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 Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:30 am
Faustite learned, in short order, that Aquamarine's office was Jet's office. That is to say, Jet's office was Aquamarine's office. The burning thing knew that the pair were close, such was obvious during their grand Rift misadventure, but he couldn't say how much or how long or how deep from seeing them together the one time. But every time he heard more about Jet, or more often, every time he heard more bitching about Aquamarine, the pattern grew clearer and clearer until it was clear as glass.
Which left Faustite a little uneasy for knocking on the door. Should he expect Jet, or Aquamarine? Both? Or would it be neither, and Faustite would have to stare down a subordinate left in charge of the office?
What if he walked in on something saucy? If he knew Jet was a little less than faithful to his blonde boy with the perfect lips and the baleful eyes, could he keep his hands to himself? That shouldn't have been a question.
He pushed his scattered thoughts aside. There was only one thought to have, and that thought concerned the terrible news handed down to them. There was but one action for that one thought, and that was to follow the command that was paired with the terrible news. Thus, after loitering at the door for a full minute and turning away from it twice, Faustite finally mustered the gumption to knock, though he neatly regretted it after the sound reached his ears.
Committed now, it said, but he hadn't finished ruminating.
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:29 pm
Aquamarine answered the door — wouldn’t have, if he knew to be expecting someone; he would’ve sat at his desk and called them in, but the knock startled him away from his work (or, more accurately, startled him out of the stupor his work often prompted).
He blinked in the doorway, looked Faustite up and down a few times like he was trying to determine a purpose for his visit without asking. Aliens, or Jet? Both? Surely it wasn’t a social call.
No one ever cared to be social with Aquamarine.
“You looking for Jet?” he asked.
The office behind him was neatly kept and well-appointed. The two desks were situated to allow each one a view of the other. The few filing cabinets were not the old, dented things that littered random offices around the castle, but sleek and new, purchased Earthside and teleported down. Where shelving did not break up the otherwise stark expanse of the walls, artwork accomplished the same — scenic pieces, like windows to more picturesque surroundings. In the corner, a room divider concealed the presence of a double bed.
Assuming a response rather than waiting for one, Aquamarine continued, “He’s already gone up. Took his little blond senshi to collect some energy. Don’t know where. I stopped listening when the skank started rambling about TikTok.”
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:15 pm
Faustite blinked a couple times, shifted his weight as he searched for a retort, and found he had none. He passed up commenting on Jet and his skank. This was somehow a better conversation than the one he expected to have.
There were more important issues than that, what with aliens now.
"Was looking for either of you." Or both, he supposed, but three General's signatures roaming the proverbial countryside was bound to raise hackles. Two would, too, but to a lesser extent. Faustite hoped that his peers patrolling in tandem wasn't so unusual as to be noteworthy to the enemy. If it was, well. Better he didn't pull any starseeds on his own.
Hand on his hip and he spoke with his free hand. "Working on our quota. Better to do it in familiar company.
"If you don't want to listen, just need you to hold the starseeds."
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:49 pm
A confused furrow appeared between golden brows.
Surely Faustite was lying. No one looked for Aquamarine. No one sought out his company. Lesser agents ran his errands and followed his commands grudgingly, or avoided him altogether. His fellow Generals rarely spoke to him, acknowledged him with a look or a nod, but made no time for conversation.
Aquamarine wouldn’t say he cared much. He needed nothing and no one but Jet. The rest of it was an inconvenience, a waste of time, a bore. The less he had to deal with anyone else, the better.
Part of him wondered what Faustite would do with rejection. Their one mission together had not afforded Aquamarine much of an opportunity to judge Faustite accurately. He remained mysterious and unpredictable.
Jet seemed to like him, or at least Jet respected Faustite enough not to hold onto the frustrations he carried from that mission in the Rift. Jet wasn’t always the best judge of character, in Aquamarine’s opinion, but his intuition had improved somewhat over the years.
In the end, Aquamarine could either return to his paperwork, or join Faustite as requested.
He chose the option that seemed as if it would be less dull.
“Fine,” he said, already stepping out of the office, though he paused to consider Faustite again. “Did you have a location in mind? You’d stand out too much where I tend to go.”
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:11 pm
"Thinking a mental ward," he started as he stood aside for Aquamarine. "Cause a distraction, drain them all. Starseed the orderlies. Doesn't matter who sees me; they're unreliable witnesses." Personnel names weren't revealed to them as mere Generals, but if any of their missing officers and underlings landed themselves in Happy Meadows' MICU, then they weren't coming back at even a minimal level of effectiveness. The Queen only asked them to drain energy and take starseeds, she didn't ask them for detailed plans on how they did it. "Thought we could talk about aliens," his lip twitched at the word, "on the way." Because he didn't presume Aqua knew where Happy Meadows was, or had even gone out to the area. No, he couldn't guess where Aqua spent his time draining, not even by the assertion he gave. But by the way he cared so about his appearance, Faustite estimated he came from new money. Couldn't say how much, probably more than Elex's family, but the rest was conjecture. Which led him to wonder — how did this one meet Jet? Or, how did Jet meet Aqua? See also: if only Jet rescued him from a burning building before he met Aqua. "Well?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:19 pm
Flat went Aquamarine’s expression, unamused at first, then exasperated.
“No,” he said, sparing no time to consider Faustite’s suggested plan at any great length before landing on refusal. “You want to starseed orderlies, people who might not even be involved in the war? Draining is one thing. You want to go and drain people, fine, they’ll recover, but save the starseeding for our enemies.”
Out in the hallway, Aquamarine folded his arms over his chest and let the office door shut behind him. As he was roughly average in height, Aquamarine could not always look down his nose effectively around taller agents, but against Faustite it was easy.
Aquamarine did so now, frowning in clear disapproval.
“Is that what you always do? Starseed whoever the ******** you want and to hell with the consequences?” he asked. “Did you not hear what the Queen said to Ben about unnecessary corpses? Pretty sure that applies to all of us. Dead civilians are unnecessary. If you want starseeds, hunt some senshi, hunt some knights, hunt some of their ******** cats if that’s what it takes, but leave the civilians out of it.”
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:20 pm
Brows lofted once in the response to the surprise diatribe. Why should he expect anything different? There were always assumptions to throw around. There were always agents who refused to acknowledge cause and effect, who assumed what they did was necessary cost. Who thought — were taught — grew up with the luxury that life was precious.
The questions were written off as rhetorical. Aquamarine did not actually care to know what he did or what his justifications were. Most didn't. This was the way the Negaverse functioned for years.
But Aqua still spared him an answer, despite the unnecessary nonsense. What Faustite could afford without bitching back at him was expedience — refusing to waste any more of their time with a conversation that Aquamarine didn't invite. He turned from the officer and headed back down the hall, nails in pal and teeth in his tongue for how he endured the flare of pain behind his ribs.
Seems it was ready to rebuke anyone these days.sunshine alouette i misspelled your sn like 4x
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 8:55 pm
Aquamarine made a noise in his throat, something that was half a scoff, half a snarl, and full of aggravation.
“Is that what you do when you don’t like what you hear?” Aquamarine called after him. “You just walk away? Or is this you agreeing to the part where we don’t starseed orderlies and you’re expecting me to follow? You kind of have to talk if you want any of us to know what the ******** you’re thinking.”
Which had been half of Jet’s frustration with their last mission, hadn’t it? They could only assume so much of what Faustite meant or what he intended. They knew nothing about what he thought, given how little he tended to share about himself. He didn’t give them a lot to go on.
Aquamarine rolled his eyes and began to follow anyway, summoning his tablet long enough to send a “see you later; hanging out with faustite; pray i have the patience for it” message to Jet.
“I’m not saying I actually give a ********,” he continued once his tablet was back in subspace. “When people turn up dead, I don’t normally care, but Jet does, and I get the impression some of our superiors do, too. We’re supposed to be protecting this city and the s**t planet we’re all living on. That includes the people on it.”Strickenized I forget how to spell my sn all the time. If I get logged out for some reason I'm ******** class="clear">
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:00 pm
"Youma thing," he answered through gritted teeth. Trudged on stiffly, en route to his office. Faustite wondered what Jet saw in Aquamarine, as he couldn't divine it himself. Assumed that Aqua must have hidden talents in the bedroom; at what point was it better to use his own hand, though?
Since he was bitching to high heavens, Faustite forced himself to elaborate. "It's like an impulse, but it can't be suppressed." Which didn't give any context. Faustite winced as he swallowed a wave of heat. "Youma side, it has impulses. Wants things keenly. Wanted to melt Rakovanite's face in the Rift, wants to melt yours now. It's going to melt something, and that something will be me until I can make it my office." He didn't care if Aquamarine understood. Chances were, that sour thing would go off to Jet that half-youma officers couldn't be trusted, or that Faustite couldn't be trusted because his youma side wanted people to fry. Or he'd mock the troubles Faustite lived with, tout human superiority, and go back to whatever the ******** he was doing.
"Wait." Faustite extended a finger in the sign of wait here as he ducked into his office shut his door. Leaned against it with a sigh, head tilting back until it met the plane of the door. Flame licked out, flickered and roiled over the wrecked remains that Albite had yet to haul away. Wasn't much left to damage in the office anymore.
Aqua had kept talking, soliciting a conversation that Faustite was equally reticent to have. Faustite spoke louder over his shoulder "Superiors always taught me life's cheap. That we're not here to protect them; we're here to harvest them. 'Harvest responsibly', else we ruin our sustainable resource. Thought they just preached 'save the people' for the idiots who couldn't stomach nuance."
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:23 pm
“If it wants to melt Rakovanite’s face, I’ll help you do it,” Aquamarine grumbled, “but leave mine alone. It’s all I’ve got going for me.”
Briefly, Aquamarine wondered if he should be less flippant about it. Maybe he would be if his face actually was melted off.
In the meantime, he sighed heavily outside Faustite’s office and let the wall hold his weight, folding his arms back over his chest while he waited. Boredom struck fast. He could be in one of the training rooms getting some practice in, or bugging Axinite for snacks. He could be napping at his desk, or making his way through all the paperwork that always seemed to pile higher every time he left his office for more than a minute. Instead, he was standing out in the hallway like an idiot, waiting for Faustite — or the youma part of Faustite — to get his s**t together.
Alright, so standing there was better than the tedious monotony of paperwork. Barely.
“Which superiors taught that s**t?” he asked. The door was a hindrance, but not so much that he couldn’t hear what Faustite said. “Not Axinite. He’s too soft for that. No offense to Axinite.”
Aquamarine spared a quick glance up and down the hallway, but there wasn’t anyone scurrying around to overhear — just Metallia with her eyes and ears everywhere, and all that nonsense. Whatever. She’d’ve struck him dead already if she wanted him gone.
“Or was this when you were further down the ladder? You get stuck with a psychopath for a General?”
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Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:33 pm
When his youma side burnt off the rest of its rage, Faustite opened the door and stepped back through. He was mostly the same but for a dimmer presence around his eyes and stomach. Faustite shut the door quietly behind him; better that Aquamarine not get a look inside.
As he watched Aquamarine, he knew that Jet's companion wouldn't need his agreement on the point about Axinite. No one could mistake him for a ruthless killer, the way he is now. No one who baked that ******** much carried an innate propensity to kill people. But he wasn't sure why the idea was so foreign to Aquamarine — or how the Negaverse could have such different ideals on how they carry out their tasks that it could create a rift like the one Aquamarine intoned.
Sighing, Faustite let his shoulders drop before he pushed off from the doorframe. Took up Aquamarine's arm and blinked them from the depths of Negaspace to a more austere part of the city, on the roof of a derelict hotel that shuttered three years ago. It was a smaller space, but with enough stories of height to keep them from view of haunted house gawkers and parkour enthusiasts. It sported a view of a more popular bridge and connecting thoroughfare.
He chanced a look around before he spoke. Released Aquamarine's arm and regained the expected distance for conversation. "Schörl. Before that, Umber. Both considered starseeds a tool, and since we use people for stock…" Faustite shrugged. "Didn't matter how I felt about it. Ends justified the means." He started to pace.
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Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:29 am
Aquamarine looked out over the city. There was no visible interest in his expression, neither for their surroundings nor for Faustite’s pacing. A cool breeze rustled his hair, sending several pesky locks of it into his face. He summoned an elastic and pulled the growing length of it into a small tail before it got too aggravating. With his hair tied back and all the refined features of his face on display, Aquamarine looked moderately less ******** Schörl and Umber,” he said, making no point to pretend to be anything other than unimpressed. “I didn’t see either of them in the throne room the other night.”
Aquamarine couldn’t even be sure he knew who they were. His days as a Lieutenant and a Captain were characterized by inconsistency and negligence on the part of his superior officers. He followed orders and met his quotas, but otherwise had free rein to do as he wished, so long as he did nothing to warrant rebuke. For the most part, he did what Jet wanted, even on the occasions he and Jet were the same rank, because without Jet he would be in this alone.
Regardless of who he knew and who he didn’t, the fact remained that neither of the two responsible for Faustite were in attendance at what was arguably a collection of the Negaverse’s finest. Either they were dead, missing, or insignificant, which made their practices just as irrelevant as they were.
Aquamarine was still too busy trying to wrap his head around being the Negaverse’s finest to care much for those who couldn’t claim the distinction for themselves.
“Jet and I talked about it after,” he continued, turning away from the city to watch Faustite. “We don’t know if it’s true that the Queen trusts everyone in that room. Maybe she’s testing some of them, giving them the chance to out themselves as a mole, but we figure a few of us were there for legitimate reasons. Jet, obviously. Me. You, probably, as long as you don’t ******** it up with your random starseed pulls and accidentally get Lepidolite’s mom or something.”
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 7:23 am
"Better she doesn't hear you say that." Not that he expected Aquamarine to know who Schörl was, if he reacted so dismissively. Nor did he expect the General to survive Schörl, should they ever cross paths. He wished, for a change, that they would cross paths. She would either dispose of Aquamarine neatly or reform him into something genuinely efficient (and give him something credible to be miserable about, he supposed). And if she decided he was more useful as a starseed, well… Faustite didn't mind if Jet turned up single again.
"And Umber's dead," he answered, pointedly. He scrutinized the blonde one for a moment, curious if he legitimately didn't know or was trying for a bad cover. Seemed genuine, that ignorance.
Faustite paced with his hands laced behind his back out of an absent habit to control his gesticulations. Still, his fingers extended for the number of circumstances he sorted. More and more the evidence pointed toward Aquamarine being ignorant for anything outside of Jet.
Couldn't say what happened to make Schörl vanish like she did, but his best guess was a transfer to a secret project or a more needful area. The info would've been need-to-know, and he, as a lowly subordinate, didn't need to know. Maybe she took all but him; he hadn't seen the rest of the team since getting back from the Rift. Snorted when he realized he was left behind. Fitting. For all his standing in attendance at the throne room, he unfailingly fell short of the mark.
He wondered if Aquamarine did, too — short of all but Jet's mark.
Aqua's next observations were themselves interesting. "Redemption's a sign of trust." It was grace to trust someone to succeed, he thought. Faustite bowed his head as he continued. "Might be a bad judge of character, too. Jet's in Information, don't know about you; has he gotten intel on the summoned ones? Might not have personnel file access, but it's easy to get around that." Not that he would waste time on that hunt.
"If Lepidolite didn't tell his mom how to identify an Agent, or prove herself related to one, then that's on him," Faustite answered, frowning. "Only check that I don't starseed our own." And that was kinder than how he was taught.
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Posted: Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:19 am
A dismissive roll of the eyes was the only indication of Aquamarine's complete disinterest in the topics of Schörl and Umber. The latter was dead by Faustite’s own admission, and the former may as well be. Aquamarine would say it to her face if she wasn’t, a hearty “Go ******** yourself,” and if she had a problem with it she could take it up with one of the General Soveriegns, or, if she took action on her own, she’d find a sword through her back courtesy of Jet, who’d probably get away with it, given his camaraderie with Axinite.
The remaining observations were more pertinent to Aquamarine’s current interests.
“I’m wherever I want to be,” he said, “but no, Jet hasn’t got any additional intel, just what we’ve had. Benitoite doesn’t use his brain half the time, and he’s reckless, which is a s**t combination. The other half-youma was a traitor. Don’t know the story there, but considering the amount of defectors we’ve been having, I’m not inclined to trust someone who’s already turned their back on us before.
“The one with the pink hair. Lollipops? Corrupted a Senshi and lost that Senshi, so that’s one strike against her as far as recruitment, but she might have other skills I’m not aware of. Never met Ashanite, but I was there when he was brought in. Haven’t seen him since, so he’s either been off doing bullshit busy work somewhere else, or he was a waste of our time and resources. Jet suspects he’s a narcissist, but that’s probably true for a lot of our agents.”
Aquamarine mentally filed through the remaining six, drawing their faces up from memory. None of them stood out as being particularly critical to Negaverse operations, so the Queen’s trust in them came as something of a surprise.
(Not that Aquamarine himself was particularly critical to Negaverse operations. If the Queen trusted him, it was by virtue of his association with Jet.)
“Rakovanite should never be allowed in the Rift again,” he continued, leaning back against the concrete partition that edged the roof, refolding his arms over his chest. “And I don’t trust the plague doctor to pay attention to anything. One of the other Captains works in the medical bay. He might work at the new medical center, too, if he’s keeping an eye on things there. Kamacite’s Kamacite; I don’t like Senshi, but at least he’s competent, which is more than I can say for most people. The last two, that third Captain and the General from Arabian Nights, I don’t know either one of them. I’ve seen them during missions, but that’s it. Can’t say what they have or haven’t done to earn the honor of a mission straight from the Queen, and I value my life too much to go digging for personnel files we don’t normally have access to.”
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2021 5:42 am
"Rakovanite should be dead," Faustite amended. The rest of Aquamarine's rant brooked no comment; Faustite only watched him as he charged through the list of thirteen officers. Some he knew, but most Aquamarine hadn't ascertained any familiarity with, and he was wrong about some of them. Or Faustite, somehow, thought more highly of some of them. Or, most likely, Aquamarine was a worse judge of character than the Queen.
Wasn't that a hopeful thing to think. But he disliked the prospect of hope, so he quashed that, too.
"Don't think these missions have the accolades we ascribe to them," Faustite added after a beat. "They've more intel than they let on. Queen dispensed a morsel, sent us off with doubled quotas. Just the thirteen of us. The arithmetic's telling; the amount we pull is statistically insignificant." They numbered into the hundreds, with limitless droves of youma; a doubled quota from thirteen officers was a pittance at most.
Continued his pace, continued his thoughts. More likely was that the Queen wanted this taken care of without resorting to a skirmish. Some tactical strike based on the intel she withheld. If he were in her position, that tactical strike was best executed by — Hessonite, he supposed, and whoever she assembled as her most trusted. She wasn't visible for much of the Negaverse's integral operations the way that Axinite and Lepidolite were oft trying to better the place, and she was head of the Negaverse's elite soldiers. Had to be her.
Her and her lackeys, each funded by healthy portions of energy and starseeds from a handful of officers that did what they were told. Perhaps no expectations on coming back from this mission.
Faustite slowed his pace, changed trajectory, headed toward Aquamarine's stark, solitary figure against the partition. The conversation was wearisome, and Faustite wasn't likely to glean more out of Jet's favorite General. Better to set themselves to task. "Tell me your target population."
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