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 Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:30 pm
The fog lingering blanket-like over the city tonight gave Puck a bit of pause as he leapt over the rooftops of his usual patrol route. It made him think of that night when the fog was so dense you could barely see your hand in front of your face; that night not too long ago when he was defeated by a Negaverse General who spat fire and burned inside with intense flame and sent the Super Senshi running home with his tail between his legs. Puck still felt embarrassed and ashamed over that defeat -- he at least counted it as a defeat -- even though he was fighting someone well outside his metaphorical weight class. That shouldn't have mattered. He leapt down to the street corner where he had encountered the flame-enshrouded General and looked around. There was no sign of their battle except a tiny patch of scorched pavement, where the General had burned down Puck's magical forest copse before it could even dissipate. Gazing at that spot, he wondered if the General had survived the conflagration raging inside him, literally. Puck still had so many questions about him that he wanted answers for and was likely never to get. Then he felt it. The aura of that General. Weak and faint, but not far off. So he had survived after all! Puck darted off in the direction of the tainted Negaverse aura, keeping close to the shadows so he wouldn't be spotted easily. He knew his own aura would give him away eventually, but he hoped he would be able to get close enough to the other to get some answers without getting killed.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 1:53 pm
However diffuse the street lights glowed through the mist, whether as orbs or as pale discs hung along the darkscape of the city, they were recognizable for what they were. This night, the morning fog promised more visibility — cars with shape, rather than the teething cones of headlights passing through a dreary, dull glow. Buildings retained their brutalist figure. People were as people, a darker dark against the dark, yet ever recognizable.
As was the meteoric fireball as it hurled from the top of an old church to the pavement below. When he struck earth, the sidewalk cracked and his breath ceased, confiscated from him by inertia. He felt a crack, heard the resounding chime of his metal cage as it bent under the force. He knew better than to look himself over.
Impact had a habit of numbing him, by now. The flameswept General turned campfire counted the seconds until he could breathe again, though with it came familiar spatters of black blood delivered by couch. His aggressor hadn't followed; either she considered him dead or stayed her hand by rash choice. The volatile glow of her starlight against the night had vanished altogether; she must've dropped one outfit for the next.
But she wasn't the last of the enemy in this area. Someone else approached — someone he couldn't know by feel. Unpinning a mangled arm from beneath himself, Faustite wrenched his communicator from nothing and put in for a rescue. However long that would take.
He wasn't holding his breath by choice, after all.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:03 pm
A glow in the sky traced down toward the ground, and Puck adjusted his trajectory to head for it, leaping up to the roof of a convenient building so he could move faster. The aura of the General was still growing stronger, so he knew he was on the right track. As he approached the spot where the aura was the strongest, he slowed down and cautiously went to the edge of the roof he was on and peered down. "s**t," he muttered softly to himself. There was an impact crater in the sidewalk around the broken body of the strange General; the only way Puck was able to recognize him was by his uniform. Silently he leapt down to the street to get a closer look. Was the General dead? No, there was movement, an arm struggling to fish something out of whatever the Negaverse equivalent of subspace was. Maybe he was calling for backup… Puck realized he more than likely didn't have a lot of time before the Nega-cavalry arrived. He made his way closer, stopping a fair several feet away from the carnage. "You look a right mess, mate," he observed, stating the obvious.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:21 pm
Guttering flame watched his new audience. Puck, this one was. Met him in the fog once before. Second time's a coincidence, though with a third, Faustite would assume the weather determined his patrols.
With a wheezed groan, Faustite struggled against the ground to pull himself upright. Chunks of sidewalk had ground into his grate, some making it through, while other clung steadfastly to the twisted metal. Absently he started to brush the rest out, but a bone-deep song of pain out of his right hand stayed the motion. Faustite hauled himself up to elbows, yet not to knees — one felt like it'd been dislocated in the fall.
Fantastic. Especially with another senshi staring him down.
"Get gone," he muttered, strained. The Negaverse's living flame bowed his head to the ground, pressed forehead to pavement as he winced through a wave of pain. Bodily it wracked him, and he couldn't determine if moving would feel better or worse. But the longer he remained, the more his muscles coiled on themselves. And the longer he remained, the bolder this wild thing might become.
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Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 6:53 pm
Puck watched the struggles of the General -- surprisingly lively, given his current condition -- and he actually felt a bit sorry for the guy, or whatever the ******** he was. He'd been beaten up but good, likely by some Eternal or something. He was clearly in a lot of pain. It was unnerving seeing the flame guttering through the ruined uniform; this was Puck's first really good look at him, and it only confused and unnerved him more. "Nah, mate," he shook his head. "I ain't getting gone, not until I get some answers." Thinking for a moment, Puck summoned his senshi phone and scanned the broken General on the sidewalk in front of him. "Right, so first things first. Who are you? What's your name?" He crossed his arms over his chest, one hand holding the phone with the Negaverse database app open, but he didn't move any closer. He didn't trust this General for s**t.
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 3:38 pm
Two years outdated and someone's turning to him for answers. Faustite smiled wryly.Not a soul in the Negaverse looked to him for anything, but this one? His demand for answers was almost enthralling. Faustite's wan laugh quickly dithered between a cough and a wheeze.
While Puck made his questions known, Faustite's ruined body sough to turn itself over. It was a tryin task — every inch covered, every degree of a turn was costly in the denomination of pain. And once he managed the arduous task of facing the sky, once he could breathe without the ground impeding whatever broken ribs he had, Faustite coughed out the first answer that Puck demanded of him. "Chrysocolla." The name was itself a cough.
The phone, however, contended that his name was Faustite.
"Why does it matter?" Shutting flame eyes, the General raised an unbroken hand to cover one socket. A contentious headache bloomed behind his right, and talking caused enough vibration in the skull to anger it. "Our names mean nothing. They're not like yours."
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:11 pm
"Your names mean something to us, Faustite," Puck stated flatly. "We like to know who it is we're fighting, what you're capable of, so we can help each other out with that knowledge." Putting two and two together, he came to the realization that Faustite and Chrysocolla were the same Negaverse agent; he'd have to update the database with that tidbit of information. But why the name change? What happened to cause that? "Now my second question: What are you? You're certainly not like most Negaverse bastards -- you're much more dangerous." Puck allowed himself a crooked, wry smile. "You could have killed me, but I'm sure you already know that. It wouldn't have been a fun way to die either, burned to death…" He watched the fire guttering in the General's broken body with a kind of fascination. "Though I'm sure you would have found it pretty, right?"
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:47 pm
So Puck knew his name. Either someone told him or they were beginning to organize their information as the Negaverse had long ago. That bade ill for redirecting all his comeuppance to Chrysocolla — and it was worse yet for every new recruit out there that resisted connecting with the Negaverse. Easier they were to catalogue and kill. Easier to lull to the other side with inane promises and token offers of friendship.
Wincing, the agent struggled to sit up. But as he struggled for leverage against the fractured ground, he found the pain too great to go beyond sitting up on his elbows. Soon that plan was abandoned, and he had to rely on whatever mercies Puck could spare until his rescue arrived.
If it arrived.
Coughing a spatter of black blood on his palm, Faustite waved away Puck's morbid fantasies about him. "Assume what you want." He wouldn't have been picky about how Puck died, though he would've liked to eat him.
"I'm a youmafied officer." His lilting flame trembled and sparked, sent off short-lived wisps of itself into the wet night air. "Like the name implies — part youma, part agent. Only enough humanity left to think, intuit, and command. Everything else is extinguished, as it should be. Though I wonder: did you mean to ask how and why I am?" He collapsed back on the ground with a bald grimace, then looked up — upside-down — at the dred-haired senshi of wilds.
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 5:47 pm
Reflexively Puck's bile rose and he grimaced. He couldn't imagine the process of becoming part youma, and what was more he didn't want to, as the thought nauseated him beyond belief. A youmafied human wasn't anything near human. Yet he had to know. It felt like some kind of sick obsession, but he had to know. "Okay, I'll bite," Puck said, slowly moving closer to the battered and broken monstrosity on the sidewalk. And Faustite was indeed a monstrosity. "Why did this happen to you? Surely you didn't permit it to happen…" A thought rose up in his mind: what if this General had allowed it to happen? What if he not only permitted himself to become part youma, but welcomed it? The thought made him shudder.
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Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:34 pm
"I didn't. I was tricked into it." Once again he forced himself to sit up, through the pop and crack and froth of injury, and this time, gained more ground. He leaned himself against the building from which he fell, despite the pressure it put on his lungs. Something broke, he knew.
"All youma were human. So, all youma were…" Faustite winced. "Made from humans.
"My General wanted a soldier who was dependent on the Negaverse for everything. He taught me to heal myself with starseeds because he wanted me addicted to them. He was… Cruel," he answered succinctly, though with little emotion. "And kept to himself. One day he… Broke my wrist during training. Pulled a starseed afterward to heal myself. Never even knew it was his." Faustite swallowed back his mirth.
"My skull bloomed like a flower — or so it felt. Turns out you eat enough starseeds and you get like this." Sootblack hands framed the furnace at his core.
"All that… just to get what he wanted." He smiled, however strained with pain.
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Posted: Sat May 01, 2021 12:40 pm
Puck was horrified by the treatment Faustite had received at the hands of his General. The Negaverse was cruel, he knew this, but he had no idea of the depths of their depravity, levied even on their own underlings. He almost felt sorry for the agent sitting crumpled and broken on the pavement; now that he was close enough to see him better, he looked like he was just a kid. It was also horrifying to learn that youma were originally human. How? He didn't understand. Were they captured humans to whom the same treatment had been given? Were they former Negaverse agents who had lived too long in Negaspace? And where did the wild ones come from? In a way he really wanted to know, but in another he didn't. Youma seemed to be disposable pets to the Negaverse. He felt sorry for them too. But he couldn't let his guard down. As Faustite himself had said, the General only had enough humanity left in him to function with intelligence. And he didn't know what Faustite might still be capable of even in his current state. "That's terrible," was all Puck allowed himself to show by way of empathy. He proceeded no further toward Faustite, erring on the side of keeping himself from getting singed again. "I almost feel bad for you. Almost." The Super Senshi allowed a small wry lopsided smile to cross his lips. "Don't worry, I'm not going to take advantage of your current situation to beat you up. I have a certain amount of mercy here." Pausing, he pondered over any other questions he had. He now knew who he was, and what, how and why. Then he thought of something. "Is there any way to… heal yourself from the youmafication? Or would you even want to at this point?"
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Posted: Sat May 01, 2021 6:38 pm
Faustite learned a little more about Puck when he watched the subtle shift of expression. People paid for knowledge with innocence; Faustite wondered if Puck found the price too steep. If the wildling senshi reconsidered all those nights spent mindlessly dusting youma, thinking of them as no more than constructions of chaos — shadows made real for the sole purpose of hunting. Enjoy that revelation.
"Don't be snide." Faustite shut his eyes, blew a blacksmoke sigh. "Roles reversed, I would eat you." Were it an officer — a Lieutenant, perhaps — wounded mortally from their own stupidity, like himself, he would do the same.
That Puck would spare him, and announce it, was either a ploy or moronity manifest. Mercy was cheap dressing for a weak will.
Distant it was, but a dark star lit on the horizon. Something venomous and violent, a corrupted senshi by guess. Rank escaped him as yet; they were still too far from the pair for him to pick up that much. He relaxed, though the hurt never abated.
Then another question fell, and relief turned to weariness turned to irritation. "Are you always this annoying?" He snapped, though the outburst was short-lived. The topic of purification was a perplexing and precarious one, one that Puck had no right to ask about, and he was even less deserving of an answer. Faustite was no more deserving of that answer. Disappointing that his chauffeur was too far for him to reasonably stall through this question.
The youmafied general's eyes opened, and he looked toward the stars with grim resignation on an otherwise youthful countenance. Small thing he was, but he carried emotion like an adult.
"The Negaverse doesn't know a way." Not that he had much faith that they looked into it. "For some, there's purification. I've heard some youmafied officers endured it, and came out human again. At cost." Steep cost, in his opinion. Unreasonable cost.
"I doubt it would work on me — irrespective of my wants."
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Posted: Sat May 01, 2021 8:53 pm
Puck watched the shifting of emotions across Faustite's face as the broken General pondered his remarks and his question. It was fascinating, as the man seemed to wear his feelings pinned to his sleeve; no poker face on Faustite, that was for sure. "Fair enough," he replied. "And yes, I'm always this annoying." An alert on his senshi phone went off. Puck flipped through the apps to the GPS and saw that a Chaos signal had appeared within range. Diverting his attention from the phone and the shattered pile of Chaos in front of him, he probed for enemy auras. Sure enough, there it was, something he couldn't identify except that it was bad. He'd best get out of here soon, if he didn't want to end up in a fight with whomever it was. But not without a parting shot. "I appreciate your honesty with me, Faustite. You're a better ******** than most of your cohorts in the Negaverse -- I'd never have gotten a straight answer out of most of 'em. But it seems the cavalry has been called in for you, and I must away. I have a feeling we'll probably run into each other again at some point -- Destiny City isn't that big." Stepping back a couple of paces, Puck lazily saluted Faustite. "Can't say it's been a pleasure, but in a way it has, seeing you all wrecked and s**t. Maybe someday I'll see you dead." And then he waited, just to see the General's reaction. This should be good.
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2021 6:10 am
It didn't matter to him if they came across each other once more, a dozen times, or never again. Respect was a rare thing to cross enemy lines, and this senshi of yearlings did little to earn it. His last comments didn't help, either.
Faustite smiled angrily. Flame eyes lit on his unwanted companion, who tried so dearly to irk the General. It worked. "It'd be someone else's handiwork, wouldn't it?" The smile grew toothier, his upper lip trembling under the weight of his stirred rage. "Gawk on, then. You can't kill me, Puck, you'll never learn h—" His sounding off sputtered into coughs, exacerbated by at least one broken rib. The general groaned, coughed up more spatters of black blood, and inwardly cursed his body for holding him back.
Were it any other night, he would be nuking this craven little b***h into orbit. Send him straight into the ******** sun where he would be vaporized and forgotten about and Faustite could go about his life facing real challenges instead of inane pains in the a**.
"You're a ******** coward!" Lapsing into another coughing fit, the General's broken form doubled over itself. "Too soft to finish what someone else started…"
The fellow aura grew stronger, their pace urgent — all the better that he could leave this nuisance behind. In minutes, they would arrive, and Puck already made his exit clear.
Puck the vulture. Puck the pest. ******** Puck.tatterpixie Oh he took that bait like a winner
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2021 9:19 am
Puck could feel the approaching rescuer for Faustite: a vicious corrupt aura. He decided he had better leave now. His mission was achieved, a fortuitous chance encounter had turned into a question and answer session that got him the information he sought on the General, plus an opportunity to badger and bait Faustite that he just couldn't pass up. It was a good evening. "Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow," Puck recited sarcastically as he retreated with a bow, searing the image of the broken and battered General in his mind. "Or the next day, or whenever. Hopefully not too soon." With that, he turned and darted into the shadows and fog, leaving behind a very Puck-ish cackle which hung in the air until his aura vanished. Strickenized that's a FIN from me! thank you so much for the AWESOME rp! I have a feeling Puck had earned an enemy for life… XD
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