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 Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 8:06 am
Palatine entered the room first.
There was some silent debate about it out in the hall, exchanged by tense gazes and dissatisfied frowns. Empyrean thought he should go into the room with a murderer alone; apparently his last attempt hadn’t gone too well with a chaperone present. Seeing as he was a Page, no one wanted him in a room alone with a murderer who outranked him twice over, even with all magic suppressed. The Void was working, but it was old technology and still in the testing phases.
So Ganymede (and Sessrumnir) determined that Empyrean could continue his fruitless attempts at conversation, as long as he had someone of equal rank to Jet with him.
This morning, that duty fell on Palatine.
She let Empyrean open the door for her, thinking he might feel better about it if she put up with the famed Gallo chivalry. Once she was satisfied that Jet posed no threat, Empyrean entered behind her.
Jet was either sleeping or pretending to. Palatine crossed the room and, instead of shaking him or kicking the bed to jolt him awake, poured a teapot full of warm tea into his face.
“Wakey wakey, General. You know, normally this might help with the bruising, but it looks like you’ll be stuck with a normal recovery time here.”“I’m sure that isn’t necessary,” Empyrean said.
He frowned, and his voice was low like he disapproved, but he also made no attempt to stop her.
Empyrean came into the room with his stool and a tupperware container. He set the stool on the floor in the center of the room and took a seat.
Jet did not frighten him. Perhaps he should have. Ganymede certainly didn’t think Empyrean took him seriously enough. Empyrean would insist otherwise. Of course he took Jet seriously. He knew what Jet was responsible for, what he was capable of. He simply didn’t fear it. Jet was in their keeping, and while he was in their keeping, the city was safe from him. That had to be worth something.
Ganymede would accuse him of being an idealist like Valhalla. Empyrean didn’t think that was the case. He was a realist, but when an opportunity arose to sit with one’s enemy and pick their brain, how was he to refuse? The more they understood about Metallia’s soldiers, the better prepared they would be to face them.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:30 am
Jet had been sleeping. At least until he heard movement near the cell. It was easy to be a light sleeper when he expected someone to come in and kill him at any point in time. He was surprised they hadn’t killed him yet, but he was holding onto hope that they would be merciful enough to let him live.
Just a bit longer. Just long enough for Arles to find something useful.
He sucked in a startled gasp when the tea was poured on his face. He coughed and sputtered as he pushed the blankets away from him, not wanting them to get soaked since they were the only things keeping him from freezing in that place. The sleeve of his uniform was used to try and rub his face dry, but he could already tell that he was going to end up feeling gross and sticky. In addition to the blood that had been caked into his hair and on his face, he was now covered in tea. That was fantastic.
“You must be Palatine,” he frowned, rubbing at his ear and trying to get the quickly cooling tea from drying there. “I thought you were a Squire. Guess our intel was outdated.”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:51 am
Palatine lifted a brow upon hearing her name out of his mouth.
“I guess it is,” she said, snide. “Sucks that you won’t have the chance to update it.”
That he knew her name at all was a surprise. She hadn’t thought she’d made a name for herself, not being as active as others. Not that it was impossible for anyone to know who she was, if they dug around enough, asked the right questions of the right people — something the Negaverse probably had no trouble achieving, with their numbers and their influence.
Still, Palatine thought herself enough of a minor player in the war that, if the Negaverse was collecting intel on her, they were doing so for a reason.“I apologize for the rude awakening,” Empyrean said. “It won’t happen again.”
His disapproving frown did not ease, and he eyed Palatine until she backed away from Jet to find a spot on the wall to lean against. Whatever his expressions might imply, he made no move to stop any of it, so it was difficult to say how far his disapproval ran.
When Palatine settled into place, Empyrean removed the lid from the tupperware container in his lap. The tupperware itself was teal — leave it to Claire to ensure a gift of food was color coded to match the intended recipient. Within, separated by compartments, was a portion of scrambled eggs, a portion of bacon, a portion of freshly cut fruit, and two pieces of toast.
“I thought you might appreciate something more appetizing than the fast food you were given last night,” he said, offering the container to Jet. From the top of the tupperware lid, he pulled a corresponding plastic fork and offered it with the food. “It’s homemade, and still warm.”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:03 am
“You don’t have to be nice to me, you know,” Jet continued to frown as he responded to Empyrean, eyeing Palatine as she backed up. She didn’t deny that she was Palatine, so Jet made sure to get a good look at her. He fully intended on updating their intel, whether she believed he would or not.
Of course, if they wanted him dead, it would be really easy to just poison him. He’d been wary about the food he was given the night before, and he was wary now. They could wait to let him lower his guard and then kill him, but…
Whatever amount of compassion at least someone with influence had, it was enough to keep him breathing. For now.
He took the container and the fork, but tipped it this way and that, trying to check for any residue of powder or other poison. “Thank you. Your wife made this?” he surmised, since he knew Empyrean had a wife who was part of the war. Cymophane had attacked her at some point. Apparently that was how Empyrean remembered him. But he still took the time to speak with him.
Eventually, Jet used the fork to poke at a piece of the fruit and put it in his mouth to hold there but not swallow. He wanted to be able to spit it out if there was any weird taste.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:22 am
Palatine agreed with Jet. They didn’t have to be nice to him. They shouldn’t be, after what he’d done, but they were, to an extent, either because that was who they were or because Empyrean insisted that was who they should be.
Folding her arms over her chest, Palatine made herself comfortable against the wall, and, though she had plenty of hostility and sarcasm left to give, she kept her thoughts to herself for the time being. She met Jet’s eye when he observed her, but said nothing, simply let him look his fill.
The pink musketeer aesthetic was, as always, not exactly her cup of tea. Regardless, she would continue to be grateful that the universe gave her pants instead of a frilly dress.“Does your wife make all of your food?” Empyrean countered. The light tone of his voice made the question seem less disparaging than it might have been otherwise. At most, Empyrean was amused by the assumption.
He also had a hunch that Jet did not have a wife.
“I made it myself, actually,” Empyrean continued, “but you do have my wife to thank for packing it. I’ll be sure you pass along your appreciation.”
Jet’s hesitance did not go undetected.
“Eat. You must be starving. If the ones who want you dead were going to kill you, I don’t imagine they’d do so by slipping poison into your food. They’d make it more personal than that, which must be why they’re searching for Aquamarine.”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:33 am
“What makes you think I have a wife?” Jet wondered with a raised eyebrow. But he hesitated again when Empyrean said that he had been the one to make it. Not for the first time Jet wondered what this man meant to the rest of them. If he was just a Page but was still allowed to bring him food and talk to him. Clearly someone important, even if he wasn’t the most powerful among them.
Slowly, Jet chewed the piece of fruit. He was hungry, but he snorted softly at the assumption that he was starving. “I’ve gone longer with less,” he admitted, but when he didn’t start seizing or foaming at the mouth from poison, he took another bite, this time of the bacon.
“You won’t find him,” he told Empyrean, and cast a glance over to Palatine as well. “I told you. He’s too injured to be out and doing anything. He’s been healing for a month now, no thanks to Sessrumnir.”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:08 am
Empyrean’s frown reversed course and curved into a subtle smile.
“What made you think I had a wife?” he said.
That information was no secret among the White Moon, but he and Paradise, as new Pages, were not very well known outside of family. The only person Empyrean offered the information to that had ties to the Negaverse was Plisetskaya, which meant Plisetkaya passed the information to his General, or someone within the small circle Empyrean knew within the White Moon was sharing Intel with the Negaverse.
Or Jet had made an assumption, because it was easy to assume that a man Empyrean’s age offering home cooked food might have a wife.
“You know now because I confirmed it for you, but the information could have only come to you through a limited number of people,” Empyrean observed. Though Jet kept glancing at Palatine, Empyrean kept his attention focused solely on the General. “As for Aquamarine… Your very insistence that he remains too injured seems to indicate that you might be lying. We are aware of the injuries he sustained from Sessrumnir, just as we are aware of what methods the Negaverse has to treat them. I highly doubt his injuries trouble him so much that he wouldn’t come after you, given how protective he was of you against Sessrumnir.”“It’s sweet,” Palatine said. She had a smile for Jet, too, but it was less friendly; if one could make a sneer look like a smile, it would match the expression Palatine wore. “Lieutenants together, now Generals. Did you bond over your mutual affection for torture?”“This is why I would prefer to have these meetings alone,” Empyrean said. He did not look away from Jet, but he could have been speaking to either of them.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:42 am
Jet shrugged, poking at the eggs next. He didn’t have to know that Empyrean was married to guess. He was old and seemed the type. He knew that Palatine was said to be Ganymede’s mother, so it was likely that Empyrean was possibly related to them, given their somewhat similar appearance. It was muddied with the glamour, but the similarities were still there.
“I don’t actually like torture.” If he did, then he might have taken his time with Ochre. Stabbed him once or twice more and let the pain cripple him before finishing the job. But his weapon made it painless. Not that it mattered to his captors. “I haven’t tortured anyone since that time we took Ganymede and Valhalla and several others captive,” he said. He was sincere, but he assumed that they wouldn’t believe him, or wouldn’t care to believe him. “The Negaverse isn’t as dark and evil as you White Moon make it out to be. Yes, there are casualties, but it’s a war,” he pointed out.
Empyrean looked like he might have been the military type, but it wasn’t anything he could prove. Maybe he served when he was younger at some point. Enough to get funding for college or something. Palatine seemed like she was old enough to maybe have experience as well.
“Did you know that too many starseeds can turn someone into a youma? How is that for your information collecting? The Negaverse does have methods of treating injuries, but there is a cost. Aquamarine would rather die as himself than not remember who he was, if it comes down to that.”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 12:10 pm
Empyrean’s expression didn’t advertise his thoughts. Truly, he didn’t know whether to believe Jet or not; Jet had every reason to lie, and every reason to tell the truth.
In the end, whether he was genuine or not didn’t seem to matter. Jet had a hand in torture once (several times, if each person he tortured during that one occasion counted as separate instances), and he was capable of doing so again, no matter what his feelings might be. Empyrean suspected Jet could be persuaded to put his feelings aside for the right person.
Aquamarine, perhaps. Or the Queen.
“We are aware of some of the effects of starseed consumption, yes,” Empyrean said, though he went into no further detail on the subject.Palatine didn’t believe Jet’s “I don’t like torture” act for a second. His actions with Ganymede and Valhalla spoke to some level of enjoyment. Perhaps he had simply outgrown it, or found other ways to achieve the same high.
“Just because you haven’t had the opportunity…” she muttered under her breath, then trailed off unintelligibly.“There was other information I’d hoped you might be willing to provide,” Empyrean said, speaking over anything else Palatine might like to utter. “Naturally, whatever you can tell us about the Negaverse would be most beneficial, but I was also curious as to how you came to join.”
As far as Empyrean could tell, the Negaverse liked to recruit them young. Teenagers were impressionable, malleable, less likely to question an organization that might seem tyrannical to a more experienced adult, so long as that organization offered them what they wanted. With the right guidance, with the right attitude from their superiors, they could be taught and raised to be loyal, as Jet clearly was.
“Were you recruited, the way you recruited Plisetskaya?”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 5:01 pm
Jet didn’t mind talking to these two knights about the Negaverse. He would be happy to tell them how they are wrong about their assumptions of everything. How the White Moon was doing more harm than good. Giving them secrets? That was obviously not going to happen, but information that he would give any potential recruit? Sure. It wasn’t that difficult.
As for the personal question, he paused from taking a bite of toast and sneered. Of course they would want to know about him. Why wouldn’t they want things to hold against him?
“No, I wasn’t recruited. I asked to join,” he told them, his voice low, although his anger was clearly not directed at either of them. “Someone I cared deeply for was killed by a Senshi. Penthesilea. I was there when it happened. They could have left me and saved themselves, but they didn’t. I didn’t know they were a Captain in the Negaverse until that night, but…”
Suddenly he was not hungry any more, despite the argument from his stomach. He was careful not to say who it was that Penthesilea killed, not wanting to give them a chance to figure out just who he was. But he knew it probably didn’t matter what he said anyway. They would just assume he was lying for sympathy.
“I joined that night. It wasn’t too long before we ended up capturing and torturing Senshi and Knights.” So he was obviously a little angry at the time. He was still angry, but he’d grown from what he’d been over seven years ago.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 5:41 pm
Believing the story was easier than believing Jet had no desire to torture anyone. He offered the name of a Senshi; Empyrean could have Jet’s story corroborated. The name was unfamiliar to Empyrean, but there were many he could ask, if he wanted to.
Naturally, it did not escape his notice that Jet refrained from naming the one who was killed. That Jet would keep it secret when he seemed forthcoming about the rest implied a close personal connection. Family, perhaps?
“I’m sorry that happened,” Empyrean said, voice low and even enough to signify that the sentiment was genuine, whether or not he was willing to portray himself as deeply sympathetic.
He was sorry. He understood the impulse to seek revenge after what must have been a traumatic experience.
That didn’t mean he condoned Jet’s subsequent actions.
“I won’t pretend to understand a situation I wasn’t a part of. Who was ultimately responsible for what happened between Penthesilia and the one you cared for matters less than how it shaped you, but your actions later — when you captured and tortured those senshi and knights — that brought a great deal of pain to people I care for, people I don’t believe had any involvement with Penthesilia. Your anger may have been justified, but wielding your anger against those who were not responsible for that death was not.”Palatine remained against the wall, arms still crossed over her chest. Her fingers tightened against her upper arms, more furious the more she thought about the events in question. She suppressed it, because she knew lashing out would offer them nothing, only a temporary satisfaction on her part.“I imagine you were quite young at the time,” Empyrean continued. “I’m aware that there are many within the Negaverse who find the concept of Chibi Senshi unpleasant, and yet the Negaverse often brings such young adolescents into their ranks. We have no control over our awakenings; they happen when they happen, whether we’re ready for it or not. But, from my understanding, you and others of your rank, and those above you, all have a choice in who you recruit, as well as when you do so. Although, given your accomplishments over the years, I can’t imagine the Queen worries too terribly much over the hypocrisy of it all if Generals like you are the result.”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 5:55 pm
It was difficult not to roll his eyes or scoff at Empyrean’s spoken sentiments and subsequent scolding. Whether or not Empyrean believed him didn’t matter. And Jet felt no remorse for what he did back then.
He had been young. Eager to prove himself. He wanted to do as much as he could as quickly as he could do it. He liked to think that his brother would have been proud of him. Maybe they would have been Generals together.
“Generals like me?” he did scoff this time. “Generals who fall into traps like this? Did you plot with Cymophane to set this up? Of course that traitor did. I should have known he’d be too soft. How else would you have gotten something set up to keep me from escaping,” he growled, although he remained on the bed. He shivered, the tea still wet but chilled by the air. He would have pulled a blanket around him if it wouldn’t have made him look weak.
He was still in a lot of pain, even with some of the food easing his hunger. He was only sitting because he was willing himself to do so, otherwise it was painful to get out of the bed.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:15 pm
“A trap implies that we meant to catch you, that we planned for you to come after Plisetskaya,” Empyrean countered. “I can assure you, that was not the case. Our intention was to help a senshi in need. When that plan failed, we made do with what we had.”
They were searching for Plisetskaya. Ganymede and Valhalla, Lucasta, Oberon and Perdita — they were all on the lookout, frequenting areas around the park Plisetskaya seemed to favor in the hopes that he would turn up again.
That he hadn’t yet was concerning, but… surely there was a possibility, slim as it might be, that Plisetskaya still had a chance at freedom.
“We could not let you go, for obvious reasons,” Empyrean said. “Sessrumnir and Ganymede would rather see you dead for all that you’ve done, but I talked them into keeping you here, where you can’t escape and no one can reach you. I was hoping we might come to an understanding, difficult as that may seem. You have assumptions about the White Moon. I have assumptions about the Negaverse. I thought opening a dialogue might help us both move past those assumptions. We may be enemies, and, however this concludes, we may remain enemies, but does it not seem worthwhile to understand one another regardless of that?”Palatine bit down on her tongue to stop herself from speaking.
It didn’t seem worthwhile to her.
Empyrean was not a naive man, nor was he foolish, but in this, Palatine thought him wrong.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 6:48 pm
”So you’re just going to keep me here for the rest of my life?” Jet asked with narrowed eyes on Empyrean. “You’re not going to let me go, so you’re either going to kill me, or keep me here until I die. Does that make you feel any better about it?” he wondered, because for all the preaching the White Moon did, they were just as bad as the Negaverse.
“I was tortured too, you know. How is that for understanding? Many of us were. Payback for what we did, I guess. And then the White Moon attacked Negaspace. How did you manage that, anyway? Something teleport you there? Did you get what you wanted from it? Killing our General Queen? No, you weren’t there, were you. But those people you say you cared about were. Ganymede was there. I remember seeing her. They thought they could destroy us, but it only made us stronger in the end.”
Thanks to that attack, Laurelite was made Queen, and they brought in the other General Kings and Queen. Things started to get better, more organized. They had a school now, and a hospital. They were allied with aliens from another world to improve their technology and make things more efficient.
“An understanding would be that your kind stops powering up and leaves the city alone.”
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:32 pm
“What I feel about any of it is immaterial,” Empyrean said, “as evidenced by the fact that you remain unaware of what those feelings are.”
He had decades of experience compartmentalizing, suppressing emotion, sectioning it off, placing it to the back of his mind, to be reflected upon in solitude. Perhaps it wasn’t the best method with which to approach life, but it seemed to serve him well. It meant he was good at his job — a job that often required significant sacrifice. He liked to think it would aid him in this war, as it aided him in all the others that came before it.
“I’m sorry that you were the victim of torture,” Empyrean continued, in the same even tone of voice he used to demonstrate the genuineness of his statement before. “I believe Valhalla was partly responsible for your escape, if you’re speaking of the instance I assume you are. He would ask for no thanks for what he did, but it is my hope that you would show him more compassion in the future, seeing as he still maintains compassion for you.”
Valhalla got that form his mother, no doubt — and, in some small way, form Empyrean himself.
“I can’t speak to the attack on Negaspace, but, if you were ever to be freed from here, I would suggest you look to your own allies for the answer. I was told the Negaverse was responsible for saving the Commodore and many of his Cadets.
“As for leaving the city alone, that isn’t an understanding, that’s an ultimatum, one which many of us would reject. We were born here, on Earth. None of us knew of our power until it awoke in us. Until then, we thought of ourselves like any other human. We had no choice in the matter, we had no way to control when or where our starseeds were reborn, we simply are what we are. We fight to survive, to protect the Earth against a power that has destroyed so much throughout the galaxy.
“Despite our differences, is that not a commonality between us?” Empyrean asked. “We both fight to protect our home, it just so happens that you have been led to believe we are the enemy, and we must defend ourselves as a result, or face destruction and death.”“You’re being too generous,” Palatine complained, muttering low even now.“In this instance, I can afford to be,” Empyrean said. “He is unable to escape and poses no threat to us here.” To Jet, he added, “Unfortunately, I can’t guarantee what will happen to you, or when. Death and perpetual confinement don’t have to be the only two options, but I don’t believe you would accept the third if it was offered to you at this point in time.”
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