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 Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:30 am
If he knew he would be pulled aside for a silent mission alongside other officers, he would've put the Mauvians to work on a heatproof communicator sooner. As it was, he had limited means to reach out to the rest of them -- either by demanding that a Lieutenant, or one of his own subordinates, contact one of the others; send youma down the halls again (though the rats were still mad at him), or go find them himself. The lattermost was above his bravery for Sylvite, and the former opened up too many avenues for questions.
That left youma messengers. First he asked Headache, who protested the idea so vehemently that it flashed him every iteration of a stop sign imaginable. Then he tried the sink rats that accosted Cybele so many times in the past, and they all but scattered at the sight of him. That left the ones in the Rift.
He'd found Revenant the assless Nutria quickly enough, at the rat-thing agreed to help him. It asked why he couldn't deliver the message himself, but after an emphatic threat of flaming death, the smart-talking thing was more amenable. The message to be delivered was a simple ask to speak atop the adjacent building to the Farnsworth, the one with a sight line to where Ganymede and Cybele had confronted each other.
It was there that he waited, standing at the edge of the building's flat rooftop. He braced one foot on the parapet as he leaned over the side of it, peered off the edge, and searched for targets. It was easier than thinking about what needed to be said, what concerns were better expressed than held close to heart. It was always easier to focus on the mission. Always would be.
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 12:43 pm
There were only so many people who would send out a youma just to ask someone to meet with them. Sylvite’s eyebrows had raised when the overgrown rodent had showed up at her office door. It was her job to put pieces of information together. She had an idea where this was going. She still blinked twice when the thing said the name Faustite. Her eyebrows still raised even farther, so much that it felt like they were about to shoot off her forehead, when it said he wanted to meet across from the Farnsworth. She couldn’t get it to say anything else, though, so she shooed it out of the office before it could drag any Rift dirt onto the fuzzy pink rug she’d just added to the floor. She might not have been to the Farnsworth on the day of the mission, but she’d come afterwards plenty of times. She’d kept checking for clues the last place that Cybele had been seen up until the point that they knew for sure she’d gone traitor. After that, she hadn’t gone back. She didn’t wanna see it. Stuff had apparently gone pretty awful for Faustite there, too, so she didn’t know why he would wanna look at it, either. She teleported there anyway, arriving a few rooftops over in a scatter of dark sparkles. Since she’d told Axinite that the Generals needed to get it together and get along, she needed to do her part in all that. She’d talk to Faustite, even if he already looked like he was brooding from this distance. Sylvite’s skirts flared out behind her as she made her jumps over, but there was no extra bounce in her step when she landed. There were no grins. This felt weird, and hard. “Hey,” she said, when she was a few feet behind him. “It’s me.”
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 5:41 am
Faustite straightened when he heard her. Turned his glance back and found her, though she looked deflated. Hard to go back to normal, he guessed. What the Farnsworth hadn't done wrong, the Rift did, and now they all had to live with the aftermath. They had to shoulder that while they looked ahead to the knowledge of <******** aliens, for ******** sake — Faustite sniffed dismissively, felt his fire burgeon and bustle at the thought. Filed that one away as he stepped from the parapet and approached the center of the building. "Two things," he began, as he held up a pair of fingers.
"One. Wanted to work on our starseed quota. Need someone to hold them. Wondered if you'd do me the favor." Of all those at the meeting, she would understand better than the rest of them why he would need a second person. She wasn't stupid, she was just bubbly, and carefree, and constantly reminding him of the few good things being human might've brought him that he'd never have again. She wouldn't have captured Cybele, of all people, if her IQ was as tepid as Albite's.
"Two. Whether alone or with you, there's a possibility of encountering Cybele. Need to know how you want to deal with her."
His hand dropped, he turned from her. Thought about saying more, thought about offering those empty platitudes everyone seemed to expect, but he couldn't justify the waste of air. Whatever he said, it wouldn't matter. Actions mattered.
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Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:07 pm
There was a lot that she should probably say. There was a lot that had happened since the last time they’d actually talked. There was even stuff that had happened since the last time they’d talked at all, when they’d been at that youma’s lamp shop in the Rift and she’d been snapping at him not to lose track of any more of her people. The snapping hadn’t done anything. When they’d gotten back up, Thorite had come to his check-in freaking out. Then he’d vanished with nothing more than a note on his bed. Faustite’s second mission had made Sylvite’s second recruit go traitor. Faustite already knew all that, though. Maybe not about Thorite, specifically, but he knew about the Rift, and he knew for sure about Cybele and the Farnsworth. She could tell by the way he talked to her in those clipped sentences, and then wouldn’t even look at her afterwards. “Look, Faustite,” she said to his back. She stared at his fire while he wasn’t watching. That was probably easier than looking him in the eyes, anyway. “I’ve been thinking about stuff. Like, a lot. I know I was mad at you before, blaming you for stuff, but like,” she shrugged, not that he’d be able to see it. “I don’t think it’s gonna do any of us any good if I stay mad at you.” She still didn’t necessarily trust him not to be impulsive, or to not get upset about literally everything, but that was beside the point. All the bickering had messed up the recent missions at least as much as anything that Faustite specifically had done. The Generals of the Negaverse were gonna have to get along if they wanted to make any progress with the rest of the organization, and with the new alien threat looming, they were really gonna need to start getting along now.“So yeah. I’ll hold your starseeds,” she said, then stepped forwards, up beside him, so that she could look over at his face. “Maybe we’ll find Cybele and we can add hers to the collection, yeah?”
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Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2021 5:01 am
Faustite kept quiet for a time, mulling over Sylvite's answer. There was always tumult in the Negaverse, somewhere, but they needed to push it away in the face of another threat. For all they knew, these aliens could've been another front to the war — there to stay so long as the White Moon played support. Or vice versa — the White Moon continued to exist so long as the aliens backed them. Little to point in any direction, at this juncture. Their Queen only needed them to stock up.
Faustite expected some ire. In a way, it was easier to cope with ire than with forgiveness. Something about being forgiven left him uncomfortable, though he couldn't name why. He shifted his weight uneasily, from one foot to the other.
"Looked for you, and the rest." She stepped up beside him, and he looked askance at her. "Never picked up a trail." Clench of a fist at his back for that. He knew how they'd gotten out, though: tenacity enough to survive, maybe some ingenuity to find their way to the rest. He only hoped their tenacity and ingenuity weren't exhausted by that; that they could make use of it for this new threat.
Cybele would've been the tracker. Would've been better at it than him. But Cybele was long gone, by now, and they were poorer for it. That Sylvite wanted her starseed was perhaps an end to all this back-and-forth.
"Mm." He assented, then considered their logistics. He hadn't expected her to take him up on it — expected this to be an apology and then he was on his own. Wouldn't find much as a pair of Generals strolling; most senshi worth their sensibility would vanish from their periphery. "Doubt she's reckless enough to attack a pair of Generals. Might be some who do — the inexperienced, the witless — but we might be better 'received' as a General and her Prey.
"'Eion Risk' isn't much to lose."
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Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:23 am
“So technically, you did lose Feldspar.” She said it with a teasing little grin, because that was what she always did, and that was the easiest way to go. It wasn’t hard to smile and say that you’d forgiven someone, even if standing next to Faustite was bringing up weird waves of emotion that she was having to work to shove down. It was easier to joke about Feldspar, who had lived and was doing just fine, considering, than it was to talk about Thorite, or even about Cybele. “Although I guess that wasn’t your fault. I mean, the same thing might have happened if we’d tried fighting all those youma at once like you’d wanted, but,” she shrugged, “We’ll never know, so you’re off the hook.” At least, he probably should be off the hook, although the feelings in her chest seemed to disagree. She swallowed, hoping that would push them away. “Also, don’t worry.” The teasing, probably-too-casual smile only grew. “I gave Van- uh, Rakovanite, a hard time about it already.” They’d had a whole night for all that in the youma lair, too damp and nervous to sleep, and then there’d been the check ins, after they’d all gotten out alive. Which left them here, dealing with aliens. Sylvite sucked in her cheeks, nodded, then flipped up her collar to show off the engraved medallion she was wearing on the underside. “I can dampen my aura a little bit with this. We can do Captain and her prey if you’re up for it. That might actually bring someone in on their own.” She doubted they’d get lucky enough for it to actually be Cybele, but any starseed that they could get out of it was good. Heading towards the edge of the rooftop, she squinted towards the alleyway below. “We should probably pick a spot for this where you can power up easy if you have to. I want backup.”
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Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 9:26 am
Faustite sighed, and flame rolled up toward the sky. He wasn't sure what was supposed to come of everyone constantly reminding him of his shortcomings; maybe that was supposed to be motivating, or act as a reminder for him to be better. Maybe it was a transactional thing — exchange pain for pain to make themselves whole. Faustite didn't know. When one youma wronged another, they either fought each other or the wronged youma tried to force the other into a form of subservience. Human behavior was far more complicated, and Faustite hadn't figured out what Sylvite wanted out of that reminder.
If it was for Faustite to feel more and more uncertain of himself, he thought her methods effective. If it was for Faustite to think twice about running another mission, Faustite considered her wish honored. Thank Feldspar for it. Thank Rakovanite.
Though the General's name alone had him seething, and Faustite winced as a heat blister popped inside his mouth. Swallowed the sourness as his penance.
Doubted he was off the hook, and it showed in the way his shoulders fell and his gaze slanted at the floor. Made like he was sweeping over the distant buildings again, as if doing so might ease the underlying tension from the recent weeks.
It didn't. Nothing did. Nothing would, he supposed.
Looked back at her when she mentioned aura dampening, and he saw the medallion, though it wasn't familiar to him. Maybe she'd gotten it from Almadel, when he landed in Destiny City. Didn't matter where she got it; the effect sounded useful.
"Fine. This is your chance to smack me around; don't waste it." As he finished the thought, his flame and metal was swallowed up by skin, and the forged complications of his uniform gave way to an unimpressive black-haired boy with a spandex disaster for a wardrobe: birch bark patterned leggings, feathered cowboy boots, and an asymmetrical hooded green jacket that had very little to do with the rest. It was fully zipped, and under it were hints of a ruddy magenta sweater.
Eion nodded toward the empty space beyond the parapet. "Let's go."
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Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 4:36 pm
The first thing to come out of Sylvite's mouth when she saw Faustite power down was, "Oooh, I like your leggings!" Honestly, with how he was one of the formal ones, she'd almost been expecting a suit or something, not fun clothes. Yeah, she was pretty distractible, even in the middle of a top secret mission. It was fine. She was also thinking about how it was nice that he'd figured all this out, 'cause he could probably buy his own tacos now, or whatever other food he wanted. Like, that was probably the least of their worries if they got blasted by aliens or even if Faustite led more weird missions, but, it was something. Okay. Focus. She could think about mission stuff, if she put the effort in. Where did she run into the most senshi and knights? She was quiet for a few long seconds, which for Sylvite, was like an eternity, but eventually she nodded. She did not, in fact, smack Eion around. Yeah, she still had some feelings to work through, but that would've been mean, and Sylvite was determined to never, ever be mean, especially not the kind of mean that was, like, hurting people if she didn't absolutely had to. Eion was an ally. She didn't have to hurt him. She reached out and gently laid a hand on his shoulder, and then they vanished from the rooftop. They showed up towards the back of a park. This wasn't the main area, with the gardens and the swingsets and the soccer fields. This was the maintenance area. There were still some trees here, breaking it off from the parts of the park where more people tended to go, but there were also buildings to hide behind. One was a garage, with a door that was broken and never seemed to close all the way. Sylvite had found people in there one time, doing drugs. She didn't usually knock people out, but she had that night, and she'd thrown away anything remotely suspicious that she could find on their person in a dumpster all the way across town. Nobody needed that kind of stuff. It had stood out to her enough that she'd remembered the place to come back, and luckily the door still seemed busted. Someone could hide in there to power up if they needed to. There was also a second building, which did seem locked, and some digging equipment that was parked off to the side. There were Order auras around, but none that were so close that Sylvite thought they had an audience yet. She was still gentle as she braced a hand on Eion's chest, just above his starseed. "I guess you could scream or something?" she suggested.
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Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 4:51 pm
"Thanks," he said, though he couldn't meet her eyes. He wasn't sure why he felt that he shouldn't have received that compliment. Thought it might've been that Eion didn't feel like him.
He jumped a margin at her touch. Not that it was aggressive, or painful, but it felt forceful in a way that others had felt whenever he was Eion. He wondered if that was the gulf of power between a civilian and a General — that palpable level of firmness that was otherwise unnoticeable when he was Faustite. Eion kept the thought to himself; no reason to bother others with such trifles. He felt himself being whisked away,
and his mind catching up to their new location several seconds afterward. Head swam, trees spun, and buildings pitched left. Eion shut his eyes, waited, refocused.
He'd managed his bearings, sluggish civilian brain of his crawling through the mud to their new location at last. He could look around, note the garage, note the second building whose purpose was unclear, and —
he felt her hand on his chest — warmer than he expected — and felt his heart struggle terribly against its finebone cage. Mouth dry, throat wound up in barbs, he hesitated to say anything. Took another count of seconds before he pulled enough words together to say, to half-plead and half-state, "don't pull that." He hadn't thought about what it could look like. He didn't want to know what it could look like. But he'd seen enough reactions to know the pain involved. It didn't differ from ripping out an organ. Reach in and rip out a man's kidney, and he was just as liable to die.
Then scream, he told himself. But when he opened to try, he found his voice had fled him. His voice sounded perplexed to his ears when he said, "I'm actually scared." He hadn't been, not for a long time. He didn't think he could be after the Rift.
Took a breath, then a second, to calm the stutter step of his heart. Then he took hold of her forearm, and tried to force it away with a loud "get off of me!"Maybe it would sound serviceable with its genuine fear.
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Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:10 am
So it turned out that Faustite was not an actor, like, at all. Sylvite wasn't really, either. Yeah, she could play stuff up a little bit under the right circumstance, but all that fell apart when Eion whispered to her that he was actually scared. It was one thing to throw him around if he was in on it and another to freak him out. She was trying to work things out, even if she kept hitting roadblocks. She didn't want that. Her hand stayed on his ribcage, but she didn't reach inside. Instead, her fingers relaxed. "We don't have to do it this way," she whispered, and her voice came out very quiet by Sylvite standards. "Even with our auras I bet we can figure something out. Youma lures, or-" Sylvite cut off, her eyes flicking over her shoulders. One of those auras was getting really close. She froze, except that her fingernails started digging into the fabric of his shirt again. She waited. She could hear footsteps coming towards them, fast, with cracks and wooshes like someone was trampling through brush and dead flowerbeds. Then, that someone stepped into sight. She had pale hair and silver antlers and death in her eyes. Cybele's lip curled as she looked at the two of them.
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Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2021 4:22 pm
He wanted to tell her to do something that wasn't threatening to pull his starseed, but she went rigid. Went alert. Eion felt it in how her nails tightened on his shirt, and he hadn't tried to leave her yet, but she'd keyed into a stranger's approach much sooner than him. By the time he caught wind of disturbed gravel and the rustle-crunch of fallen leaves, their visitor was nearly in view.
Sylvite was holding onto his jacket, not his body. He doubted he could leave without her snatching him back up, or ripping a hole in the thing, so he unzipped and tried to shrug it off to separate from her.
He wouldn't ask from help from the stranger, he decided. He looked, though, and he saw —
Black eye widened before he quickly looked ahead, looked for a destination, and bolted.
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Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2022 9:32 am
"Your bait got away," said Cybele, flatly, as Sylvite blinked towards Eion's retreating back and the jacket he'd left in her grip. She was just as surprised to see Sylvite as Sylvite was to see her, and her nerves were going a million miles and hour. She'd come here tracking a Captian's aura, and run into this scene that had all the makings of a trap. It took effort for Cybele to keep her face neutral. Unless a lot had changed in the past few months, Sylvite wouldn't actually be out hunting starseeds from innocent teenage boys in the middle of the park. Not for Metallia's storehouses, anyway. Cybele knew all about the ways she'd pretend to threaten people and take their starseeds temporarily to use as bargaining chips. That meant Cybele was not sure this trap was set for her. "Shut up," said Sylvite, and she teleported behind Cybele. "Go away." She drove her daggers down towards Cybele's back. "Die already!" Sylvite had tried this already once before, and Cybele was ready for it this time. She sidestepped the blade and whirled, kicking Sylvite in the shins so that she stumbled back. "I could really say the same to you," she hissed.
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 9:44 am
The coal-haired youth shot off past the trees and to the pair of buildings nearby, then ducked under a half-height garage door. Hadn't known what to expect — couldn't see anything inside at first, but for a bright cherry of a cigarette being sucked back by unknown lungs. Heard them twist and shift til one of them broke the spell of quietude and asked if he was Dave's little brother.
Whoever the ******** Dave was.
Eion didn't answer. Caught his breath. Focused on the conversation in the background — he couldn't tell by the voice, but it must've been someone Sylvite recognized. Sounded like they'd already engaged each other; so much for the usual drawn-out preamble that the White Moon favored.
"Hey Kid, you listening? Man, that ain't Dave's little brother…" Another shift in the dark, and a shop light burst on in a harsh, cold blue.
Eion squinted and flinched, blinked away some of the spots in his eyes. Felt like Kamacite's magic without as much of a bite. He found, then, that there were three. One had nodded off, and the other two looked sluggish enough that they would make for two easy starseeds.
Except he'd already gotten scolded by Aquamarine and reminded by the Queen about no unnecessary deaths. "********," he muttered, and hit the garage door with the back of his head in frustration.
One of them rose. "Hey Kid, you —" But the kid was gone, just ducked right under that garage door, quick as he came, and tried to vanish back out there. The stranger snatched his thin wrist before he was gone. "Whoa there, just wait up a second. I got a question for you, then you can go."
Eion was stuck, and he frowned as he faced the garage door. "********," he muttered again. "Hurry up and ask."
The man paused, looked back at his cohorts. "Kids, these days." He turned his attention to the teen in his grasp. "Now listen, there's no rush here, and we're gonna have ourselves a conversation until you learn a few things about the value of time…"
Eion rolled his eyes. Sylvite wasn't about to get backup when she expected it, at this rate.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:56 am
"I said it first, you stupid traitor!" Sylvite hissed as she teleported again, back closer towards the garage this time so she could catch her breath and hopefully be closer when Faustite came out. Nobody said she had to be mature about this as long as they got Cybele's starseed by the end of it. Cybele's mask did not crack. Her face remained blank as her eyes flicked over to Sylvite's new position, even if her lungs felt like someone was squeezing the air out of them. She sucked in a breath. It did not help. "You're fishing for information, aren't you?" she asked, and somehow her voice came out sounding solid. "All right. I'll tell you. Cybele. Senshi of the Hunt." She took a step towards Sylvite. "High level threat. Traitor. Kill her now." Sylvite's eyes widened a smidge. That was pretty much the exact wording she'd used in her entry. How- "Careful, though," Cybele added, and sprung forwards, her eyes flashing. Sylvite slashed at her and caught her forearm, but Cybele's fist hit her face before she could teleport again. "I hear the last Captain they sent after her got tossed back as a corpse." Sylvite appeared on the rooftop this time and tried to blink away the stars. Where was Faustite, anyway?
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Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2022 4:15 am
Great. No luck escaping nicely. He heard the shouts, heard their clamor, heard Cybele, though he heard few details over the drone of the man's voice.
Eion dropped his guise — skin that shielded his youma nature dropped to the floor when it had sloughed off his hands and face. The man was left holding the glove of a hand that would fit no one else, and he stared at it with brows furrowed, as if he had yet to make sense of what he was seeing. Then it became ash, and then the ash evaporated from his hand. Still, he hadn't determined what to think about that.
Faustite wouldn't spare him time. His two friends perked up to what they'd seen, and they rose, sauntered over to join their friend. The kid was suddenly new and strange — suddenly something in which they could become interested.
"Won't let me go back out, huh?" Flame eyes flickered over to the man that was speaking. The man who, recovering from his shock with unearthly speed, resumed his droning. The others had gathered closer, perfect range.
He hoped Sylvite took it as a signal.
Heat sloughed off him in waves as the air about him roiled. His already brilliant grate grew ever brighter, his eyes matching their intensity. The first hungry licks of fire slipped out from beyond the metal, then a storm of it burst outward, engulfing the small garage and spewing out from underneath the bottom of the door.stari_maga sorry for the late tag heart
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