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Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 1:36 pm
Over the past few weeks, Sylvite had managed to get a bunch of evidence collected for a couple of her personal projects. There had been houses that vanished into thin air. There had been alien merchants. The most interesting one of all had been the fairies, since it had been the second time that she'd seen something like that around during a festival season. She knew it wasn't gonna last forever. The festival was over now. The workers had been fast about breaking everything down, too. Just yesterday, most of the temporary stalls had still been up, even though all the stuff that had been for sale was gone, but now even the bigger structural pieces were mostly folded up and getting packed away into trucks and trailers. Now that the gates were closed and the area wasn't packed with people, it was harder to blend in, but that wasn't gonna stop Sylvite. She needed to figure out if the magical creatures had left, too. They might just have been attracted to the energy of all the people that had been here, but if they were still around, that meant it was something else. Her powers made it easy for her to jump the fence, and then it was just a matter of finding some shadows behind a stall to hide in while she looked around and got her bearings. It looked like there were still a handful of workers cleaning things up. Hmm. Maybe she could get some energy, too.
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Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2020 5:15 pm
Aletheia, through no fault of her own, had completely missed the festival. Between tackling craft commissions and commandeering bake sales in her day to day life and falling behind on her energy collecting quota for the month again, the corrupt found herself with little time just for fun. Balancing two full schedules, one of which she couldn't even talk about, was truly the most taxing thing she'd ever experienced. How was she supposed to find time to knock the wind out of civilians while she needed to get more super glue, frost six trays of cupcakes, and find time for meals and sleep? It seemed nearly impossible.
"What I wouldn't give for a, hot, fresh funnel cake right about now." She muttered, nudging the dazed face of the unsuspecting stall owner she'd sapped a moment before closer to the underside of their stall with the tip of her heel. God, they always looked so shocked and pale afterward. It was repulsive.
The sound of muffled voices approaching sent her dodging back into the shadows for cover. There was no way she'd be going for more than what she'd already grabbed without someone else around to back her up. Though she'd give herself credit for improvement, it would be stupid of her to bite off more than she could chew and get sent back to her higher ups wounded and whining.
She took a slow, decisive, breath through her nose as the workers passed the front of the stall, and turned to watch them walk away. However, a sudden movement by the gates caught her attention and she arched her neck a bit to get a better look. A dark uniform, a flash of pink... Maybe it was an officer? It was worth it to be a little cautious. She crouched, slinking along the stands, and kept her eyes wide and alert for the new arrival.stari_maga I hope this is okay! Aletheia's cautious until she has an idea of who or what she's dealing with! (Also apologies for any double quotes. I needed to fix a typo)
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Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:14 pm
The empty grounds were pretty quiet. They weren't silent or anything. The workers Sylvite was watching would grunt instructions to each other every once in a while, but they were far away and it was quiet enough until she heard a voice not to far away mumbling something. Sylvite pressed her back flat against the stall to make herself even tinier while she looked around the shadowy, behind the scenes area she had settled into. "Funnel cakes?" she whispered to herself. That did sound pretty good. As she focused in, she noticed something that had slipped her attention during her fence hopping adventures. There was a Negaverse aura in the area! It was just a basic one, but it was still exciting, and she let herself lean forwards a little with a smile on her lips. After searching for a couple seconds, she found a smushed and very stale looking pile of french fries, then a popped balloon, and then the flash of lamplight on someone's hair. A lot of someone's hair. Wow. It took some squinting to see the girl underneath. Sylvite scooted over to the edge of her shadow. "Pssst." She waved, still smiling. "Are you a senshi? Also, hi!"
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Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:53 pm
Aletheia's eyes strained in the dark until she could just about make out the face of another person staring straight back at her and flinched out of reflex. However, when Sylvite made herself more visible, the corrupt allowed herself to breathe. Okay, it was an officer, one that looked friendly. I mean, If they were waving to her and smiling like this they must not be someone sent to tell her off, right? Hopefully it was a case of "two-great-minds-think alike" and nothing to do with her quote. She inched herself out to be more visible to Sylvite.
"Hi, and yeah, I'm a senshi!" She whispered back, returning the wave and smile. "The name's Aletheia! Did someone send you or are you just, you know, here for the easy pickings?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:57 pm
It was a senshi! The second Sylvite got that confirmation, she hopped out from behind her stall and went to join the other girl behind hers. "My name's Sylvite," she said, sliding down into a seat a couple feet away from her as she got a better look at her. It was hard to make out much detail in the shadow, but the gold trim on her uniform caught the dim light. "Oh wow. Your outfit's super cute!" Her smile cracked even wider into a full grin. The senshi always got the cutest clothes. "What're you the senshi of?" She glanced out her side of the alleyway at a few of the so-called easy pickings, and she tilted her head. "Nah, my commanding officer isn't too nitpicky about where I go," she said, "And I'm actually doing okay on my quota from when the festival was in full swing, although more is always good." Sylvite had always preferred the subtle, bumping into passerbys approach to draining, which was great if you could find a crowd, but if you wanted to just choose a target, this place was probably the place to do it. She shifted into a comfy, cross-legged seat. "I'm doing an investigation!"
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Posted: Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:43 am
Whoa! Aletheia hadn't expected such an eager approach! The officers she'd worked with previously hadn't been nearly this friendly. It was a welcome change of pace, that's for sure!
"Nice to meet you, Sylvite!" She replied, watching as Sylvite took her seat and smiled toward her. Hey, if she wanted to talk cute uniforms, the pink and black combo she had going on there was adorable. Not to mention... Was that a matching headband bow with a skull in the center? Oh, she was going to get along with this one.
"Honestly, same? You've got great taste! I love your headband!" She continued, echoing Sylvite's grin. "I'm the senshi of rumors. You know, like, gossip and stuff. I basically distract my targets by trying to make them think there are people talking smack about them or someone they know."
It was slightly more complicated than that, of course, but it was the gist. She liked to think she had fun making her targets squirm.
Her commanding officer didn't care where she went? Aletheia couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. However, it was proof that with hard work and dedication she could, eventually, stop worrying about someone following her every move. The corrupt shifted her seat as well.
"You harvested during the festival? I'm nowhere near that level of confidence yet." She admitted, glancing out to the workers as she thought. That and she still had no idea how to balance this with everything else she had to do. She made a face at herself until Sylvite's statement sent her back into focus. "An investigation? Here? Is there something big that I missed?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:25 pm
Sylvite beamed at the compliment, fluffing out her ruffly little half-skirt as much as she could in the narrow space. There were plenty of interesting people in the Negaverse. Sylvite knew that, deep down, but she'd run into a few of the stuffy ones back to back recently and it was always great meeting someone who was down to chat about fashion without looking at her like she was crazy. "Rumors?" she said, leaning a little closer. "Woah, that sounds awesome! Do you get to hear what the rumors are saying? Do you know things?" Oh, right. This was the thing where she got into people's personal space. She was supposed to be working on that. She sat up straight again, sitting on her hands. "I'm in Information branch, right? So it's kinda my job to know as much as I can about everything, and that includes rumors." Her grin softened the tiniest bit into a smug little smile. She peeked back out towards the main area, just for a second. Still no floating spirits, just the same people and the same smell of old food. "What I heard about this place was that there was magical stuff. Not just the stuff we're used to, either. Fairies. Aliens. Shiny rocks." She released her hands and wiggled her fingers. "And there totally was! I mean, while the festival was here at least. I'm trying to see if they're still around or not." She rolled her shoulders back, still the picture of confidence. "And yeah! draining gets easier once you get promoted. You don't have to touch people anymore. You can just walk by and like," she gestured like she was tugging energy from a passerby.
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Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 7:56 am
Aletheia wasn't used to being given this much genuine attention by an officer. She'd only met one other officer that seemed to have confidence in her and she hadn't seen him for quite a while. It wasn't that she didn't like the compliments, it was quite the contrary actually, but it did put her a little on the spot. She'd never been asked about her powers like this before. Her lips puckered in thought.
"Unfortunately, no." She answered, making a bit of a joking pout. "I can't hear the rumors that I make others think about and I don't actually know anything about my targets beforehand. Now, if I could do that, I think I'd be like... At least fifty percent more powerful than I am right now." She paused, as though picturing it in her mind and shrugged. "Sadly that's not the case, but it's still funny to watch people wiggle uncomfortably about something, and sometimes they even blurt out things they hear. I have a lot of fun."
The information branch? They had a branch devoted just to that? ... Well, yeah, that did make sense. How else did they gather intel on anybody? Someone had to specialize in that. She leaned back in consideration of this and a rather sly little grin came to her features. Maybe she could be of use to a branch like that? After all, she might be able to make people "talk", per se, in future. Who knows what they could learn from a particularly loud-mouthed captive if she were on the team? She'd shelve the idea for later.
"Whoa, I clearly missed a lot." She said, eyes widening at Sylvite. Fairies and aliens? Destiny City just got weirder and weirder, didn't it? "Listen, I know we just met, but could I maybe tag along? I was swamped with other responsibilities during the festival and had no time to come down. You have no idea how much I'd love to see an actual fairy."
Her eyes widened further as Sylvite talked about pulling energy. You could just... Tug it out of people when you got stronger? She parroted Sylvite's motion and a grin spread out across her face.
"Oh, I can't wait to be able to do that." She said, glancing back to the stall she'd left the drained man under before. "Hiding sleeping bodies isn't exactly my favorite thing to do with my night, you know? I'd rather just let them flop over and have other people deal with them." stari_maga (Apologies for any double quotes. Spelling errors be darned. > 3> )
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Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 7:49 pm
Sylvite frowned, just a tiny bit. “I guess that would be too much to ask. It’s not very attack-y to eavesdrop on people. Useful,” she added with a pointed tilt of her head, “But not attack-y. It still sounds really cool to make people squirm, though! If we find any troublemakers you should show me how it works.” Her magic investigations did focus on senshi magic more than anything else, and it was nice when her life wasn’t on the line and she just got to see all the cool things her Negaverse friends could do. She shook her head a little when she heard about her draining tactics, though. “I mean I try not to drain people until they fall asleep? Not unless it’s an emergency. If you just take a little from a lot of people, you don’t have to drag anyone around.” That didn’t sound fun, and also it seemed like it wasn’t the nicest way to do things. Getting drained didn’t hurt, but getting treated like a sack of potatoes for too long might. “Although it does take forever when there’s not a festival on,” she added with a little sigh. “And yeah, of course! There was a garden display thing over at the edge of the festival. That’s where the fairy was.” Sylvite squinted, obviously deep in thought. “I mean, unless it was a ghost. It was a little weird. I got lured into a hedge,” she said. Actually she was pretty sure she’d ran right into that hedge mostly under her own willpower, but this super fashionable girl who would hopefully be her new friend did not need to know that. “And even if they are all gone I bet we can find something fun to get into!” There was always fun around if you looked hard enough.
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:41 am
A little from a lot of people. The wheel's turned in Aletheia's mind as she mulled the idea over. Of course, it would be much easier to wander through a crowd and take bits of energy, she just hadn't thought of that as a possibility yet. However, in a way... Making people pass out had some fun to it? It felt more like a power move to leave a trail of dazed bodies flopped over in her wake than taking a casual wander through a crowd. To each their own style, she supposed.
"I mean," She began, her head tilting in her palm as Sylvite spoke. Fairy or ghost, huh? This just got more and more interesting, didn't it? She was totally sold. "Encountering anything weird, magical, or fun is definitely something I'm on board with! Do you remember how to get to where they had the garden display?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:19 pm
Sylvite grinned even bigger. "Awesome! Let's see what we can find," she said. "The garden display was over on that side." She nodded to the left and then peeked out from behind the stall to see what the situation was looking like. Luckily, it seemed like the workers had mostly gone back to, y'know, working, and that left the coast pretty clear. "We should be good to head over there," she said. "Although we should probably be sneaky unless you wanna knock some more people out." That was always an option, and maybe the one that she should be encouraging, since energy was always good and all, but knocking people out when they didn't have to was also the kind of thing that would get Order saying they were evil. Sylvite hopped from shadow to shadow, pressing herself flat against the backs of stalls like she was a ninja and sprinting through the extra visible areas with all her super speed before she glanced back to Aletheia. Okay, maybe it wasn't super necessary to be all secret, but it sure was fun!
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Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 4:32 pm
While knocking out more of the workers was tempting, Aletheia figured that she'd always have more opportunities to gather energy in the future. Seeing an actual fairy, finding a ghost, or having an alien encounter? That was a once in a lifetime chance she couldn't pass up. The corrupt took one last look out for the workers before hustling to keep up with Sylvite.
"What did this fairy look like, exactly?" She whispered, pausing to glance back at where they'd come from. Good, they hadn't been seen. "Was it small? Colorful? Did it have pretty wings?"
In hindsight, these were probably questions all with the same obvious answer, but she couldn't be certain. Maybe this was a forest fairy they were looking out for, or a water-like fairy. Regardless of color, though, it would be pretty awesome just to see one.
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2020 8:54 am
It didn't take them too long to get to the garden, especially at powered speed. It seemed to have lasted better than the rest of the festival, too. There were still tall hedges and arbors with climbing roses and plenty of other stuff that you could expect from a garden. All of the lights and crystalline sculptures and the seasonal decorations that had given it that over the top sparkly magical quality were gone, but there were still enough plants that Sylvite thought a fairy might want to hang out there. "No. No. Yes," she answered as they reached the outer hedge. She ducked under an arbor and into the garden proper, then stopped to give the senshi her full attention. "I've seen little ones before, but this one was like, the size of a person. It was all shimmery and see-through and hard to make out, exactly. Uh, what's the word?" Sylvite paused and spent a couple seconds chewing on her lip before she brightened. "Ethereal! It was ethereal. And yeah, it was beautiful." She clasped her hands in front of her chest and spun around slowly now that they weren't hiding, entranced just by the memory of it. Then she squinted into the shadows, wondering if it would pop out again. "I could see wings, which made me think it wasn't a ghost."
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2020 1:08 pm
Aletheia looked at the remains of the garden display with admiration. Such lovely climbing roses and hedge-work... If only she'd been here to see it while the festival was still going on. The completed display had to have been jaw-dropping and shiny. She pouted at herself for being unable to schedule herself just a little bit of time for fun away from work and returned her attention to Sylvite.
"The size of a person?" She gawked, her hand flying up and stopping just inches from her mouth. That was one big fairy! Oh how she wished she could have been there to see it herself! "What if you saw the fairy queen? I mean, I can't think of any other reason why it would be so big other than if it were royalty! It must've been incredible."
She closed her eyes a moment to try to picture what Sylvite was describing. Ethereal. Winged. As tall as a person. Her mind's eye immediately pictured a feminine figure made entirely out of white shimmering light. Her wings were large, petal like, and glowing, while the rest of her body seemed to fade out underneath an equally shiny dress. She had no idea if she was right or wrong about this picture, but it was still lovely to fantasize about. When she opened her eyes, she only had more questions to ask.
"What are we going to do if we see it?" She asked, glancing around as Sylvite had done. "Are we going to chase it down to capture it? Maybe ask it some questions?" She paused, gasping at her next thought. "Or, maybe it grants wishes! Do you think it could grant wishes? Oh, who am I kidding, I bet it does!"
She looked to the sky as though searching for a shooting star and, probably, looked a little too excited by the idea of a wish-granting being out on the loose. She didn't care, though. What was the point of life without a little childhood imagination? Pretty pointless, is what.
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Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2020 4:38 pm
In that moment, everything fell into place. Sylvite's eyes went huge. The queen. That would explain why she was so big. That would explain why all the other little fairies she'd seen had been tiny, and why the big one had seemed to have an entourage. It would explain why she was just so mysterious and just so fast. "That makes so much sense," she said, talking a little faster than usual because she was so excited. "You're so smart, Alethia!" What to do with the information took a little longer to figure out. Sylvite sucked in her cheeks and stayed quiet for a couple seconds as she looked through a rosebush for any sign of this fairy queen. The mention of wishes caught her attention, though, and she glanced back over, grinning. "Oh, that would be cool! Maybe if we're lucky it'll be one of those where if we catch her she has to grant us wishes, like all those stories about people catching golden fishes and leprechauns and stuff." It was a stretch, sure, but still fun to think about. "We'd have to be pretty fast to catch it, though," she said. She tilted her head. "What would you wish for?"
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