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 Posted: Fri May 27, 2022 4:25 pm
Adonis powered up like he always did, went up the fire escape at the back of his apartment complex like he always did, chose the direction of the night's direction like he always did. He flipped a coin and followed where it landed, which was in a more easterly direction, closer to ethnic shops mixed with tourist traps, and one seriously overpriced spice store.
Adonis started walking, but he didn't feel much like doing anything. He had the malaise, bad. Like there wasn't anything worth doing, not right then. His quota was caught up, and even his next week's quota was paid for with all the running around he'd been doing. Snagged a starseed here and there, turned those in for extra credit. He doubted he'd be going Eternal on any of that, but then again, he had no interest in Eternal, either. Really, it'd become a slog.
Not that he minded a good slog, much like how he didn't mind the cool night breeze in his hair or the way power hummed at his fingertips. He had no beef with the Negaverse, the way that his old boss must have.
But he also couldn't justify two slogs, between his night life and his normal life, and he knew exactly which one had to go. That, he figured, was why he felt so uneasy.
Adonis got seven buildings out before he decided that he didn't feel like going anywhere. Slowing, he sat himself on a rooftop garden bench with a privately mumbled "Damn." Times like now, he could really use a new boss. He looked up at the stars, briefly, but they weren't giving him any suggestions.
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Posted: Fri May 27, 2022 7:46 pm
Oooh, another Chaos aura! Maybe she shouldn't be excited about feeling Chaos auras around. She knew that she hadn't seen the really bad part of the Negaverse yet, but that they were out there, and that an agent being out on the streets might mean that someone was getting hurt. It might mean she was the one getting hurt, if she got too close. She was a traitor, after all, and she'd already gotten her first death threat, even if Gismodine had been crying too much to actually try to fight her at the time. Maybe that was part of why Nectaris liked checking up on the Chaos auras, though. She was a traitor, and that was okay when it came to, like, the organization. She was glad she didn't have anything to do with corrupting people or torturing them anymore. The more people she'd talked to, though, the more it seemed like she'd had a lot of friends on that side of things, and she didn't want them to think that she was betraying them as people. She liked meeting these people she'd used to know. She liked telling them that she still wanted to be there for them, especially the ones who looked like they weren't getting the support they needed from people in the Negaverse. So, she hopped over to the aura, from rooftop to rooftop, and once she was on the right one, she sidestepped a patch of something leafy before she saw the dude in the corrupt senshi's oufit. "Hi," she called out, holding her staff low so she didn't look too threatening.
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Posted: Fri May 27, 2022 8:23 pm
Adonis didn't normally swear off the cuff at people, especially on first encounter, but he sat up and stared as soon as he saw Nectaris pop up with her little staff. "Oh, s**t," he mumbled to himself, counting his lucky ******** stars.
Or his unlucky ******** stars, depending on how this once-in-a-lifetime round of bullshit played out.
"… Hi," he managed eloquently, then rose and tried to recover himself. He smoothed a hand through his hair. "Remember me at all? Fresh transfer to your crew, threw you a party, this n' that…" Unsure of what to expect, he thought it better to go the disarming route. Establish rapport, use it to avoid getting punched in the face, or getting his nose broken by that staff. And who knew what kind of magic she was packing?
Though, if she decided '******** this noise' and went after him anyway… Well, he only had to survive the first hit and he could teleport to safety.
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2022 9:21 am
Oh, this guy knew her too. Nectaris figured that out about five seconds in. Luckily she was the type who didn't mind getting cussed at, as long as the words didn't get followed up with creepy corrupt magic, but she did blink at him a little bit while he explained himself. "No, I don't remember much," she said, glancing down. This was the hard part, when people looked at her all hopefully and she had to tell them that she didn't remember who they were. "My head got kinda scrambled with everything that was happening, but, uh." She stepped forwards, not to try to be threatening, but after her talks with the others, she knew what she had to say and she wanted this guy to know that she meant it. "I didn't leave to leave you guys. I know that much. Like, my team. I wasn't trying to abandon you guys, I'm still not trying to abandon you guys. It was just the Negaverse as a whole that was being gross, yeah?" She waited, trying to see f he was going to understand or if he was going to punch her.
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2022 9:16 pm
Adonis rose when she stepped forward, though he wasn't sure if he was prepared to use his magic on her and start that kind of an interaction. She was a General once, and she was a Knight now, and Adonis wasn't one to punch up like some of his comrades.
Still, it was strange — though not as strange as it could be, given that she was still wearing pink — to see her like that. All garbed up in some Polly Pocket kinda dress with her Lisa Frank cape and that airy overlay type deal. And a staff in her hand instead of the daggers he was used to, like she was going to thwack someone into submission. If that was all he had to contend with, would he have sprung his magic on her? Gone for the starseed?
"Nobody tries to lose at poker," he pointed out with an open-palmed shrug, "but they lose anyway. Even if you weren't trying to abandon us, you did, and now? The whole team's getting all carved up like a Christmas ham.
"And?" One thumb caught up in the belt loop around his skirt, while the other hand pointed out into the distance. "They're grilling us hard. They're trying to find out if we know anything about your plans to spring the Princess and bolt, so you saying you weren't trying to abandon us?"
Adonis tsked. "Sure. But you screwed us over instead."
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2022 8:47 am
"Oh," said Nectaris, and she deflated a little bit, 'cause she was running so much on the hopes that people would still like her, that the fact that they'd used to be friends would be a good thing instead of a bad thing, that when someone acted in a way that said something else, it was kinda a lot. "So I lost at poker?" She considered that four a couple of seconds, rolling it around and actually saying quiet, but afterwards, she shook her head. "No. Poker's about luck. This was a choice. And, like, I'm not gonna say I'm sorry about that part 'cause I think I made the right choice. Someone would've gotten tortured to death if I hadn't done what I did." He was making it sound like getting their Generals shuffled around was some awful thing, and really Nectaris was glad that her team had liked Sylvite, but getting a new General wasn't nearly as bad as getting tortured. "What I mean is, I'm still here. I'll still support you, if I can. Not, like, letting you drag me back to get executed," she said, and her fist tightened around her staff. She didn't know how this guy was going to react to any of this, and she'd fight if she had to. "But like, if you wanna ask me stuff, so you have answers for them when they grill you, I could do that."
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Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2022 4:17 pm
"Oh, nonono, my ex-CO. Poker's all about skill. But, you do you. Call a spade a fork, for all I care." He sighed wearily.
Why'd it have to turn out like this? He got reassigned, and Sylvite seemed like a cool boss, and they barely started to get to know each other, and he threw her a party, and then she turned into the biggest traitor in Negaverse history. Took a damn Princess out of their holds, and ran off to become a Knight. Like, seriously? Was it because of his party? Cuz if it was, she could've said something to him and he'd have called it off, no harm, no foul. But no, she split for the White Moon instead.
Now she was someone else. Someone who didn't even recognize him. And that, he thought, felt cheaper than anything. A get-out-of-jail-free card, with an added bonus of erasing any cause for guilt that she'd ever earned.
And the torture thing — Adonis sighed. "It's a war, you know? People get tortured. Bad s**t happens to everybody." That was the luck of the draw. Princess drew a bad hand, couldn't play with it, and got her a** landed in Nega-prison by Jet.
"Yeah," he decided, as he hooked his thumbs under his belts, "They wanna know why you did it, and how long you been thinking about leaving. But if you don't remember much, then there's not a whole lotta point to asking.
"So I'm gonna ask this instead — you know you're gonna get skinned alive for this, right?" And he held his hands up, his gloves melting away.stari_maga Skinned Alive ;; Range: 20' / 1 target Duration: 15 seconds Use Count: 2 Miss Chance: Breaking eye contact, going out of range Effect: Executed in the same manner as his basic attack, Adonis casts Skinned Alive by brushing his hands across any part of his uniform, which melts away for the duration of the attack. The change is mimicked in his targeted opponent, who he must make eye contact with, and they feel the effects of their skin being removed from their body. The affected area appears bloody, and the opponent suffers extreme pain akin to the name of the attack. It can be interrupted by attacking Adonis before his uniform manifests any changes, preventing him from making eye contact, or by shutting him up somehow before he utters the name of the attack. Once the duration ends, their body goes back to normal (as does his uniform).
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Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 7:14 pm
There was something different about this guy. Nectaris probably could’ve seen that, if she was trying too. His smile was way too bright. His poker metaphors were kinda hard to understand. He wasn’t saying stuff about how the Negaverse sucked. That was probably the biggest giveaway. It was just that she was so caught up on wanting to still be his mentor, wanting them to still try being friends the way the others were trying. She didn’t notice all the little hints. She was still smiling at him, still looking over with puppy dog eyes, still offering help and answers and all that stuff up until the moment the skin started peeling off her hands. Then, she screamed. She screamed a lot. Yeah, she knew she wanted to be a magical girl, a warrior of love and justice or whatever, but she hadn’t been ready for how much this hurt. Instinct took over. She’d been holding her staff low, out of the way, but now she slammed it into the ground, and light pooled out around it. “Look,” she said through gritted teeth, “if you’re gonna be like that I have to fight you.” Strickenized Magic - Nectaris channels her magic by touching her staff to the ground. An image of a glowing full moon forms on the ground beneath her, 15 feet in diameter, and the area is filled with moonlight. Order characters only feel the moonlight as a slight hopeful omen, but to Chaos characters, the light gives the sensation of painful second degree burns across their entire body. This stops immediately if they go out of range of the spell, and the pain is purely illusory. This magic never leaves lasting damage. Nectaris can channel for 45 seconds.
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2022 2:55 pm
She knew how to scream in a way that was so damn satisfying to Adonis. All that shrieking — it was almost like she got her comeuppance for betraying the entire Negaverse, undoing whatever Jet did to get the princess in a cell in the first place, and then ******** right off to betray the Queen, too. Of course, making her feel like her skin was falling off wasn't punishment enough, by anyone's opinion, but he'd take his potshots where he could get them. Keep popping his magic, torture her here and there, and all those little things had to add up to a big thing eventually.
Maybe she'd snap, go crazy. Maybe she'd beg to come back to the Negaverse. Not that they'd take her, but it was a nice thought.
So he smiled something smug as he listened to her pain. "You know, the rest of the Negaverse? They probably got a whole lot worse they could give you. You pissed a lotta people off, you know? Preeeeeetty sure the entire Negaverse knows to hunt you down."
And he approached as he spoke, cuz if she stayed distracted long enough? Then he could bring home a turncoat's starseed, and they'd have nothing left to hunt her down for. It was an easy way to go out, but a very permanent one. And who knows? Maybe Laurels would see it like he'd done something good enough to get pardoned from ever having subordinates. Slash his quota too, maybe. Or make him her Senshi Prince? Now that'd be something!
She recovered faster than he wanted her to, though, and he wasn't sure what to make of the whole slamming her staff into the ground thing. Once the moon formed underneath her, he felt it — that long, deep, steady burn. Like a sunburn that'd started to blister. Like getting TB1 in his cuts, with it trying to melt through his skin. Like getting peroxide in his eyes.
"Hooooly hell," Adonis hissed as he backed up out of the circle. "Damn. Damn damn damn!" He patted all about himself, as if the magic could be put out like a scrap of burning cloth. And while it hadn't persisted, he wanted nothing more of that.
He wanted nothing more of that entire conversation, either; vanishing, Adonis left for Negaspace.
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