|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:26 pm
After a while, the bodies became commonplace.
They littered every battlefield, or else turned up scattered about the streets and alleyways, around dark corners and tucked into shadows, where they were found by whatever unlucky passerby happened to stumble across them, only to waste away in a hospital bed as another coma patient.
Even the blood was bearable now, and the physical exertion only bothered him after the drawn out campaigns — particularly grueling missions, the invasion of the Dark Kingdom, or whatever frightful creature bared its teeth or claws or horns, those dreadful beasts that required a massive force to take down. The rest of it was so typical as to pass without comment, the subject of a brief report and nothing more. A skirmish with a senshi out on patrol, or an altercation with a passing knight, those were frequent enough to feel mundane.
Aquamarine brought a hand to his temple as he stared down at the body of a Knight at their feet. The tips of his fingers came away red with his own blood.
“Stubborn p***k, wasn’t he?” he said, banishing his bloody rapier.
Though alive, the body was inert, boasting a few puncture wounds. Aquamarine kicked the Knight’s weapon away — some sort of bladeless polearm that didn’t serve him well against the superior armaments of two Generals.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 2:12 pm
Jet had already dismissed his weapon as he approached Aquamarine and the unconscious Knight, and was instead pulling up his tablet to verify the information from the file. But he did pause to take a closer look at Aquamarine before dealing with the Knight.
“Are you okay? We should probably stop by the hospital just to be safe,” he suggested. He had some bloodied lacerations himself from the Knight’s overlarge mongoose-like summon, his pant leg in tatters from just above his knee and down. It meant he was walking with a slight limp, but was otherwise uninjured.
“This is the one alright. Has the scar on his chin like in the file,” he nodded to the Knight once more. He made sure to take a photo of the knight first. He wanted to make sure they had proof that they found their target.
Once the tablet was dismissed back into subspace, Jet knelt down by the Knight and sunk his hand into his chest to pull his starseed free. “Shouldn’t have betrayed the Negaverse.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:21 pm
“I’m fine,” Aquamarine said. “You’re worse off.”
Other than a whack to the head, Aquamarine had some bruising along his ribs from the glorified stick the Knight called a weapon, but little else. Under their usual circumstances, he might have argued against going to the hospital at all, might have insisted they could care for their wounds themselves, or visit the infirmary in Negaspace. Things were different with a hospital at their disposal. Jet could get his leg looked at by someone who actually knew what they were doing.
If Jet hadn’t been so reckless as to take on that summon on his own…
Ah, well. Aquamarine supposed he could cut him some slack. Jet had done worse things as a result of his reckless streak in the past.
“Not everyone has your sense of loyalty,” Aquamarine observed, glancing away from the Knight’s face to look at his glimmering starseed. In a better mood now that they’d completed the mission, Aquamarine risked a teasing remark, “Which might be a good thing. You’d stand out less if everyone was as loyal as you. Then you'd never get the chance to impress the Queen.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2021 6:47 pm
Worse off was just relative. He glanced down to his leg, and then at the body of the Knight again. He didn’t feel any sympathy for him. Just simmering anger. Anger that Aquamarine had gotten hurt. Anger that they needed to hunt those who betrayed them down in the first place. There was the option of re-corruption, of course. But what good would that do? There were some in the Negaverse who were held in high regard that had turned traitor and then returned.
Jet would never trust them. Work with them, yes. But not without keeping one eye open when he slept. Not without expecting them to betray them again.
He stood back to his feet and locked the starseed away into his subspace pocket. Aquamarine’s words took a moment to reach him, which seemed to pull him back to reality and not the dark tunnel he was starting down.
“I’m not doing this to impress anyone,” he grumbled, feeling his cheeks heat, but was grateful that it was dark and Aquamarine might not be able to see the change in color. He could probably hear the agitation in his voice and in his posture. “Is that what you think this is? That I need to impress the Queen or… or Axinite or anyone else?” he wondered. His voice wasn’t accusatory, but he was flustered and suddenly wondering if people looked at him and thought his loyalty came with some ulterior motive.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 7:44 am
Aquamarine snorted, then put a calming hand on Jet’s shoulder.
“It was a joke,” he said.
Aquamarine thought that was obvious by the tone of his voice. Apparently, he needed to work on his sense of humor. Either that, or Jet was less in the mood for it than he assumed.
Jet took things so seriously. Aquamarine did, too, when they were around other people; joking around and goofing off was an easy way to die, or get someone else killed. The Negaverse was full of agents who cared more for a laugh than they did the safety of their allies or the success of their missions — to such an offensive degree, Aquamarine often wondered if they might be better off getting rid of most of their forces and starting from scratch.
When he and Jet were alone, humor was more acceptable, though perhaps this wasn’t the best moment for it. Jet’s shoulder was tense beneath Aquamarine’s palm.
“I know why you do this,” Aquamarine reassured him, quiet in the darkness. “You do it because you think the Negaverse gives your life meaning, and every traitor is a weakness we can’t afford.”
Aquamarine glanced at the body and felt nothing for it but satisfaction. “You found this one. His starseed will serve us better than he did.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 6:03 pm
Jet tensed for a moment, but his shoulders relaxed a little at Aquamarine’s lingering touch. “Right,” he said, wishing he was a little less serious than he was. He knew it caused trouble with the others. He knew his sentiments and passion and desires for the Negaverse and those in it weren't always shared.
The hospital was a good start. Although General King Axinite didn’t have his name officially on any of the process, Jet suspected that it was Axinite, more often than not, working and pulling the strings from the shadows.
He glanced at Aquamarine when he spoke, sometimes surprised at how insightful he could be. Sometimes he suspected that Aquamarine knew him better than he knew himself.
“I wish it didn’t have to be like this,” he said softly, although it wasn’t clear if he was talking to Aquamarine or the lifeless Knight. “Were we just lucky? Did we not experience the same things others have in the Negaverse? A few horrible people with no consideration making it so miserable that the only option is to purify--? Wow, I really hate that word. Everything about the Negaverse is just… so horrible for PR. I know things used to be different and we operated more on fear, but there’s a better way. I’m sure there is.”
It wasn’t too often that he felt the need to talk, or ramble in this case, about the Negaverse. Not when he knew how Aquamarine felt about everything, but things had the potential to change. There were just people who refused to make that happen. Which meant he and Aquamarine were left picking up the pieces when it started to crumble.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:08 pm
“I wouldn’t say we were lucky.”
They never had consistency in superior officers, bouncing from Captain to Captain and General to General as they made their way up the ranks. Buddingtonite drew them in, but where was he now? For a while after, Cinnabar seemed like she might be a worthy leader, and then… Aquamarine couldn’t say what happened to her. Missing. Dead, perhaps, or a traitor like the knight at their feet.
It was only when Jet became a General that Aquamarine felt as if he’d found his place.
When Jet didn’t shrug him off, Aquamarine kept his hand where it was.
“What do we operate on now?” he wondered. “********? Because we seem to be recruiting a lot of ********. We could do with a little more fear, if you ask me. If half of these idiots were actually afraid to face some consequences, they wouldn’t be pulling out starseeds in the ******** Rift.”
The same could not be said for the betrayals, which would continue one way or another. Some people would never be satisfied, no matter what incentives they were offered. It was simply a matter of weeding them out before they became a liability.
“Terminology can be fixed, but that won’t make anyone less likely to jump ship. A hospital won’t do it. Hell, being paid won’t do it, if it ever comes to that. They get to this point because they’ve got no sense of loyalty, and all that love and light garbage the other side likes to preach has rotted their brains. At the end of the day, they make their own choices.”
As the tips of his fingers pressed into Jet’s shoulder, Aquamarine stared at the body and mumbled, so quietly it was almost inaudible, “Some new leadership wouldn’t hurt.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 5:33 am
“Okay, then not lucky. But we didn’t have starseeds shoved down our throats. Why does the Negaverse even allow people who would do that? They should have been thrown in the Rift or had their own starseed taken for doing that to another,” Jet growled, but then shook his head, because it wasn’t as though there was much he could do about it. What happened, happened. Now it was just a matter of trying to fix and improve things for the future.
Aquamarine’s mumbled comment about new leadership--
Part of Jet thought he should laugh, because who was there? And who would they replace? Certainly not General King Axinite. The man did more work than any of the others. Then. Replace the others?
Another part of Jet reminded him that it would be a betrayal to even suggest something like that. Queen Laurelite picked these General Sovereigns to do a job.
But if they were no longer efficiently doing that job?
For the moment, Jet decided not to comment on it, but his hesitation should have been enough for Aquamarine to know that he heard him. He didn’t dare repeat it, but he needed to think about it. They could probably talk to Faustite, too. Even with the most recent debacle in the Rift, Faustite was still a prominent figure among the Generals, and not just because he was on fire.
Briefly, Jet lifted his hand to place over Aquamarine’s on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze, before stepping away. “I’m tired. We should get this report filed before we go home,” he said, because other than Aquamarine, the Negaverse would always be his priority.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:26 am
Aquamarine would have liked to have that conversation about leadership — not necessarily replacing anyone, but making an addition or two. Axinite was overworked. Lepidolite and Hessonite were theoretically just as busy (though Aquamarine had his suspicions about them). The Queen was seen so infrequently, Aquamarine could count the times he’d been in her presence on one hand. (Supposedly she had more important things to do than whatever she delegated to the General Sovereigns. Research, or communing with Metallia, or something else that would no doubt seem like nonsense to a mere General like Aquamarine.)
(And anyway, how were they supposed to achieve replacing anyone? Backstab? Sabotage? Outright murder? That seemed risky, and potentially impossible, unless they had help. Aquamarine would do it, if that was Jet’s decision. He would always do what Jet wanted, even if he bitched and moaned about it, and tried to talk him out of it the entire time.
(No. Additional leadership would be better. To start with, at least.)
But Aquamarine knew better than to discuss any of that out in the open. He wasn’t even sure it was advisable to discuss it at home, where he thought they were safe. There always seemed to be eyes and ears everywhere, lurking in the shadows.
In the end, Aquamarine followed Jet, leaving the body of the starseedless knight behind.
That was the path he'd chosen for himself, and he would follow it until the end.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
