Wanted Wisps (11) : Small, wispy orbs are floating through the city. They can be found during the day but are far more visible at night. They seem to bob along a few feet off the ground and sometimes flicker in and out of sight. They are warm to the touch and seem to be somewhat magical in nature. Anyone can gather them in their hands; they do not quite feel solid but cannot slip through fingers or escape any container. If you find one of these, you must return it to the merchant.
It was close to midnight, and the Star Festival festivities hadn't died down in the slightest. If anything, it had gotten even rowdier with the children going home and the adults breaking out the booze. The noise dampened down to a distant clamoring some blocks away where Asphodel was, as he trailed behind yet another suspicious sight Destiny City was offering him.
At first glance, it could have been mistaken for a firefly. But it didn't flicker like one, and there was no silhouette of a flying beetle associated with the light. It was simply... a little glowing thing. It had no aura to it, and was probably harmless. However, Asphodel wasn't keen on taking a risk with anything unusual he saw in this town. So he powered up (in a secluded location this time) and started stalking after it, looking for any sign that it could be dangerous before approaching it.
He'd been trailing behind this wisp for at least a good ten minutes, and probably looked really silly.
Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2021 4:37 pm
Order auras were complicated.
It wasn't that Chaos was easy to deal with, exactly, but Cybele had some idea of the ways in which their minds were twisted. She knew what the Negaverse thought of her. She was mentally prepared to try talking to them, or to fight if they decided to come after her for being a traitor.
She did not know what Order thought of her, as a whole. It had only been a month or so since she'd destroyed a senshi's starseed in front of several people in an attempt to prove to the Negaverse that she had value.
It had been a futile attempt, and she'd accepted that soon afterwards. She would have always been a tool to them, and nothing more. Now she was wearing white, and patrolling around the festival in an attempt to keep the Negaverse from doing their terrible things to anyone else.
She paused at the other Order aura. She didn't know what her reputation was. She didn't know who might see her and remember the way she'd held a starseed in her teeth. When she went out, she had a tendency to stick with the people who knew her whole story.
Although, she knew that wasn't a healthy way to live. In Order, she was more than a tool. She could be a friend. She could have friends.
She wanted, she had decided, to have friends.
That meant that after a brief moment of hesitation, she followed the aura, only to come up behind a Saturn Knight who was following something else. It wasn't someone she recognized, which let her breathe a bit easier. There were no youma auras around, but she did glimpse a bit of a glow, which was interesting.
"What did you find?" she asked, stepping forwards to keep pace.
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Posted: Sun Jun 27, 2021 10:13 am
When the shining presence of a senshi approached him, Asphodel froze in place. For a moment, the wisp was forgotten as a flashing surge of memories filled his senses. Rage. Violence. Torture. Murder. His spade clattered noisily on the pavement. It became difficult to breathe, and his emotions flowed intensely between panic and anger; confusion and guilt.
Like Cybele, he barely had any idea who or what he was outside of what Chaos had molded him into. He had no idea how to interact with an Order senshi the way he was now -- or even what to think of them.
But he remembered, in a painful jolt through his mind, that he'd never seen a white-clad senshi rip out someone's starseed and eat it. He'd never seen one steal the life force out of people without their consent. And the worst ones he had seen, ended up aligning themselves to Chaos.
"You're a senshi," he said, somewhat blankly, trying to pull himself back into the present. The wisp was still bobbing around just a few meters away.
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Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 2:48 pm
Cybele was used to her existence inciting all sorts of reactions in people who she did not remember, from cold stares to unfettered shock to bouts of murderous rage. She had hoped that now that she was wearing white again, her arrival would not strike fear into the hearts of Knights, but perhaps after everything that was too much to ask.
Her gaze flicked to the spade on the ground, and then to the Knight's face, now that she could see it clearly. It was the face of a stranger. Not even the barest traces of familiarity flickered into her chest, the way they sometimes did, but then, that did not necessarily mean anything.
She was learning that the purification had taken even more of her memories.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice soft and carefully polite. "I've lost many of my memories. Did I do something when-" she cut herself off, took a short breath, and then continued, "Did we meet under less favorable circumstances?"
He called her senshi though, and that was her one title that had never changed. Her lips pressed into a line.
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Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 5:30 pm
"I could be asking you the same thing," Asphodel grimly admitted. "I don't remember much either."
Picking his spade back up, the Knight tested its blade at the wisp. It allowed itself to be pushed this way and that without much resistance, or reaction at all. He spent a couple more seconds testing it in this way, as a question carefully crept from his mind to his tongue.
"By 'less favorable circumstances,' do you mean the Negaverse?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 7:11 pm
It wasn’t a secret. Cybele nodded, expression slightly grim. “I only purified about a month ago,” she said.
She watched with curiosity, her gaze lingering on him longer than on the wisp. It wasn’t something that she had done then, at least not anything that either of them fully remembered, but he was still acting strange.
It seemed rude to press farther on that point, though. “I am a senshi, though. Cybele. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, giving a deep nod and a slight smile.
If they both had their experiences with the Negaverse, that didn’t change that.
“So what did you find?”
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Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:50 pm
"I'm Asphodel, of Saturn," he cordially replied to the introduction. It was still a name he was getting used to, and every time he said or thought it he felt a little tug on his being towards that world. There was a place out there waiting for him, he knew... but he wasn't ready to go there. Not yet.
"I purified about five and a half years ago... and I just came back to town a couple days ago." The Knight let that short pause fill in the blanks. He expected another former Negaverser could probably understand why he'd left Destiny City.
Finally, he reached out towards the wisp and closed his hand around it. It was a little warm, but didn't burn, feeling like a substance that almost wasn't. "I'm not sure what this is, actually," he then said, as little dim flames licked out from between his fingers. "But I think I've seen a couple more around."
stari_maga
Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2021 1:37 pm
If he'd been out of the city for five years, then that was some relief. That meant they hadn't met when she was at her worst.
"I was with the Negaverse for eight months," she said. "If we met before that, I wouldn't remember it, but I'm glad to meet now." In an odd way, it was comforting to find another person who had been through some of the same things that she had. Her smile softened somewhat as she slowly stepped forwards, careful not to make any more sudden movements.
Her attention finally turned to the wisp. Her lips pursed.
"I don't remember seeing anything quite like this before, either," she said. She'd seen plenty of magic things, of course, and even some things that didn't fit neatly into Order or Chaos, but not something small and glowing that didn't have an aura. "It's pretty, but-"
That did not mean it was not dangerous.
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Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 7:59 pm
"Yeah," the Knight agreed with a nod. "It's not easy to leave." As surprising as it was to have met someone else who had left the Negaverse, Asphodel felt a sense of relief from it that eased a pain he hadn't even realized he was feeling. He had relaxed quite a bit now, his expression softer.
At Cybele's words about the wisp, he agreed again. "Right. I've been following it for a while..." With a renewed sense of curiosity, he opened his hand and brought the wisp closer to his face. It blinked out of existence suddenly, then reappeared a few inches away, and he swiftly caught it in his hand again. "It's not aggressive, and it's not taking energy either. And if it's some kind of surveillance, it's not doing a very good job."
Asphodel looked to Cybele, wanting to hear her thoughts.
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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2021 5:55 pm
"Not easy," said Cybele, thinking of the emptiness around her waist where the familiar weight of her wings had once been, or the way that her starseed would sometimes start aching out of nowhere in recent weeks. "But so far, it's been better on this side of things."
There was a certain ease to her movements as she stepped forwards, towards this Knight that could possibly understand her story in a way that the others could not. Although it only lasted so long, because then he was mentioning surveillance.
"I wouldn't say it's very bad at surveillance," said Cybele, squinting at the little light. "It found two of us." She waved a hand towards their magical clothes and bright auras.
A slight anxiety started to rise in her throat, and it worsened when she a second small, glowing thing bob out from behind a nearby building. "There's more," she whispered.
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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:26 pm
Asphodel raised an eyebrow, conceding Cybele's point. For all he knew, the whole point could be to make targets curious enough to capture it. "I did just make it easier for this one to follow me," he said, opening his hand to peek at it again.
He followed her gaze to the second one that had appeared, and narrowed his eyes at it. "Time for a plan," he decided, trying to think quickly.
"Can you capture that one, and look around for clues about it? We can meet somewhere later, and avoid powering down until we're sure we're in the clear."
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Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 5:16 pm
Cybele nodded, scooping her hands around the little wisp easily enough.
"I'll ask around and see if anyone else knows anything. I won't let it see my identity, don't worry."
Not that it was much of an identity to ruin when she'd only had it for less than a month, but she was finding that she liked this one, and anyway, choosing a name and finding paperwork for a third time just seemed like work she did not need. The wisp could stay tucked away when she powered down.
"I can come back here if I find something tonight," she said. "Otherwise, I'll do my best to keep my eye on it.
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Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2021 7:52 am
"Alright," Asphodel nodded. "Hold on a sec..."
A small bag of prawn chips held closed with a clip appeared from subspace into his free hand. It was better than nothing for a container, at least for now. He stuffed the wisp inside. Then, setting the bag on the ground, he summoned a notepad and pen and wrote down some contact information to hand to Cybele.
"Good to have allies," he said. "Let's keep in touch."
With that, he was ready to part ways.
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Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2021 7:30 am
Cybele nodded, accepting the scrap of paper and not so much as raising an eyebrow at the bag of prawn chips.
At least if the wisp ended up hungry, it would have something to eat besides her new acquaintance.
"Let's," she said, and with that she continued down the street away from him, now hunting for answers as much as anything else.
