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 Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 11:37 am
Gwales hopped lightly from rooftop to rooftop, the heels of her boots clicking on the tar paper and shingles as she landed. Her patrols lately were coming up with nothing, or very little, yet she still went out to patrol regularly out of some kind of sense of duty. She owed it to her Wonder, the silent tower sitting alone in the darkness of Pluto, illuminated only by the silvery trees that surrounded it and the strange time pool that occasionally manifested in the courtyard. She hadn't been there in a long time; maybe she owed herself a visit. So wrapped up was the Pluto page in her musings that she nearly missed the sensation of another aura very close to where she was – a Chaos aura. Gwales stopped, freezing in position. Scanning about with her senses, she finally was able to determine where it was coming from. "Well now," she muttered to herself, and started off in that direction. She wanted to get the drop on them this time, not the other way around. The aura grew stronger as she approached, which helped her triangulate on it. She slowed her pace down, but didn't yet leap down to the pavement to find out who it actually was. Instead, she crouched on the edge of the roof she'd stopped on, watching and waiting.
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 12:25 pm
Niter developed a unique way of doing his job.
It looked as though he was slacking off. Seated on a bench between two individuals, Niter had his Switch out and was currently absorbed in a Legends of Arceus playthrough. He had begun it only a half hour ago, with a promise to himself that he'd only start the game once he gathered his quota (that was his secret — his motivation). The two individuals on either side of him were asleep.
They weren't anyone he knew in person. Few outside of the Negaverse knew who Niter was, but the two weren't unfamiliar with Niter. They knew the username, all-niter, from various platforms. They played together. all-niter had skill for someone they had never noticed before.
If they suspected that Niter was another, more popular streamer moonlighting on a new channel, they didn't say. He had only invited them out for some local Switch activities, and they accepted, likely wanting to know who all-niter was. After all, the streamer never showed their face.
The energy draining was simple — they were huddled up enough on the bench that they were touching each other, and Niter had donned an old sweatshirt with a kangaroo pocket. The pocket hid his energy gathering hand and the spheres he nicked off the pair. Considering that he wasn't much of a talker, no one suspected it when he went silent as he concentrated on his duty Nor did they question it when they each started to fall asleep; it was late, after all.
Niter sighed loudly, then banished his Switch to subspace when he felt the creep of another aura. That typically meant it was time to go; most of the enemy were, well, enemies, and weren't keen on him sticking around.
Cupping his hands around his face, he announced to his surroundings. "Okay, I'm leaving, bye!"
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 12:41 pm
"Wait!" Gwales shouted reflexively, instantly regretting drawing attention to herself. With a sigh, she decided to roll with it. Jumping down from the rooftop to the ground below, she held up a hand. "Wait, please. I just want to talk." And she did really just want to talk. Her overwhelming curiosity extended to what the Negaverse were really up to, gathering energy from people and occasionally taking starseeds (a practice that, once she understood it, she found quite objectionable). She understood that the energy at least was turned in to meet some sort of quota, but she didn't understand why. Did their superior officers hoard it? Was it given to a higher authority? (She knew they were very hierarchical, much like a military organization, extending beyond their titles of "lieutenant" and such.) Gwales approached the trio on the bench, two of whom appeared to be asleep. "Did you drain them?" she asked the one in the middle, who still was awake and radiating the Chaos aura.
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 12:54 pm
"But I don't, see-you-bye ~ ☆" He waved, got up, turned, and tried to leave —
But the individual kept at him. Kept wanting to investigate, and be annoying, and kept trying to make him have a conversation. Laike wasn't the conversational type, though; he didn't care to talk to anybody, which was what made Niter so nice sometimes.
As Niter, he was a nobody. Except when he wasn't, apparently. He sighed, then turned around with his hands in his pockets.
He was a few paces away. The other person, he was pretty sure he could outpace them. Someone from Pluto, if he remembered his symbols right? Jet would probably want him to get info on what they were like —
But part of him thought, if Jet wanted info on this person, he should come gather it himself —
"Yeah, they'll be awake in a few hours I guess. It's not my business; I just do what I'm told." Which was good enough for him. "I think you should hang out with them for a while, make sure youma don't come along, you know?" Not that he figured they roamed that freely, but if it got the Page to stick around while he left? Worth it.
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 3:36 pm
Gwales wasn't about to fall for the corrupted Senshi's suggestion (and she knew he was a corrupted Senshi because she saw a hint of the hollow black fracture on his forehead, beneath the shelter of the hoodie). "Nuh-uh. No thanks. There aren't any youma around here – I would have felt them. I'm not going to babysit your victims for you." She looked at him, then at the sleeping pair on the bench, still holding their Switch controllers. "Why?" she asked outright. "Why did you take their energy? Who tells you to do that? Do you know what they might want it for?" Slowly she approached him, not wanting to scare him off. "Look, I don't want to… y'know, have to fight you. I just want to know." He looked like a deer frozen in headlights to her. "You don't steal starseeds too, do you?" Questions, questions. The more she asked, the more questions came to her mind. And she wanted all the answers.
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 4:37 pm
Victims. That was a loaded word. Jet explained that they were just making a donation, but it was hard to talk sense into people who didn't know about the war, so sometimes it had to be like this.
It didn't make much sense to Niter, but Niter only had to do what he was told.
The Page had about a million more questions for him, and Niter sighed dejectedly. It reminded him of that Negaverse Super Senshi that wanted to know what happened in the past, like, two years. Like he was supposed to know all of that. Niter didn't play 20 questions with his superiors; Aqua wasn't that nice, and Jet was always busy. Especially now that he got promoted.
He was so busy, Niter was pretty sure he didn't have time for him anymore. Which worked out for Niter; he could slack off a little more.
Frowning, Niter kept stepping backward. "I don't make the rules, I just follow them. They say get energy, I get energy. You want me to call my General and ask him to explain it to you?" Niter moved his hand from the kangaroo pocket, and with it came his Negaverse communicator in its pen form.
"You can ask him if I steal starseeds."
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 6:47 pm
"NO," Gwales squeaked, holding out her hands to him in a 'please stop' manner. "Nononononono. No need to bring a General into it, really! I was just curious, you know. Like I wanted to understand – I want to understand." The LAST thing she wanted was to have to duke it out with a General. She'd lose, and badly. She dropped her hands, holding them palm out to indicate she meant him no harm. "I get following orders, I really do. Except we don't have anyone who we report to or who gives us the orders. We get to figure things out on our own," she smiled. "If that's information you didn't have." Cautiously she stepped toward the bench, where the other two gamers were passed out. She peered at them, studying them as if they were lab specimens. To her relief, both were still breathing, albeit shallowly. "You said they'd wake up in a few hours, right? And their starseeds are intact?"
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Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 7:01 pm
Wow, that was a whole reaction. The Page looked ready to s**t herself, like she was a new player rolling into the Ornstein and Smough fight. She must've understood something about Generals to know to be afraid.
The communicator went back into his hoodie. He still held onto it, in case she changed her mind. Or in case he changed his mind, though having to explain to Jet that he just wanted to see what he'd do to a Page sounded like it entailed a lot of explaining. And probably more busywork on top of his quota.
"I know what starseeds are, but I dunno how to take them." Maybe that was an overshare. He knew the gist of it, but it seemed kinda extreme. And kinda senseless, for how they depended on energy.
Niter shuffled up nearer to the Page, but made certain to keep at least ten feet between them. Really, he was more concerned about the game systems in the kids' hands. What if they fell on the ground and cracked? That'd be a hundred times worse than some stranger coming along and scalping their energy. Energy would come back after a night's sleep, but a Switch? They were still annoying to get.
"So, what are you guys doing here on Earth? Are you like Kaguya from Okami, and you can't find your rocket to go home? Cuz, if you weren't here, I wouldn't have to do that," he pointed out helpfully.
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Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 11:15 am
Well, that was interesting. This guy couldn't take starseeds! Gwales wondered if that was a skill that came with higher rank in the Negaverse. Or if he just wasn't interested in taking them; that was a possibility too. She eyed the corrupt Senshi, slightly annoyed that his hoodie was concealing his uniform. A clean visual on him would help her remember him. Turning her attention back to the kids on the bench, she carefully adjusted the Switch in the hands of one of them so it wouldn't slip and fall to the ground. "There. Don't want anything to happen to that," she nodded to herself. But when the Chaos Senshi started babbling about rockets to go home and some guy named Kaguya, she gave him a deeply puzzled look. "What? Oh no no, we're not aliens, we're not from space or anything. I don't know why the Negaverse sells that story, 'cause it's not true." Gwales smiled at him, all the while thinking that it was quite concerning that the guy's higher ups fed their underlings that lie. "I'm just as much from Earth as you are."
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Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 11:37 am
"You're wearing Pluto symbols," Niter pointed out helpfully. He expected that, if a Page was from Earth, they'd be wearing Earth symbols. That just sounded logical. To him, at least.
So how could they be from Earth? And… As he watched the Page try to protect the Switch (which gave him a small thrill, because Switches were really the victims in this war), he wondered what, exactly, the White Moon were doing here anyway. Jet said they were the enemy, and they'd try all kinds of tricks to deceive them. This might be a deception, but Niter had to wonder — what was the purpose of that?
For all that they had to drain energy from random people, they sure seemed like the bad guys themselves. Not that Niter would ever bring that up to Jet.
"Maybe next time, hide the Pluto symbols before you tell someone you're not from space." Hands back in his kangaroo pocket, Niter tried to see himself off again.
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Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 12:25 pm
"Yeah, no, yeah, I – yeah, I get that it's a little confusing," Gwales replied with a shake of the head. "To be quite honest, it's a little confusing to me too. It's…" She rubbed her chin in thought. How to explain the Pluto symbols to this Negaverse Senshi? "It's like I have a symbiotic relationship with Pluto. I'm not from Pluto, but I'm allied with Pluto. Does that make sense?" Gwales didn't really want this guy to run off with misinformation cluttering his brain. She wanted to set him straight. At least she had learned that the lower-ranking Negaverse agents were being fed the same line that the public was being fed: that the White Moon and their allies were not of Earth. Maybe they couldn't stop the campaign of deception with the public, but they could (and should) set those of the enemy who chose to listen to right. One of the hapless gamers on the bench began to snore, and Gwales felt a sense of relief. They were asleep after all, not unconscious from having their energy drained; they'd be right as rain in a few hours after all. She caught the corrupt trying to sneak away, and she waved her hand at him. "No, wait, don't leave yet! I still want to know – I want to know what happens to the energy you take." She didn't want to have to physically stop him. She didn't think she could, with no magic.
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Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 1:00 pm
Niter sighed quietly, felt his soul escape his body.
He was in hell. Trapped in a conversation that he couldn't leave behind. What would it take for the Page to go away? There were people on that bench that needed guarding if either of them was gonna make it through the night without hypothermia or random opportunistic agents or even more random youma, and they already had a not-particularly-useful conversation. She couldn't be polite and let him leave???
Maybe if she thought his magic would hurt her — Oh, but that was intimidation. Or. Something bad. He didn't want to deal with her turning aggressive and coming after him, or hunting him down later, or anything like that.
Pausing, Niter turned around again. Maybe he should've called Jet.
He whistled the stupid little tune that he'd learned to follow. Waited. Looked at her. Nothing happened.
As usual.
Why'd I get the most useless magic in the world. Does it even qualify as magic if it doesn't do anything?
"So, the energy? I don't know where it goes. I give it to my General, and he does something with it." Niter shrugged. "Which is less confusing to me than you having a symbiotic relationship with Pluto. Sounds like Artorias, you know? You get all this power from some source that, really, has no business being here? But it sponsors you, because it wants something from you."tatterpixie up to you if you want some part of her uniform to disappear! Interstitial Aria ;;
Range: 10' of self
Duration: 30 seconds
Use Count: 2
Miss Chance: Target moves out of distance before the tune ends, or the object is dismissed
Effect: Nycticorax hums a short tune. An interstellar cloak enfolds the target if it is within 10' of Niter. A nonliving magical target is banished to the interstice, a sort of in-between space, like if reality had a separate layer beneath it. The interstice is more of a shadow realm and not an actual location. The target is unhurt, unseen, and untouchable. When the time expires, the target will return to reality within a 10' radius of Niter.
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Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 2:01 pm
Gwales suddenly found herself feeling a bit chilled. Looking down, she gasped – her jacket was gone! Had the corrupt Senshi done that? She rubbed her upper arms to keep warm, but she didn't ask him about it. He seemed to be growing annoyed with her. But she'd learned that the Generals did something with the energy gathered, that was interesting! She wondered about that – what did they do with it? Did it involve the mysterious Metallia she'd heard about? She wasn't about to stroll up to some General and ask them where the energy went, though. Gwales was curious and even nosy at times, but she wasn't suicidal. "Yes, it wants something from me, from all of us," she replied, shivering. "It wants us to protect the people of Earth from having their energy drained!" She felt fabric under her hands. Her jacket had come back, none the worse for its disappearance. She turned back to the corrupt. "You've answered my questions. You can go now," she nodded.
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Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2022 2:21 pm
Why would Pluto care if Earth's people were being drained? This Page's story had all sorts of holes in it, and Niter wasn't sure why she was keeping up the charade. If she had nothing to hide, then what did it matter if she told the truth? He already knew the truth, after all.
Interesting to note that her jacket had disappeared, though. Still made his magic pretty useless, but at least he could say it did something. It just… Wasn't something good. No fireballs or minions made of lightning or, really, anything cool.
Sucks to suck, he told himself.
Letting out a breath, Niter gave her a tired "Okay," and turned back around to leave her be. "But next time, I'm calling my General. You can ask him all the questions you want." And Niter could go about his business, or get further on Legends of Arceus, or just take a nap.tatterpixie fin~ ty heart i hope they get to meet again!
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