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 Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:04 pm
Paracelsian didn't expect to be giving one of the Negaverse's newest recruits a tour of potential areas of interest, particularly when he had his own potential (potential being the key word) recruit to handle, but here he was. He had taken Corrupt Sailor Cybele to the outskirts of the city to show her something in particular that he wasn't sure she was going to have much to deal with, but that might be good to know about anyway. He opened the door to an inconspicuous old warehouse outside of the city. "Welcome, Cybele. This warehouse is merely a storage space, but it can also be used for... captives, if there are any opponents you decide are worth keeping." He didn't think that she would consider that much, but he'd make sure she knew it was an option.
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Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2020 10:06 am
Cybele had settled in decently. Sylvite had explained things over the past few weeks and had dropped off documents for Cybele to look through on her own, as well as piles and piles of candy. She was learning about the structure of the Negaverse and what her place in it was meant to be, and she'd even had some practical experience where she'd gone out into the city to try draining. The speed she had as a senshi felt like a reflex, and she'd picked up teleportation and draining quickly enough. The problem with going out on her own was that she didn't know what would be around a given corner. Anything she'd once known about the city's layout was gone. One night, she'd spent a few hours wandering around and had seen nothing but empty office buildings that didn't seem that useful for any of her purposes. She'd jumped at the opportunity to be given a tour, even if this warehouse wasn't something she would have thought particularly useful at first glace, either. She gave the captain she was with, Paracelsian, a thoughtful glance as she stepped inside. "Captives?" Her gaze was not harsh, but it was somewhat impassive. "Is it a common practice to take prisoners? I thought the practice was to bring people over, if it's possible to incapacitate them without killing them." As Senshi of the Hunt, she didn't see herself pulling her punches to that extent very often.
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2020 2:02 pm
Paracelsian shrugged and entered the warehouse, stopping to see if Cybele had followed behind him. "'Common' isn't exactly the right word for it. While cor- conversion is the ideal result, sometimes you need to keep them as they are for a bit. Sometimes they have valuable information that an immediate corruption would eliminate." Yeah, conversion. Corruption, even if it was a standardized term, felt very heavy handed. Conversion made him think a little more of marketing and making people willingly click your ads and hear you out. "In any case..." Suddenly, Paracelsian stopped, and his breath hitched in his chest. He closed his eyes, and he became very sure that a White Moon Senshi was here. Curiously, the aura felt muffled, as though maybe it was being partially suppressed. "Hold on. Someone is here. Someone beat us to inspecting this place, one way or another." He summoned his dagger and elaborated. "If we're lucky, a Negaverse agent beat us here and is storing a White Moon VIP. If we're unlucky, there is a bizarre White Moon Senshi and a cat trying to hide their aura waiting to attack." He had no clues as to which possibility was the case, but the point of light was not fleeing or approaching. Meanwhile, deeper in the warehouse, Megrez stirred and pulled herself up to sitting. "Carmen...?" she muttered, waiting to see if the captive cat would respond. Carmen's claws raked the cage floor from where she was, but Megrez had a feeling that she was still asleep. What a pity.
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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2020 7:23 am
Cybele followed close at heel, although she glanced sideways at Paracelsian in a way that was probably obscured by the darkness. "You can say 'corruption,'" she said, her tone even. "I am not like Sylvite. I understand and accept what happened to me." Perhaps this captain, too, was concerned with things such as publicity or morality. Neither of those things particularly mattered to Cybele. She was here to be brute force, and she was simply waiting for the orders to start hunting. Stumbling across a muted Order aura worked, as well. It seemed that they had found something. "I am prepared for combat," she said as she stepped forward, in front of him. Her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness, but as she blinked, she thought she caught sight of something glowing in the distance. "If we are lucky, as you say, perhaps you can demonstrate the use of these captives to me." Not that she was particularly interested in interrogation, but Sylvite would likely be happy if she brought back new information. She stepped forward again, her knees slightly bent in case she needed to move quickly. "Who's there?" she called out.
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Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 7:00 am
"Do you? Hm." The line about not being like Sylvite had Paracelsian confused. Did Sylvite have some regrets about the spoils of her victory? Still, if Cybele accepted what happened, that made handling her less complicated. Over by the direction of the faint glow, Megrez straightened up abruptly at the sound of the familiar voice. "Cybbie?" Even if the voice was familiar, she immediately got a bad feeling about who was truly on the other side. The inflection sounded wrong for Cybele, and now that Megrez had been jarred into concentration, she thought she felt two big black Negaverse auras within range. Still, she refused to believe the ultimate conclusion till she saw it for herself. "'Cybbie?'" Paracelsian repeated, now thoroughly curious as to what he'd stumbled upon. He advanced towards the aura, eventually stopping in front of Megrez's cell and getting an eyeful of bedraggled transcended eternal Senshi. He turned to Cybele. "I don't know if you can answer this, but do you think you might have known this one?"
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Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2020 8:28 am
Cybele approached the other senshi, making sure to keep a half-step in front of Paracelsian in case of trouble. Even in the dim light, the cracks stood out on her chest. There was no denying what she was. The shortened version of her name brought something up in her chest, something warm, although she wasn't sure of a more specific word for it than that. The feeling grew as she looked over the captive senshi. Was this what it felt like to know somebody? "I think I might have," she said slowly, without breaking her stare at the senshi's face. Although, no matter how much she squinted, no memories were resurfacing to confirm anything. "I can't tell you anything more than that." Cybele's face remained blank as her gaze shifted to the glowing lines across her skin. "This is one of the Transcendent ones, isn't it? The ones that can't be corrupted?" Sylvite had gone on a bit of a rant about the 'glowy ones' and how they were 'super dangerous', so it was a bit strange to see one so subdued. She glanced to Paracelsian. "Any idea why she's still being held, then? Information?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2020 6:13 pm
Megrez stared back at Corrupt Cybele, an unmitigated horror and sorrow spreading across her face. "No..." she whispered softly, her gaze going up and down, taking in the blackened uniform and elongated hair as she was confronted with the evidence that her good friend was gone. She remembered an existence where Cybele went to the Dark Mirror, but she was still herself in that time. Foolish as she'd been, Megrez picked on her for that, not taking into account that it could be so much worse. And now, the "worse" was here, staring at her without a hint of recognition. That was it. Any past connection was cast into the void. Paracelsian gave a thoughtful hum from behind and to the side. "Interesting. That's very interesting on its own." The draw there was that Cybele had a faint feeling of familiarity even after supposedly having her memories purged. It was an odd feeling, thinking you knew someone but not having any idea from where, or if there was anything real to the sensation. The inquiry about the senshi's transcendence status brought him back down to Earth, however. "Yes. It's plain to see that she's a transcendent. But..." His brows knitted as he went through his mental rolodex of reasons why someone would need to keep a transcendent senshi around. "I can't say I know who's keeping her or why. It might be best to leave her be. I don't want to have to explain to a General why their experimental senshi is now dead." That wasn't the only possibility, but it was a likely one, and the one that would have the most consequences if it were the case.
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Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2020 4:27 pm
The horror in the woman's voice shifted something inside of Cybele. She wasn't sure why. She'd seen people scared before, during her clumsy attempts at draining, and that had not affected her, but as she stared into this woman's eyes, trying again to salvage something from her ruined memory, her chest began to feel heavy and empty at the same time. Her skin went cold. Her lips twisted for a moment, as she glanced sideways towards Paracelsian to see if he was also affected. Had the senshi used her magic on them without speaking, somehow? That was the simplest explanation to why she was suddenly feeling something. She took a few steps back, out of the range of any senshi magic, and turned to the other agent. "You're right," she said, pushing everything down under the surface so that there was no change in her tone of voice. "It seems like a strange use of resources to keep the enemy alive, but perhaps there is some reason for it. We should not interfere in someone else's project." Her gaze shifted from the senshi to look around the rest of the building now that her eyes were adjusting. She saw several dusty crates and some smaller shapes that were likely just trash, but no signs that there were any other people in here. "All right," she said. "What is next on the tour?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2021 5:37 pm
"You've got the right idea," Paracelsian responded. "Best not to meddle. Besides, whoever is using resources like this either had to get approval for it or is about to get in trouble for not getting it approved." He didn't entirely intend to file a complete report, but would this observation end up in a file somewhere? Yes. As for the next step... "Hmm. The itinerary is a bit roundabout, but I supposed we could look further into Negaspace. It's important to know what's around in the headquarters." He had no way of knowing where she had or had not been over there, anyway. He took a few steps away, trying his hardest not to look back at the softly whimpering senshi a few paces back. "Let's just go."
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