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 Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 5:01 pm
"We'll be quick. Just want to see what you can do."
That was his promise at the time that they departed his office, hand in ink-tipped hand, before they appeared in the center of the city. In the depths of December, snowfall had caked the buildings, roads, and sidewalks alike, crippling half the city and leaving the other half to decide it was better to stay home. It was late, far past sunset, and the sky had long darkened to a saturated midnight. Between snow and light pollution, visibility across the empty rooftops was better than Faustite expected.
Snow crunched underfoot as he broke new ground to the parapet. Wearing metal heels, snow oft wanted to cling and form ice, but the whole of him was too hot to allow it. In his footsteps formed ice where the snow had been heated past stable temperatures.
"Night like tonight, won't be many people out." He stood on the edge, looked out past where the light from his core reflected off of piles of snowflakes. He hadn't seen anyone outside, but there were tracks fresh enough to suggest it wasn't as empty as it looked. "Won't be many White Moon, either. Should be safe.
"I'll go first. Follow me." He finished, looking back at her, before he turned forward and corkscrewed off the ledge to the street below.
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Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2021 4:30 pm
Lysithea still hadn’t told Faustite that she had been out without him…well. Several times now. And honestly, it was far past the time that she felt she could tell him…though, at least she was being trusted to go out with him…to show him what she could do. It was nice. She felt as though she were trusted and she knew that if they did run into anyone, the two of them would be more than enough to shut them up and…
…and make them behave.
Nodding, Lysithea jumped off of the ledge as well, not really comfortable with doing such a…dramatic flip…but her little brother seemed to enjoy the flair for the drama, and she wasn’t going to judge him for it.
She would follow him though. Obviously now that she was home, she wanted to follow her brother anywhere. Everywhere. There was no way she would ever let herself become separated from him again…not if she had the power to stop it. When her feet touched the ground, she glanced around, frowning slightly. “...I know you said that there won’t be many White Moon out here but…Faustite, I think I can feel one.”
The worst thing about winter was just how easily voices carried on the cold, silent nights, no matter how softly you tried to speak.
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Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2022 6:25 pm
If it weren’t for Lysithea, Malus wouldn’t have been out tonight.
He knew it was dangerous. He knew he should have gone with backup. But, he was desperate.
They’d been looking for her for weeks, nearly months, and Lysithea wasn’t home. The holiday season was making him more sentimental than he cared to admit, and Michel was staying out for longer each night. He was pulling away from all of them and had gotten snappier, ruder.
Malus knew it was a defense mechanism, he’d known Michel for longer than any of them so he knew what he was dealing with. It hadn’t been enough to keep Malus from being aware of the bruises, the blood.
It didn’t change anything, though.
The only thing that would change anything was finding her.
Malus wasn’t going to be out late tonight; it was cold and supposed to snow, but he couldn’t help but hope–by some miracle–that she’d show up, and everything would be okay.
She’d come home, and they’d go back to the way things were.
The energy signature of two Negaverse pawns wasn’t really what he wanted to deal with, and as soon as they appeared on his radar he was ready to run.
One–okay, maybe he could handle one.
Two? Not so much.
They were close enough that he could hear their voices. Not what they were saying, but enough to know that he wanted to go.
There wasn’t really anywhere to hide. He wasn’t brave enough to try and confront them. His legs locked up briefly and he felt a chill run through him.
He wasn’t going to be a sitting duck.
His legs had locked up for only a second, but willpower and desperation had been enough to move him.
Slowly, away.
…And yet, one of them was a Corrupted Senshi.
Of course he hoped it would be Lysithea.
Every bit as much as the thought terrified him.
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 3:04 pm
She was quick to find an enemy present. Good auric sense, then; Faustite appreciated that about her.
Faustite felt it as well — a lone Eternal creeping about. Among the snow, the white ones were more difficult to spot — pristine bodices blended in with unbroken snow lining the rooftops. He, on the other hand, and to a lesser extent, Lysithea, stood out as easy targets. They would trouble themselves to find their quarry, as opposed to luring them out.
But to lure, they would need to know something about the foe that lurked in their periphery. Faustite smiled crookedly to himself.
He paced to the edge of the building, stood on its parapet. Balanced on the arches of his feet for how the building displayed an aged curve in its lip. He cupped his hands together around his mouth.
"Know you're out there," he called over the empty street. "Don't care for cowards."
He waited a beat, then raised his arm into the air. There it waited, chaotic power coursing under black-charred skin. "You have five seconds. Five," he started, and the air to his right broke open as a chitinous tank of a scorpion youma crawled out onto the fresh fallen snow.
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 3:21 pm
Lysithea paused, looking sharply at her brother, frowning after a moment. “Wait…wait what? We’re not going to try talking first? We’re just…just supposed to attack?”
The sudden sight of the youma that Faustite had summoned made her jump in surprise and she swallowed hard. “How do you know it’s a coward? You’re making a lot of assumptions, aren’t you?”
God, the thought of fighting made her stomach roil. Visions of the green haired senshi going off at her for no reason…maybe they were just destined to fight unprovoked but…it seemed that Faustite was giving whoever it was a lot of provocation, so if this one wanted to fight too…
She really couldn’t fault them.
Chewing her lip for a moment, Lysithea drew in a breath and called, her voice ringing through the still air. “Come out. We just…well. Just come out.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 4:47 pm
Of course they’d know he was out there, he was a stupid ******** beacon of energy. He could power down. He could power down and run, and–nope. No, that was definitely a youma, he’d just be easy prey for it.
His heart stopped when he heard her voice, but he didn’t know if it was Lysithea or literally any other girl in the world.
“Self-preservation isn’t cowardly,” he called back, like he didn’t know he was being cowardly. “I don’t want to fight. I’m just trying to go home.”
So stupid, he should have said he had backup coming. He should have tried to scare them off. He didn’t have an army of youma to call on. He couldn’t teleport.
He didn’t–
Wait, was that–
“Faustite?” he called, because he saw him first. “Why are you threatening me, I thought we were–”
And then, he saw her.
Absolutely, unmistakably, her.
“--Friends.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:08 pm
He should've guessed that Lysithea would object to these methods. Should've guessed that Chaos couldn't quash her gentle nature, couldn't instill a bloodlust. He looked back at her, flame-licked rage fettered only by the fact that it was her, and that she was nice to him before all of this, and that she could be the gentle thing to whom he could entrust all those private hurts.
Most senshi," he murmured to her as he looked back across the snowy landscape, "they feel a youmafied agent and try to kill it. Call it an abomination. Better to strike first." But he doubted she would understand — she didn't have that kind of lived experience.
So few did, anymore.
Finally found the figure among the snowy wastes — purple one, not tall, and his posture was poor enough that Faustite thought he'd tried to make himself smaller. Tried to flinch out of reality, into some other space, maybe off to his planet if he was fortunate enough. Faustite stayed quiet, for the voice was a familiar one. He knew this senshi —
And bristled when he heard his own name. His real name.
s**t. If this conversation went any further, Faustite would see the lie that granted him solace unraveled by a thread. Already felt that flaming void he called a stomach wrench, felt it twist on itself for what this shitty ******** luck could bring him. One conversation, and the White Moon carried some scathing trustworthiness that their own officers held to be more true than the words of their superiors. He'd never seen it, but he heard it — and he wouldn't trust it here. His hand dropped, and with a flick of his wrist, the youma scrambled after their violet, bewinged friend.
"Youma don't have friends, Malus. You know this." He smiled a mirthless thing as he melted into fire.
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:40 pm
Malus? That was a nice name. Short and easy to remember, and Lysithea filed it away wondering if she would need it later. “Well, that’s silly, Faustite if they knew you they wouldn't feel that way.” Her words were soft, only for her brother, though…she didn’t like the way his tone shifted, didn’t like how he shifted…and really didn’t like how he sent the youma after someone who was calling himself his friend…that…
“Wait, wait, Faustite? Isn’t this counterproductive?” Lysithea watched him, worry and pain and confusion written clearly on her face. “In one breath you say that…senshi attack youmafied officers, and the next he calls you a friend and you deny that claim and we attack him? How…”
Her mouth felt dry, and…
Oh. She was upset with her brother…that. Was new. Of course. Her response to being upset seemed to be to cry, and her eyes were burning with the desire to do so. “He said he just wants to go home, Faustite. We don’t have to fight…”
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:57 pm
“Faustite,” Malus said, and it was angry and it was pleading. He didn’t know what the point of this was, he didn't know why he was doing this. He couldn’t stop looking at Lysithea. His mouth was dry and his heart had leapt from his chest the moment he realized it was her.
The youma was skittering towards him but he didn’t attack it, how could he? She was right there!
Corrupted, painted in black. He couldn’t tell what she was saying but she wasn’t attacking.
He hadn’t seen what had happened that night, and he wasn’t sure how he felt knowing that she was with Faustite. Was he looking after her? Was he trying to help her? Had this all been a lie?
Why was Faustite on fire?
He forgot how to talk. Malus knew what a panic attack was, he had them often enough. He’d spent so much time getting better, but it was just a lie to pass the time. The threat was always there. His body could betray him at any point in time, his mind could just slip away. It was a constant battle and he was always losing.
He tried to speak but his jaw wouldn’t move, and his tongue was frozen and his throat was burning.
His mind went a million miles a second and his body couldn’t be bothered to move an inch.
Fear could have won. Malus didn’t have a very strong will, and he wasn’t much of a fighter. Stubborn, resilient. Like a cockroach. Maybe with as much worth as one.
Lysithea was right there and he couldn’t do anything about it. What did he say? Weeks worth of planning what he’d do, how he’d try to win her back, and it was gone.
“I did,” he protested, loudly. His voice didn’t sound like his own. He sounded afraid.
He sounded like a coward.
“I did and you know it. When I was a youma, she was my friend,” he said, looking at Lysithea.
He had seconds to think of something, anything. He couldn’t move his body and his mind felt like it was a thousand miles away. Was he speaking? Was he imagining it? Was any of this real or was it just another nightmare?
“Lysithea never stopped trying to help me. She saved me. You know that.”
They’d talked about it. Over a picnic, on her homeworld.
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 6:20 pm
"He'll lie to you," the flame cracked back to her. "They always do. This one will tell you anything to have you back. Hear it shouting your name?"
Already she bought into it, like he lost so much time. A few words and she was rattled — what did she remember? Could she say who Malus was? Did she remember the purple grasses on her world, the way they swayed whimsically while they discussed a monster becoming a man again?
He remembered the feeling of shattered glass in his stomach. Recalled the way it turned and tumbled into his organs, cut him up inside. He'd felt it first at his uncle's funeral, when he was a little kid. Then it took a long hiatus, and Elex forgot that feeling. Then he felt it again after his mom died — the whole brittle interior of his mind broken open, tumbled, ground deep into the meat of him. He thought he'd cried enough for a lifetime.
Now it stalked him, ever at the periphery of his what-ifs. A catastrophe waiting to happen.
Faustite descended like a blazing star, then the gouts of him braided off from the youma's trajectory. Better that the youma did the distracting for what Malus knew of his own past.
He knew Lysithea would hate him. But it was better to hate him than find out the truth. It had to be so.
It had to be so.
"You weren't worth saving," crackle-spat the fire as it arced up near the ex-youma.
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 6:36 pm
Of course he would lie to her. He was part of the White Moon…that was just what they did but…
But this was wrong. She knew it was wrong. Knew with the way that breath was refusing to fill up her lungs. Knew by the way it felt as though she had fallen down a deep pit…and Faustite’s anger at this one Senshi was so deep…he wasn’t listening to reason.
And then the words. You weren’t worth saving...
That…that just felt wrong sounded wrong.
Everyone was worth saving. She had been saved, hadn’t she? She had been blind and tricked by the White Moon and they had saved her.
…Her brother was completely out of his mind. And, for that matter, perhaps she was too. Without thinking about it, she took a step forward and teleported to the side of the senshi, grabbing his wrist firmly in her hand and teleporting away. Away from the other youma. Away from her deranged baby brother who…had gone out of his mind.
When they were away, she dropped the wrist…the wrist that belonged to Malus. The Liar. “Go. My brother…I don’t know what his issue is. But everyone is worth saving, and I’ll make sure we save you the next time we see you. Or. Me. I guess. I’ll save you.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:56 pm
The youma was going to tear him apart, and if he didn’t do the job, Faustite would. Malus couldn’t bring himself to move. He knew he should, knew he had magic.
He didn’t want to be the villain. He didn’t know what Lysithea thought she knew, but he didn’t want her to see him do something he’d have hated doing when she did know him, much less when she didn’t.
And–she didn’t.
But she saved him anyway.
Malus couldn’t move, even when the threats disappeared.
He couldn’t see, but he realized that was because his eyes were misting over.
She could have pulled out his starseed. She could have called someone there to corrupt him.
She hadn’t.
Yet.
“Lysithea,” he said, and nearly choked on his words. “I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t even say anything about what side you were on. I just said you were my friend. He’s putting words in my mouth and I don’t know why. I thought we were friends. I thought he wanted to purify, I thought he wanted out of the Negaverse. I was a youma, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t get to be a human in the Negaverse, I was just–just the–just like the youma he was sending after me. I didn’t want to hurt it. I want to save them, to turn them back into people. Like what happened to me.”
He couldn’t breathe, he’d forgotten how to. The words tumbled out and the corners of his vision were fading. When he remembered how to suck in air, he did it so quickly that he made himself dizzy. His chest burned and his lips were numb, everything was numb.
“I’ve been looking for you. I’m sorry. I’m not–I know–I know I have to go, I’m sorry. Come find me again. Please. Please give me a chance. I won’t lie. I swear I won’t lie. I’ve been looking for you. I just wanted to see you. Please just be okay.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 8:17 pm
Flame coiled toward the senshi, and then it was gone. They were gone. All he sensed was a blackened, hateful auric energy from the creature next to him.
Flame reformed into a General, and he stood still. Then he managed one step. Another. His attention casted about. Nothing. No one. He swallowed, or tried to swallow, but each time he tried, his body had forgotten the last step.
The scorpion youma's feet ticced and tacced in the snow as it swayed back and forth, staring up at him quizzically. Its pincers were poised, but it, too, lacked a sense for their target.
He looked down at it. It looked up at him. <******** off!" Faustite spat with a gout of fire to follow, and the thing shrieked before it scuttled into those vorpal boundaries that only youma knew to use.
Then he stood alone, among abandoned footprints, in the fresh fallen snow. He gave swallowing a last try, but something insurmountable was impeding him.
He trod a couple more steps. The whole city fell quiet, with the snowfall so soft that he could hear his own breaths over the gentle crackle of his own burning. Heard every hitch in his breath.
"You left me behind." The words hadn't meant anything with no one to hear them. Like glass taken out of a wound, they caused their own hurts, and he felt that old pile of glass shift in him again. Felt it search for organs he no longer had — for anything he had left to skewer.
faustite covered his mouth with his hands, one palm layered over the other. His shoulders jerked once, then twice, and the pressure of his grip paled his knuckles, then he flickered out of the solemn, snowy place.
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:17 am
Lysithea shook her head. “Shut up. I don’t know you. I don’t know what ties you think you had with me when you and your kind stole me from my family, but I’m not going to listen to your lies. I don’t care. I saved you, but don’t expect it again. The next time we meet, I hope you’ll be willing to take what I’m offering, because. She swallowed. “Because it’s better that way. The White Moon has poisoned your mind, as they had with mine. And I’ll find a way to fix that. Don’t you worry.”
She wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him, was trying to not hear his words, trying not to let the lies penetrate.
Drawing in a breath and trying to gather her strength, she teleported again, going back to her office and curling up on her rug, allowing herself to be overwhelmed by her feelings once again. She hated it but.
The idea of exploding from the pent up…everything was just too much.
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:48 am
Shut up.
Lysithea had never told him to shut up, and maybe it was good that she was gone before she could see how it broke his heart. But, he knew what Chaos did to a person.
It just meant that she didn’t know him. She didn’t remember him.
If she’d remembered anything, she wouldn’t have spoken to him like that.
Everything she said after that was just another nail in the coffin.
She didn’t know him. She thought the Negaverse was her family. She wasn’t going to listen to him. She thought the White Moon was feeding her lies.
He was still frozen, but he knew he couldn’t stay there.
He didn’t know how long he had before someone came back.
Taking one step felt like running a mile, but it was a start, and he had such a long way to go.
A part of him wanted to forget this entire night, but everything had been seared into his mind. He’d have to tell them that he found her, saw her, spoke to her.
That she’d left.
That she hated him.
That she didn’t want anything to do with him.
He wasn’t going to give up, he couldn’t, but it was too much for him to deal with tonight.
And, he still had to go home and tell everyone else about it, too.
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