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 Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2022 7:50 pm
When Lysithea had been told that her brother–no. Faustite had been kidnapped by a Saturn Knight named Michel...she didn't know what to do. Or say. Or how to react.
She had stopped in her tracks, walking back home with Ilse, and then had taken off running again, disappearing into the night and ending up back near where Ilse had mentioned her apartment being. In the story of how the kidnapping had gone.
Kidnapping. ********. Faustite was right about order kidnapping people though, wasn’t he?
Lysithea was out of breath by the time she arrived, and her cheeks were wet with tears, but she pressed the button on the Soleiyu faced pager rapidly, and pulled her senshi phone out, scrolling through the contacts until she found one labeled Mont Saint-Michel. Angrily, she typed out a message.
Quote: This is Lysithea. You were looking for me, correct? I have also been told that you went so far as to kidnap my brother. You had better bring him back to me right ******** now, or there will be issues. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but stealing away people who are important to me, even if we don’t see eye to eye is not the way to impress someone. You have ten minutes. If you don’t get your a** down here and have him with you…I’ll go find someone and corrupt again.
She wouldn’t…but if he was looking that hard for her…maybe the threat would work. And if it didn’t. She would call Evan. And he would know what best to do.
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Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 5:42 pm
Michel hadn’t seen Faustite in a while but he wasn’t regretting his decision to take a bit of time to himself. He’d been exhausted, and even with Faustite taken care of, he wasn’t really able to relax.
He’d tended to what first aid he needed and sank into a chair to–
What, to ruminate? To think? Maybe to sleep, if he could have gotten a wink around here. The air was too heavy and he always felt like someone–something–was watching him.
He hadn’t expected to get a message, and when he did he nearly ignored it.
But, it nagged at him, so he ran his thumb over his ring and–
Lysithea.
He read it once. He read it twice.
He rubbed at his eyes, rolled his shoulders.
Read it a third time.
She was still calling him her brother. But she couldn't have sent him a message if she hadn’t purified, right? She was threatening to corrupt again.
She was bargaining for him.
It was a good thing he left him alive.
There were a thousand things he wanted to say, but Faustite’s words hung heavy in his head–she hadn’t remembered him before. What would she remember now? Anything? Ilse?
She remembered Faustite, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He didn’t want to talk to her over messages. He didn’t want to push her into the arms of the Negaverse again.
He pushed himself up out of the old stone chair he’d collapsed into earlier and forgot about napping, about trying to enjoy the silence. His skin felt like it was stretched too tightly over his body. He messaged her while he walked.
The great steel door to the dungeon grated against the floor when Michel pushed it open; it felt heavier now than when he’d closed it behind him earlier. This time, he came with a set of keys that jingled at his hip. He descended the steps two at a time and yet still didn’t have the air of someone who was excited when he stepped onto the base floor.
“Get up,” he said, predictably sour. He didn’t have his weapon out, but he really didn’t expect Faustite to put up much of a fight right now.
He’d already pulled one key out. “Move your head if you want that thing off.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2022 8:20 am
The state of the dungeon hadn't lasted. The walls had been stably supporting the structure for some time. Faustite watched the ceiling above him, where it hung consistent. When he glanced at his arms, or legs, he found them each attached and accounted for. Michel's magic vanished, dried up like any senshi or knight magic, but its implication remained.
It had been months — long enough to convince him that the magic from those bones was something restorative, that his body must have been made of the same flesh and bone it had been before, absent the keloid history of his misfortune. Michel's magic revived the question: could that magic be dispelled?
Faustite laid in the dregs of his cold sweat, considering it, when he heard the dungeon door give. One Knight aura announced itself, so he needn't look. Strange that he came with what sounded like keys.
He wondered, briefly, how much time had passed. He couldn't tell by how famished he felt, but his arm's weak, shaky attempt to force him upright suggested that he best eat soon. Something more than a rat, or a spider, or one of the many roach things that called this place home. He considered Michel's legs when he opened the door. Considered them quite deeply, but another sigil flare dampened that idea.
When Faustite rose, his vision swam with a thousand angry stars. He clung to one of the bars with his good hand. The other one hung limp with its old, rotten pain.
He moved his head, but leveled his gaze on the Knight. "Return the one you stole from me."
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Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2022 9:04 am
Lysithea waited with utter impatience, tapping her foot and looking at the minutes ticking by on her phone. "I'm going to ******** kill this b*****d." She muttered, sending back her location of Quote: Right where you stole him from. Ilse told me the location.
Was she being too harsh on this unknown stranger? Maybe. But. He had truly pissed her off...and he deserved her ire. He would be lucky if she didn't kick him the moment she saw him. Though, she might anyway. Just for good measure.
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Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2022 10:55 am
Michel ignored Faustite as soon as he got the message; he checked it and had to bite back a scoff.
Ilse.
With that news, he assumed she had succeeded in helping Lysithea out of the Negaverse, but Faustite’s words echoed in his mind.
“Steal?” he asked. “Does that piece of s**t actually have any value?”
He didn't care, he wasn’t going to argue about it. He’d shoved it into his subspace just to get it out of the way. “Whatever, here. Wouldn’t kill you to say please.”
He didn’t care either way, he was talking to fill the silence. He couldn’t gauge the passing of time internally, and hearing himself speak helped him pace himself. He held it out and reminded, “If you want to make it out of here alive, just do what I say. Right now, just stay put and wait for me to give you any instructions.”
He offered the collar with one hand, just as he unlocked the one around his neck to release him from the wall. He wasn’t particularly delicate, and as soon as it was unlocked he dismissed the keys to subspace. He didn’t wait for confirmation that Faustite understood, he simply expected that he’d listen.
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Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2022 6:59 am
"More value than you, he muttered, "or she would've remembered you." But even before Lysithea left them, she hadn't recalled the Saturn Knight that kept asking after her. Faustite doubted that any transition over faction lines could be restorative to any capacity — not for how it crippled Cybele.
Faustite felt him ram the key into the manacle's keyhole; Michel fussed with it with enough force to push Faustite around, pull at his neck, force the boy to prise a few guarding fingers inside the manacle before Michel choked him with it. Then it left him, clattered to the floor. He could breathe again, but —
He held his hand out for the next one.
After accepting his rightful manacle, he snapped it back into place around his neck with the help of one of the bars. And while he couldn't say it had value as anything more than a reminder, its weight was inexplicably reassuring.
Huffing, Faustite sunk back down to a seated position by the bars. Someone was blowing up Michel's phone, he noted, as he looked up at his captor. Strange that anyone would; he must've gotten a lead, for how agitated he was now. If Faustite could think past his hunger headaches, if he could do anything more than stare hungrily at the pests that scurried to and fro in Michel's dank, desolate dungeon, he would've prodded Michel about it.
Instead, he rested his swollen eye against the cool bars. Then his attention was arrested by a fat rodent sitting near his captor's boot. "Move your ******** foot," he urged as he reached for the creature.
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Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:29 pm
Michel cared as much for the rats on this world as he did for the ones on Earth, but that didn’t mean he was about to hand one over to Faustite. He moved his foot, to nudge the rat just out of reach. “You know, it’s funny,” he said, despite the fact that he really just sounded agitated.
“She didn’t have a choice what she forgot. Blank slate and all. And yet, she remembered you. Completely and fully. And she chose to leave you. So I can’t imagine you were all that important to her. And yet,” he spoke through gritted teeth, “She wants to see you. So let’s ******** go. Get off the ground. You can eat garbage when we get back to Destiny City. But she’s the only reason you’re getting out of here right now. I was going to keep you, let you rot. So you owe her your gratitude. You’re going to behave when we go out there.”
It wasn’t a question, he wasn’t asking. The weaker Faustite was, the less he had to worry about him teleporting out or trying to summon his subordinates to them to interrupt things.
“And I’m going to let you leave. This time. If you do anything shady, if you can’t follow those basic instructions, I’ll have your head. If not this time, next time. And I’m going to find every sorry son of a b***h you know and take their heads, too. So play nice, and I’ll be reasonable.”
He didn’t wait for Faustite to comply; he reached down to grab the back of his uniform and he hauled him up to his feet.
And then, he took him back to Earth.
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Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:46 pm
Lysithea was growing more impatient, more worried and more angry as every minute passed. She hadn’t asked for so much, had she? Just the return of her not brother, the easiest instruction that she could think of. If they took any longer, she was going to send this Michel another message, and it wouldn’t be even a semblance of something kind.
She was pacing back and forth when finally two auras came up from nowhere, and one…
For a moment, the senshi recoiled. Oh. Wow Faustite’s aura was so…oppressive. Uncomfortable.
It didn’t ******** finally!” The words all but exploded from her and she moved swiftly towards the two, shoving at Michel with all the strength she had, pushing him away from her poor, battered Faustite. Rage filled her and she gave the knight a scathing look. “You’re a ******** a*****e, do you know that? Why would you think this was okay?”
There was nothing okay about it. Faustite was hurt. And it was because of her. If she had known that this was going to happen…
…Well. She would have done some things differently but. All she could do now was try to fix what was broken. “Lysithea healing horn.” The words were softly whispered, and she pressed the magic against the battered half youma. “...I’m sorry, Faustite. I didn’t know this was happening. I didn’t know until tonight, I wouldn’t have let them. I’m so sorry…”
Strickenized Lysithea calls her attack, and a slightly larger unicorn horn made of energy appears in her hand, this one being about a foot in length. She can use this to mend all minor and moderate injuries by placing the tip of the horn on her target. The injuries will rapidly patch themselves back together, causing them to fade to nothing. The energy horn fades after the cuts are healed. The injuries can take up to 25 seconds to heal and once she has cast her magic it cannot be interrupted. She can use this two times in battle.
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:09 am
"Disproved your own statement," he hissed back, even as he was wrenched up onto his feet and disappeared from the Knight's namesake.
A dizzying trouble it was, wending their way back to Earth. Threats aside, he couldn't stop himself — leaned over to retch a few heavy, black strands of spit onto the ground, on the other side of Rosie's old apartment. He waited a few moments for the dizziness to pass, but it was slow to abate.
The space smelled of wet smoke. They must've been gone long enough for firefighters to arrive and extinguish the fire
He straightened up to Lysithea buzzing about, looking depressingly dressed in white. She must've called for him, but why? Stranger, still, that she elected to heal him; confusion creased his brows, even as her magic abated his nausea. All but the most egregious wounds were gone in a matter of seconds, opening his eye back up and softening his bruises to gentle discolorations, though his grate was still a mess and his left wrist protested something violent whenever he tried to move it.
He didn't know what to say to her — whether to tell her thank you, or ask her why she bothered. If he should ask her how she's doing, or if he even wanted to know. What was there to say, now? She remade herself an enemy. She was still trying to protect him.
He knew to expect it, but —
"Why did you leave?" He asked as his attention settled, wary, on Michel.
Was she waiting to die, too?
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 12:41 pm
Michel was sturdy, and in relatively good shape, all things considered. Lysithea’s push did little on its own, but the fact that she’d pushed him had moved him more than anything else. The momentum she’d built up coupled with his surprise meant he’d back up nearly two full steps while she healed Faustite.
He felt like he was watching from the sidelines.
Like he didn’t have a place here.
Michel didn’t defend his actions, he didn’t need to. He'd made the right choice, this was the only way he could have been assured that she'd have a chance to purify. Faustite was always going to be a pain in the a**.
He hadn't had a chance to intervene. Ilse got out. Lysithea got out.
Michel knew what the outcome of his actions could have had, but that's why he acted alone. This wasn’t something the others had planned, it was something he had planned. Ilse too, minimally. She was bait.
Adria hadn’t known. Soleiyu hadn’t. Malus hadn’t.
They would have tried to stop him too, probably. They didn't have the stomach to do all that was necessary to get her back. But, he hadn’t worked so hard to keep them out of this just to rope them in at the end.
Michel was absolutely unreadable. He didn’t care about Faustite at all. He was bothered that Lysithea did.
She still remembered him. He wasn’t going to leave them alone, though. He stayed off to the side, quiet, and watched.
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 4:08 pm
God, he was in worse shape than she had even imagined, and for a moment her fists clenched at her sides as she thought about the a*****e knight who had done this. “You know why I left, Faustite.” Lysithea’s voice was soft, pained, but she reached out to smooth back his hair. “It wasn’t the right place for me, and I know you tried so hard to make it the right place but…I can’t thrive in the darkness…I’m not even sure I can survive in it.”
Twisting slightly, Lysithea ripped one of the long tails to her butt bow and began trying to clean off as much of the grime from her brother as she could, her expression growing more and more angry as she did so. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be apart from you…I still…would give anything for you to come with me. I love you, and I will never be your enemy. I will never hurt you. And I swear to god that I’m going to rip this guy’s balls off for doing this to you.”
Faustite of all people should know how she felt about violence. About causing pain to someone…well, maybe he deserved it for some things, but not for this. It hadn’t been his fault. He had been trying to help. “If you…are still hesitant, I understand…but. If that’s the case, you should go before this clown goes apeshit again…”
Lysithea didn’t want him to go. She wanted to hold on to him and never let him go anywhere again. She wanted to protect him, be the sister that she had been but.
She couldn’t force him to leave. That much was very clear to her now, having left herself.
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 4:39 pm
He felt the loss of her, knowing that this would be the last time she'd fuss over him or try to scrub the soot and grime from his face, but told himself to swallow it back. Now wasn't the time. Now wasn't safe, not with that Knight. Safe was terribly far away.
He winced when she went over his left eye, tender as it was, though it hadn't been swollen anymore. Most of his hurts narrowed down to his wrist, the old ache in his ribs, and his enduring wariness for the magic that granted him half his body once again.
It was terrible to hear those words, knowing that they meant loss. Knowing that Lysithea wouldn't be back with him, wandering through Destiny City, draining energy as they discussed mundane nothings: a unicorn pillow seen through the window of a store and how they should take it for her, or how she'd found a new recipe that she wanted to try with him, or dumb needlings about his unawareness and inability to use an oven.
There was no more Ana. She was some other girl, now. Someone else's sister, or daughter, or friend.
But she wanted to rip the Knight's balls off, and for that, he shot Michel a most unabashedly smug glance.
She was right, though — to stay was to sabotage this tenuous peace. Faustite murmured his thanks, his tenuous not yet, as he stepped back and vanished in a flourish of smoke.
He knew Negaspace would not welcome him the same way.
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 5:09 pm
And just like that, Faustite was gone.
The disappointment that Lysithea felt was overwhelming, crushing. She still wasn’t enough to give him that push to free himself.
For a moment, she remained there, clutching the now grimy piece of ripped ribbon, hands clenched into fists so hard that they shook. Damnit.
Her eyes burned with tears that she refused to let fall. Not when this a*****e was still here watching. He didn’t deserve to see her cry. Didn’t deserve to know how much he hurt her by hurting Faustite.
Swiftly, Lysithea stood up, still holding the ribbon and ran the back of her free hand over her damp eyes before glaring daggers at the Knight. “I don’t know who the ******** you are, buddy. But how dare you. If you knew me before, why would you ever think that something like this would be okay? I can’t imagine that I would have approved before either, so why would you try to kidnap someone that you knew I was close to?”
She swung her fist back, still clutching the ribbon and punched right for the Knight’s chin, anger and hatred burning in her eyes. “I think you’re a pig.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 7:16 pm
Michel’s lip twitched when he saw that smug expression; it could have curled into something of disgust but he didn’t have the energy to do it. Maybe he should have killed Faustite. Lysithea was going to hate him no matter what. He could have just saved himself a lot of trouble and gotten rid of the General now. There was no way this wasn’t going to bite him in the a** in the long run.
And, for what? To try and make sure Lysithea was okay?
He’d been quiet while she insulted him. While she s**t-talked him to Faustite.
He’d crossed his arms over his chest as he stood there and watched her dote on him, like he hadn’t just torn out Ilse’s starseed. Like he wasn’t going to leave her for dead in this burnt out shell of a home.
He was almost relieved when he left, except that meant that he was there, alone, with Lysithea.
Michel wasn’t used to her anger. Especially not directed at him. She looked like herself, but not quite. Like looking at a reflection through moving water.
He was faster than her. Stronger. He caught her fist before she could make contact but he didn’t use any more force than he needed to. Just enough to stop her, not enough to hurt her.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. There was only one person who knew that he’d taken Faustite. He didn’t know what Ilse had said to Lysithea, he hadn’t heard anything. Had she told her the truth?
Michel kept his voice even and he was careful not to let any emotion slip in. “He tried to kill Ilse. The apartment was on fire.”
She was standing in the wreckage, it was obvious that it was still fresh. “I got her out. I got him out. I didn’t leave him in here to burn and I didn’t leave him on the street for anyone else to find.”
He released her hand and took a step back, just in case she decided to try to hit him again.
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Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 7:30 pm
“You didn’t have to hurt him. He was upset. I get it. You were upset, I don’t get it. Why did you bring Ilse back somewhere that you knew he’d be at? Using her as bait because I made a mistake and named her to Faustite? Why were you stalking me? Why were you looking for me, who even are you?”
She swallowed hard and wiped her eyes again. “What do you want with me? How did I know you, and why did I know you? You don’t seem like anyone I would have wanted to hang out with…”
Sniffling slightly, Lysithea rubbed her fist into her eyes, trying to force the tears back, maybe. Or just trying to make the whole eyeball deflate.
Finally her shoulders slumped and she let go of her powered side and sniffled again. Being Lysithea felt far too difficult right now.
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