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 Posted: Sat Dec 26, 2020 8:19 pm
It had been five days since Yu left. Five awful, lonely days. There was a beautiful double oven in the kitchen now. Nobody had used it. Christmas dinner had been nothing more than warmed up canned soup, eaten in a half stupor while cuddling Priam and watching the Grinch.
The just hadn’t wanted to do Christmas without him there. It didn’t feel right.
Sterling and Priam had been taking turns going out, making sure that one of them stayed home at all times, just in case Yu was going to come back. If one of them was there...they could jump him. They could bind him in their arms and not let him go…
But. So far...he hadn’t come back.
It was starting to look like he wouldn’t.
Since they were splitting up on their patrols, Sterling had taken to making a list of where he would be going to look, and on tonight’s list was a few locations that he thought Yu might turn up at. Of course, near his workplace...which he hadn’t shown up to since that first day. They shouldn’t have asked for him. That was their mistake.
He would patrol around DCU as well, there were a lot of places that one could take shelter in around there...and by the wreckage of Priam’s house. Just in case Yu thought...well. Whatever Yu might think. Clearly, Sterling didn’t know what he thought at all anymore...if he had. Maybe Yu wouldn’t have left.
The list was left on the kitchen table, and Sterling kissed Priam goodbye before heading out, powering up into Qingcheng when he was a few blocks from home and starting his patrol.
Swinging by the restaurant led to nothing, as did going to DCU, but when he got closer to Praim’s place, he hesitated, feeling the skin crawling wrongness of someone there.
For a moment, utter dread filled him, though it was quickly replaced by white hot anger.
Was it that Parisite? The one who had shoved Priam off of the roof? Had he really been the one to burn his house too?
The Squire gave a low growl and broke into a run, coming up on the wreckage of the house. “Who’s there?” He demanded, words a hissing snarl.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 7:29 am
It had been a bad morning already, the things he’d woken up to in his rented hotel room had left him shaken. He supposed he should not have been surprised to be found here, inspecting the burned-out husk of Priam’s home for clues about who was working so hard, and so effectively to ruin his life. Besides himself… the bitter voice in the back of his mind whispered. After all… who worked harder at it than he did? His shoulders tensed at the snarling demand. He hissed out a curse, pressing his back against one of the scaled charcoal shells of a wall that he’d been inspecting before chiding himself that he was being foolish. It was someone from the ‘other side’ but many of them had been friendly enough. For all his weariness he thought he knew this voice. It wasn’t till he peered around a corner and saw why he knew it that he cursed again. “Curious George.” He snarled back and then tried to clamp down on his temper, the vague hope that he could smooth things over and gain an ally in searching out the reason for this hot and furious burn. “What are YOU doing here? Don’t tell me you’re the one burning s**t down, you’ll ruin your pretty white clothes!”
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 10:15 am
Qingcheng stiffened, sure now that this was the cause of the fire. The cause of everything. “How dare you.” He snarled, hands curling into fists, clutching his calligraphy pen in a grip that nearly snapped it. “You think you can just waltz around, ruining everything that you touch? You think that your actions won’t be found out? That people won’t just look at you and know what scum...what a villain you are?”
His magic had worked well against this agent the last time, and there was no reason to think that it wouldn’t again.
Swiftly, he brought the brush down through the air, the magic cascading towards Parisite, Qingcheng’s face a mask of hatred. “I’ll kill you.”
For Priam. For Yu. For all that had been lost. He would end this here. blacksagetea Painting in the air, a rush of starlight comes towards his opponent. It surrounds them in an egg like sphere and it feels as though they are being reborn; they are visited by images of their past, starting when they are very small. Qingcheng can channel his magic for up to thirty seconds, and no harm may come to the person in the sphere.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 10:41 am
“Parasite screamed, if you could call it so simple a sound, anguish and fear, staggering back under the influence of the assault. Tears running down his face, clutching hands over his head as though he were trying to guard from powerful blows. “No no no, don’t touch me! DON’t TOUCH ME! I’d rather DIE!” His nails raked over his skin hard enough to draw fine lines of blood, whatever he saw terrible enough to wish for the threatened end. He struck out blindly like he wanted to shove someone away before falling to his knees. “Stop it... STOP IT!!! Stop DOING THAT TO ME!!”
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 3:14 pm
He wished he knew just what it was that his magic did...but really, it didn’t matter too much, as long as it worked...and clearly, it worked on this a*****e. “Why would I stop it when you’re clearly getting all that you deserve, you stupid monster.” Qingcheng hissed, folding his arms across his chest, but still channeling his magic, wanting to use every bit of it.
“You deserve whatever it’s doing to you. You deserve to hurt twice as much as the people that you’ve hurt. Why do you think you don’t? How could you think you didn’t deserve this? You’re a horrible person, and whatever is happening…” Qingcheng took a moment, trying to breathe. To not let his anger be too in control of him.
“You deserved every moment of it.”
...He had tried. Kind of.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 3:22 pm
“STOP IT!!” He yelled back, shame and guilt and believing every word that the knight yelled at him. “You don’t know ANYTHING!” But clearly he did, he knew -everything. He knew he was a thief, a liar, a monster that crept in and brought danger and suffering… And damn him if he didn’t deserve to suffer for everything he had, and was putting Priam and Sterling through, the tears streaking down his face, the sick feeling in his stomach as he remembered too much, too clearly. The things he wanted locked away so hard that he never had to think of them, would never mix them in with the happy moments he had had. “I don’t… I wasn’t… I didn’t deserve what they DID to me!!” He finally yelled, and he wanted to believe that. He wanted to think he hadn’t asked for what they did. Hands -touching him, holding him, pinning him, hurting him… He remembered he’d had a knife then too… He had a knife now… He didn’t point it at the knight. He could make it stop, god he wanted it to stop. But he had to save them - he had to… the knife clattered to the ruin beneath his feet and he clutched his head again with a desperate wail.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 3:57 pm
Qingcheng watched, trying not to feel any sympathy for this monster. It wouldn’t do to feel guilt. He was out of time with his magic though and slowly, he lowered the brush, scoffing. “You deserve it all. It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t know. You’re a monster, and that won’t ever change.”
He should go. Should just turn and leave. It wasn’t worth getting into a real fight, especially when the captain had a knife. He didn’t want to tangle with a knife. That could end...poorly. “Why don’t you crawl back into the dumpster that you came out of and just do the city a favor and disappear? It would be the first decent thing that you’ve ever done, I bet.”
The Squire turned then, back to Parisite and took a few steps away. Hopefully...the scum would listen.
...He just...didn’t want to be there to see it.
...The guilt was beginning to gnaw at him now.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 4:16 pm
“I can’t...” he said, hands fisted in the ash and rubble, the temptation of the blade there before him. “Not till I know they’re safe.” He made himself lift his head, staring at the retreating back. He couldn’t let this happen again, he had to prove he was stronger beyond a doubt. He rendered the goading words of that a*****e Captain - and he staggered foreword. He knew how much it hurt to have hands around that... thing in his chest, if he just... His hand slid through the man, bloodless and strange, and his fingers curled around.... something warm and pulsing like a heartbeat. He pulled.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 4:35 pm
Qingcheng should have known not to turn his back on an enemy. Wasn’t that one of the first lessons that were learned when...when lessons were learned?
There was a sudden pain in his back, but...it didn’t feel like what he thought a knife would feel like...but the pain was overwhelming. “Wh-what are you doing? Don’t--” He tried to splutter, working to turn his head, to look at Parisite, to plead.
His starseed was removed and the world slowly began to dim, the Squire sinking to his knees. “...P-put it back...I...I can’t...please…” Frightened brown eyes sought the gem in the captain’s hand and he swallowed, raising his hand with whatever strength was left, though that was fading quickly. “...I can’t…”
The world felt as though someone had shut off his hearing, put cotton in his ears, and his vision dimmed again, swimming before going black, tears slipping from his eyes as he thought of Priam. Of Yu. Always of Yu. He would never get to hug either of them again. He had lost. He had played with fire...and gotten burned by the one who burned down Priam’s house.
His body swayed and then crumpled, Qingcheng’s glasses falling off as he fell, unconscious, but breathing. His soul glittering in the hands of who he thought was his greatest enemy.
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Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 4:46 pm
His hands were shaking, the bright thing clasped in his hands dulling even as the man fell. He felt… sick and terrified. The memory of the last person he’d seen fall at his hand, the last one to -truly- fall… He staggered back, dizzy and horrified. <********… <******** ******** ******** he just… had he just killed him!? He clutched the glittering stone close to his chest, fear and horror curdling in his chest and rising in his mouth like bile. He couldn’t think…couldn’t stay here. He ran… leaving behind the fallen and taking his guilt with him.
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