It was becoming clear that sparring with Netherite was not going to get him much of anywhere.
The man was busier than Fafnir himself was, it seemed like, but even when he did manage to get him to come in for training, what the corrupt got was... lack luster. The man knew how to fight, certainly, but after Laybrinthite... he just knew that there was more he could do, if he had the proper partner to work with. Sadly, his personal list of contacts who he felt might humor him, had skills he needed, and might be somewhat careful not to break something on him was not a long one.
Recent events did have someone rather higher in his thoughts, and finally, he typed out a message on his tablet and sent it.
Would you be willing to spar with me? I need the practice, and you have the added benefit of being able to call youma. I could also work with one of your subordinates otherwise, if there is someone you can recommend.
I promise I will make it worth your while in return.
Maybe asking the half-youma general who was literally on fire was not a good way to avoid actual injuries, but he felt like they had enough social capital between them that he could trust the General not to hurt him. And, hopefully, he had enough skill and drive to be a challenge where Netherite was not.
Strickenized
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2022 3:05 pm
Faustite had been checking Database entries for one Kerberos when he caught a bright flash in his periphery, and his attention wandered from the big screen to the false Jadarite standing next to him. In its hand was a message on the tablet that he'd never expected to receive.
"Stop," he commanded, as his attention lingered on the tablet screen.
The Lieutenant, who sat in a chair with her back to the burning General, nearly leapt in her seat at the command. "Yessir," she breathed, and she stared up at the screen, wondering if she'd done something wrong. Should she look back? Was that a sign of disrespect? It was so hard to tell with Generals she hadn't known well.
"Tell him to meet me in the eastern wing's training room. One hour."
The Lieutenant froze. "I-I'm sorry?" She wasn't sure how she'd send an unnamed Eternal Senshi a message, let alone one that would get him down into the Citadel's bowels. She felt her own face grow white at the prospect of being unable to fulfill an order, especially one that might cost her dearly. Not because of the order, but —
While the Lieutenant panicked, Headache prepared and sent the message. Faustite had granted time enough to finish his business with the Database, and it gave Fafnir time enough to prepare.
"Good. Lieutenant, prepare a new entry."
She sighed audibly, her shoulders rising and falling with her stress. Then remembered herself. "Yessir!"
One hour? Well, Fafnir could reasonably do that. It would give him a little time to prepare for it, get some things dealt with... attempt to deal with the sudden, inexplicable nerves (or was it excitement?) born from the upcoming training.
An hour later, he was waiting in the eastern training room, carefully running himself through a series of stretches in the gloom and silence of the citadel. Not exactly his favorite place to train... this place lacked the homey details Netherite had improved his office with, turning that room into an oasis he often forgot was in the Citadel entirely. Too bad sparring or training elsewhere came with a measure of risk of discovery by someone on the other side. It was unlikely whomever was that unlucky to find them would walk away from it, with both a super and a general present, but he didn't like the interruption and the increased possibility of getting hurt.
His body moved easily as he twisted, pulling his arm across his chest, and he knew by the fluidity of it he'd warmed himself up properly. Maybe this powered form had protections against muscle strain, but better to be safe about it. He felt well prepared for Faustite's arrival, and filled his waiting moments with more of the same.
Strickenized
Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2022 8:56 am
In an hour's span, Faustite finished his research on his present targets of interest. He had dictated to the Lieutenant, who transcribed his new entry with a surfeit of typos that then required correction. Headache documented his plans for follow-up after he left the computer room, and sent messages to his relevant contacts. One went to Axinite, requesting that he unseal any personnel files on Kerberos and Uranophane for Faustite's perusal.
He had always treated 'one hour' as a ballpark, though he understood that subordinates were often far more punctual than he. When he descended one of the many spiral stairwells and rounded into the hall, it was with no surprise that he felt the presence of a Super in the vicinity. The eastern parts of the Citadel seldom saw use, owing to their particular state of decay, so he assumed that aura to be Fafnir's.
He paused at the double doors. They were fanciful things, all brushed wood with whimsical wrought patterns, with decorative arches of destroyed stained class spanning above them. Quaint door knockers fashioned in the style of the door's engravings sat in the center. He wondered why they hadn't fastened Ganymede to one of these, in the old style of slaves greeting their guests.
Faustite wrenched open the door and entered, finding the once-ballroom now loaded for bear with weapon racks and training weapons of all manner, shape, and sizes. Then there was Fafnir, looking too pretty for a training room — like he would've been a perfect fit in the ballroom that once was.
"Fafnir," he greeted as he strolled further in. "What's your focus, and your parameters?" Did the boy want to strategize his magic use, or work on his hand-to-hand? Were youma considered out of bounds? Was contact considered a hit, or were they going no-holds-barred on sparring with each other? Faustite ever preferred such things declared beforehand, to the benefit of both parties.
The sound of the door caught the corrupt's attention and he straightened immediately, turning to see the familiar flame-shrouded general entering. Lips curving in a practiced smile, he moved to greet him, pacing within arms length.
Firelight flickered off the racks and the polished stone floor, catching on metal and warming wood, but Fafnir hadn't picked up any of the weapons, and didn't hold any of them. It was himself, standing with his weight on the balls of his feet, his joints and muscles pleasantly warm.
"I am looking for something challenging, but not something that is going to send me home with injuries, if that can be managed. I need more practice using my upgraded magic against a group, as thus far most of my opposition has been in singles. I trained with General Labyrinthite when I was a basic, but General Netherite's expertise lays in other areas than combat."
That was really the most political way he could put the man's lack-luster fighting skills. Of course, Labyrinthite had not cared how hard he pushed Fafnir, drilling as hard or harder than his other subordinates who had actual weapons to fight with. He was very much hoping they could find a middle ground here.
"I would prefer to exercise strategy over brute force." He said finally. "But I also need to keep my hand to hand in practice."
Strickenized
Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2022 11:53 pm
Faustite wasn't used to people smiling at him. He failed to determine what to do with it in a timely manner, so he looked ahead instead, feeling a little pink in the cheeks for it.
There lay enough distraction in Fafnir's words that he needn't dwell on it: the Super wanted a challenge without injuries, with a focus on strategy, but also maintain any martial arts in which he had trained. And he was asking a living campfire to make all of this possible. That was itself a challenge, Faustite had thought, but perhaps not as impossible as it seemed on first pass.
Humming thoughtfully, Faustite looked about the room. They had a number of training weapons, and while none were necessarily injury-free, there were some that better approximated a knight's weapon than others. He'd seen a number of them carry staves, though Faustite seldom used them himself. Shortly before they reached the open area, Faustite picked out a wooden bo staff.
"Can summon youma," he explained as he approached the opposing wall, "but most fail to heed instructions like 'attack without injuring'. Suggest using two sets of two; dust them as you need."
He set the staff against the wall as he pulled his cincher from nowhere, and the black leather was folded about his grate before snapped together in the center. Afterward, the air around him dropped by several degrees, and Faustite banked to a touchable level, if more on the feverish side of human body temperature. Then he reclaimed the bo staff and started to spin it, balance it, move it about his body to regain some general feel for the weapon.
There was very little preamble to this, and Fafnir had to move to catch up as Faustite took the lead, taking him deeper into the training room. Straight to business then, hmm? Not even a flirtatious comment...
"I'll just have to make sure the youma don't reach me then, I guess." He quipped with forced lightness. To his curiosity, Faustite pulled some wrap from somewhere and put it on, hiding the fire that burned in his middle. It left him looking surprisingly human... and no longer radiating quite the same amount of heat that he had been before. How strange...
Something, perhaps, to ask about later, because it seemed Faustite, at least, was ready to start. A staff? Curiouser and curiouser... It made made a bit of sense since it was closer to what a knight might wield, but he was also used to his general coming at him with a giant scythe. It was going to give him reach though... getting close to him was going to be hard. Stay ranged then, perhaps, and wait for an opening. Taking up his loose, easy stance, Fafnir paused, drawing a deep breath.
"Ready." He said, before he broke and darted to the side, skirting around the general at what he hoped as beyond the reach of that staff. Find his blind spot, strike from there.
Strickenized
Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2022 7:54 am
Fafnir slipped off, and Faustite reminded himself to stay focused. The boy wanted to train; they would have fun afterward. Watching Fafnir create a berth between them meant that any attacks would be easily telegraphed. He echoed Fafnir's slow encirclement with his own, with the quarterstaff caught up in his right hand, and his left held low.
Headache would be a perfect sparring partner for this. At his left hand's signal, a cloud of fireflies erupted from a portal's brief flash, and coalesced by Faustite's side.
"Cybele," he told it while his attention remained on Fafnir. "White Moon."
Then she was there, brought to life by the careful work of the youma, following in Faustite's step. He banked on that as a distraction; keeping the staff close to his body, he darted for the boy, and rolled the staff against his body for a strike to Fafnir's side, if he was lucky enough to catch the boy unawares.
He'd expected youma to factor in at some point, but that didn't mean he was ready for a bunch of glowing bits to suddenly burst into the room and solidify into... a White Moon Senshi. Definitely not what he had expected, or was prepared for.
It was very unlikely he would ever face a General and a Senshi at the same time, but... perhaps this made sense if he stopped thinking of Faustite as a General, and thought of him as a Knight instead. That made more sense and was far more likely, even if Fafnir himself would have worked to escape a situation like this rather than stay and engage in it. In this hypothetical situation, where he couldn't easily escape and must face two strong opponents, it was a good training exercise.
Of course, having all those quick thoughts and calculations run through his head was not good strategy for actually keeping his mind on what his opponents were doing. A wooden staff thumped into his ribs and he grunted as it struck, sending a low throb of pain down his side. That recalled him to what he was supposed to being doing, and the corrupt shut down the analytical side of his brain that wanted to spend far too much time analyzing what was happening.
He'd trained with a general before. He'd trained with multiple opponents before. He knew what to do, he just needed to stop thinking so hard and do it.
Fafnir let the moment of the staff sending him turning to the side and he danced out of reach again, putting space between them. He had to stay out of reach of the staff, which wasn't a bad thing. His magic had more reach than that staff did, and if he angled it right...
Darting to the side in a quick shuffle of steps, Fafnir drew a deep breath, swelling his chest will it till he strained... and then he released it, a dark, sickly cloud of vapor sliding between his parted lips. It streamed from him, then boiled and rolled, spreading out as it flowed hungrily towards his two opponents. It clung, greasy and sticky, to whatever it touched, the smell of it noxious and caustic. He had no idea what it would do to a senshi who was really a youma... but it would be good instruction to see how it fared.
Super Sailor Scout Attack: Fafnir's Blight Fafnir blows out a cloud of sickly purple gas that saps the energy and health of those who stumble into it. Those caught within the cone will see signs of disease on expose skin and eyes, and are significantly sickened by it as it saps their energy and health, affecting their performance. The gas can travel up to ten feet, but fades away after a few seconds. The effect can last up to 30 seconds. Breathing does not affect it, and he can use it twice per battle.
Strickenized
sorry this one took a while! getting back into things~
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2022 2:42 pm
Headache was quicker to retreat — Cybele dissolved into a cloud of fireflies that veered away from the quickly expanding cloud that left the senshi's mouth. It was ever its impulse to retreat when danger encroached, and the trailing conglomeration of youma gave the cloud a wide berth as it made its way back around to the senshi. Faustite knew that the collection of youma bugs could do nothing in a real scrap, but that didn't mean that Fafnir knew the same.
Faustite, however, chose to hold his breath and step into the cloud for another shot at the boy. To his dismay, simply touching the gas had withered his hands to a gnarled pale — nothing like the color they had once been when he was fully human. No, they looked sallow and gaunt, like his skin sagged off of wasted bone.
He felt a weariness overtake him in an instant, where swinging the staff demanded nearly all of his energy. Even standing required loathsome effort; had he not just encountered magic, he would have called the match to go fetch himself some energy. But these effects were deliberate, and Faustite told himself that they should fade away in a count of seconds; senshi magic hardly lasted more than a minute.
The fiery youth cursed inwardly as he reversed course on any attacks, instead using the staff to push himself away from Fafnir while he waited out the effects of his spell. He needed more than Headache's bait to buy time. Drawing up more of his stymied strength, Faustite waved up a pair of youma in the blink of a mottled violet portal. The pair were alike only in that they were youma — one akin to a lion left out in the sun to mummify, while the other looked like a chocolate chip cookie with bat wings.
"Vile," Faustite huffed out, which was a roundabout compliment; that they had this kind of debilitating magic on their side was highly auspicious. Surprising, too, that Fafnir hadn't more frontline duties.
Fafnir ran his tongue over his lips as though wiping away the residue of his magic. The cloud felt like nothing to him, he only knew its effects from the accounts of others. The way Faustite paled was a good indication that it worked equally well on half youma as it did on full humans, and it was gratifying to see the youma he had called burst into lights again and retreat.
"My sphere is Blight." He acknowledged, circling as Faustite backed out of range. Movement caught the edge of his visual range and he turned to get it into his view, turning the turn into a backing up as more youma burst through a portal. They likely needed a moment to orient himself, and he took advantage of that to side step away from them and lunge at the fireflies. He struck with a quick set of punches, half expecting the facsimile to explode again to avoid contact. He did not wait for it to retaliate and spun away again, avoiding the swing of his trailing hair from experience.
Labyrinthite had been less than happy, and far less than charitable, for the time he had spent learning not to trip over the mass. He'd learned how to move so that it stayed out of his way, for the most part.
The two new youma had his attention now as he sought them out, making sure they hadn't managed to circle around to flank him. Faustite was... there, recovering from the magic. Maybe he should be the new target... hit him while he was weak, rather than let him regain himself and turn it into a four-way front. He feinted to the side and then back around again, working his way closer.
Strickenized
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2022 3:22 pm
You kissed me with that mouth, he wanted to say, but couldn't muster the energy for it. Faustite leaned heavy on the staff, counting the seconds until he could feel like himself again.
All the while, the lion youma paced careful circles around Fafnir while the cookie-esque youma dove in for an assault. As it neared, its chocolate chips sharpened into keratinous spikes that it weaponized while trying to body slam the senshi. Unfortunately, its negligible body weight meant it only posed a threat to chibi senshi, or functioned as a useful little land mine for those that never watched where they stepped.
If Fafnir expected retaliation from Headache, he may have been disappointed by the myriad flashes emanating from the hundred individual bodies as they flickered away from the senshi's assault. A few of the bugs were crushed beneath the fists, their tiny bodies shot across the room, where they crumbled into dust.
Faustite hissed, gathered what he could of himself, and pursued the boy while the focus was on his youma. Sliding low, he swiped at the back of the boy's knees to send him tumbling to the floor.
It was, perhaps, ironic that his magic came as a caustic cloud from his lips. Faustite had only had cause to experience the sweet side of it before now.
Keeping track of all the creatures was a fairly effective distraction, and while his mind was on them, the assumed-incapacitated-general had the advantage. Before Fafnir would have judged him able, he was in close again, striking out from Fafnir's exposed blind spot. The staff slapped the back of his knees and took them out with ease, causing them to collapse under the unexpected strike. The corrupt only barely managed not to flail like an idiot and pulled his arms in, twisting like a cat so he came down on his hip rather than flat on his back. He turned that into a roll away from source of the strike. It put him into range of the lion youma and he threw a blow up at it with the heel of his hand, fingers curled protectively, to drive it back and give him space.
He was back up onto his feet in a sweep of his skirts, crouched and ready, but his knees ached a bit, smarting from the smack. He needed to get them more grouped up... this multi-sided attack was not doing him favors, and the strongest of his weapons, his magic, needed a tighter formation to truly be effective.
He needed space...
Strickenized
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2022 4:03 pm
Even doing that much had winded him, and Faustite stayed kneeling for a few breaths. Felt like his limbs ran dry of blood, or that they grew leaden with use. His hands remained pale; the General supposed that was his indication for how long the magic lasted.
Headache had circled back around to Faustite, settling over him like a pall. Then each of the bugs flared its light, and Faustite became a double of Fafnir, albeit without the signs of the blighted spell.
The cookie youma had missed its assault, but the lion was quick to retaliate — sharp claws came out as it batted at the corrupt's arm. It could be little more than a deterrent, as the creature stumbled backward with his blow. Snarling, it loosed a magic-laced roar that bolstered friendly youma.
Of them, there was only the flying youma that attempted another assault, this time aiming for the back of Fafnir's head. It dove again, spikes extended.
Staring at himself was... off-putting, to say the least. Like looking in a mirror, except it moved and breathed at odds with him, giving him a weird feeling of disconnect.
"That's an interesting party trick." He said dryly to cover it, jumping backwards when the lion struck out to rake its claws down his bare arm. Those stung, making him hiss, and it was enough to give the weird... cookie thing time to smack him in the back of the head, knocking his horns ascew and into his eyes. He tore them off with a quick pull and whipped them around, throwing the useless adornment into the copy of his own face.
A little further... there!
Fafnir snatched the opportunity and sucked in another deep breath, rushing through the gathering of magic before releasing another cone of diseased vampor, aiming to catch as many of them in it as possible, even if that aim was too quickly judged and not as careful as he could have wished. It was the last of his super magic... the strongest he had. Everything after this would be less and less effective... and if he didn't find a way to end it soon, they were going to overwhelm him.
