asked if I was stopping you. Am I? Death does not concern me. There is no reason to fear the inevitable, and all men die. I am not going to waste my time fearing what I cannot stop.”
“At the very least, you have a peculiar way of going about things.” He leaned to sit up, both arms dropping limply to his sides. “I don’t enjoy being disrupted, but since you have, I appreciate the effort you have gone through to make it engaging.”
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Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:26 pm
"I wanted more of a struggle." It admitted. "Stealth is well and good but this early, I wanted to play a bit more." It said as it removed its hand from his chest and showed it again, unstained and whole.
"I can't tell if you're being or interesting." It said as it sat up and wiped it's moth with the back of it's hand. Now that they seemed in agreement, it was more aware of the man resting in its lap.
"Pity I couldn't change you." It pressed it's claw back onto it's chest. "But you don't seem to care what happens. Your life. Your body. Then I guess you wouldn't mind…" It pushed forward and regardless of its size and frame, there was an unreasonable amount of strength and power in him as he pushed the man back. An orb of energy was forming in its hand but the other grabbed his shoulder and leaned in.
It was a habit. At first Wolframite bite to mark the dark moon Court. To make them know it was him when he left victims behind. Then he bite to mark those who lived to make them remembered how close he had gotten to them. That they were somehow tainted. Somehow its. It wasn't true ownership. It knew that. But the morning thrilled it.
Sharp teeth pressed into where neck meets shoulder and with it came a dull burning sensation. Some remnants of the poison lingering in its mouth diluted by saliva. Its own black blood stained there from the cut on its tongue.
The orb of energy continued to grow in its hand and it gauged how much it was taking. How far it could go before the other passed out.
"Maybe I'll come to you later. When I can." It whispered into its ear as it finished the bite. It could taste the other in its mouth still.
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Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 5:41 pm
Nataniel adjusted his glasses again, dark eyes flickering to the paw as it was brandished before him, fur clean, no blood. He could be hallucinating. That wasn’t ruled out, yet. Was it affecting the other boy too, or was it all a hallucination? He felt sane, as though all of his cognitive reasoning abilities were still intact. He wasn’t paranoid or anxious. He felt… normal. This seemed like a very normal dose of curiosity, disbelief, and confusion, given the circumstances. Nothing was exaggerated, and the activities leading up to this moment were per his usual. No strange lights, no fancy colors…
His gaze flicked from the boy’s paw to his ear, and he murmured while still scrutinizing the fur there, “I have no interest in being like you. There is no benefit to it.” Real or hallucination or dream, Nataniel felt nothing for the idea of becoming an energy-stealing werewolf monster.
It would be disruptive. He had classes to attend, and he wasn’t fond of the thought of being out in public looking like a grown a** man wearing dog accessories.
“I am not entirely indifferennn-uff!” He grunted as the smaller boy slammed into him, knocking Nat off of him and down again. And with it came a spike of frustration because he had been aware of the potential and had even considered it a possibility with which to guard against. Despite that, here he was.
Would he really feel anything so weirdly specific in a hallucination? Nataniel was all too familiar with the sensation of a mouth on him: licking, sucking, biting, it didn’t matter. He knew those sensations. From gentle to rough, he knew them. When teeth pierced his skin, Nat was aware that it was different, that those sharp teeth felt different than normal. It was a detail so much smaller than paws on his chest or fur against his throat, that he had to wonder if he really could’ve concocted the thought, drugs or otherwise.
The sting was different. The burn unfamiliar. Not unbearable, but unusual. It was all very unusual. The boy bit him, and Nataniel’s hands snaked up, fingers carding through dark hair until they met the soft fur of an ear and yanked backward.
Did he expect it to pop off at this point? He wasn’t sure…
But that seemed irrelevant in comparison to the realization that the simple motion felt more difficult than it should have. His arm felt heavy, his chest felt tight, as though he were out of breath. Granted, he had been running a handful of moments ago, but he knew his limits and what he was capable of.
Feeling weak in his own skin was not something Nataniel could overlook so easily as everything else. “Don’t bother,” he answered as the boy shifted back. “I will not be so tolerant of your disruption a second time.”
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