Heatwaves (11) : An unfortunate dry spell has come over Destiny City, and a heat wave has made it all but unbearable. The heatwave is only projected to last for a week but it’s been rough. Plants are wilting, people are wilting. The city is experiencing blackouts, which isn’t helping. Thankfully, the reservoir is always open. Just, crowded. It might just be the worst part of the summer. People are passing out regularly, and the hospitals are getting too many admissions to keep up with. It’s probably just the heat and not anyone up to anything nefarious, right? Better stay hydrated and try to keep cool, and maybe avoid everyone in weird costumes, just in case.
In the district of Destiny City that housed a number of queer bars, queer-owned establishments, and general gayborhood staples, no one questioned a tall, elegant woman wearing strange paint and with unmanageably long hair. Besides that, in the incredible heat that had been going around, her Senshi uniform was the most comfortable clothing she had--not least because of the magical temperature resistance.
Mostly, Mirzam felt eyes on her--attention she was rather fond of. She wasn't interested in properly picking anyone up tonight--or ever again, she suspected--but the attention she got was plenty for her.
Especially because it let her lure a pretty girl into an alley behind a bar, and gently draw the energy out of her, the same way she'd drained someone else the night she met Helena.
The girl slumped over in her arms, and Mirzam sighed. Poor thing. She'd have to find somewhere comfortable to leave her, to make sure nothing happened to her just for getting drained. Normally, she wasn't an overly compassionate person to her victims, but every once in a while, she felt a surge of benevolence, and this was one of those times.
Thus, she was paying attention to where she could deposit her unconscious burden, and not to whether or not there were other auras nearby, as she hopped onto the roof of the bar. This would do--and someone would be able to get her down. Probably.
xxxamorremanet
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2022 8:58 pm
In what was becoming an important post-performance ritual for him, Reiki left Scandals after his last number (rather than hang around all night when he wasn't hosting) and powered up in the alley. He'd get in a patrol on the way home and take off his makeup in a more environmentally friendly fashion, which sounded, to him, like a win for everybody. Once he deposited his drag bag and wig-case in his subspace, he was ready to clamber up onto the roof of the flower-shop next-door and make his merry way home—until he felt it.
A Negaverse aura, that same, familiar feel like someone dumped oil and broken glass all over the coral reef. And it was nearby, possibly on the roof? There wasn't anybody on the roof of Scandals tonight. Wasn't supposed to be, anyway. With how bad the heat had been lately, Hector and Verna had decided not to risk exposing any of the bar's patrons to a lack of air-conditioning like that (and not to waste the money on operating a section of the bar that no one was going to use in this kind of weather). Frowning, Reiki hopped up onto the fire-escape, since even with his senshi powers, he couldn't jump high enough to get there on his own.
The aura felt more powerful up here. Partly like it was closer, and definitely because it was more powerful than Reiki. But ******** it, if some Nega-b***h was hunting around Scandals, then he wouldn't stand for that.
At least she had the decency to be easily found, amidst the roof's currently unlit tiki torches—and she was carrying something.
No, Reiki noticed as he got closer: someone.
Someone with cat-eye glasses and her long, wavy lavender hair tied back in a ponytail—Mercedes! One of the bartenders from downstairs, and this hot mess with the nasty aura had her, Mercedes, unconscious, which likely only meant one thing.
“Hey!” he called to her, pulling his posture up straight and holding out a hand like he was ready to call up an attack. (He……was going back and forth on that. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary? Arsenolite, he could begrudgingly admit, seemed capable of behaving himself to some extent, at least.) “What do you think you're doing, hunting around here? Do you know what neighborhood this is? Or, what, is that the point for you?”
Strictly speaking, he could not imagine Haruhi approving of him shooting off at the mouth with someone who had an aura like this woman had………but, well, ne would just have to accept that, because preying on people in the queer district was a special kind of evil.
Ah. Good. There was someone who wanted to start trouble.
Mirzam sighed, turning slowly, and she gently patted the unconscious girl on the cheek, and put her hands on her hips. The Senshi in question was Dark Mirror, taller than her, and, she had to admit, looked fantastic in his--their? fuku. She tilted her head to the side, tried to guess, and decided not to.
She recognized the accusation that was wrapped into his words, and she rolled her eyes, waving a hand casually.
"Of course I know what neighborhood this is. I'm neither blind nor stupid. But I'm here often enough, anyway, and I figured it would be a pain in my a** to go home." She shrugged. "Easier to drain, here, and no one looks twice at how I'm dressed." She smiled, wryly. "They're usually staring at something else."
Her uniform did wonders for her figure, after all. And plenty of people were willing to stare.
"But that's not the point, as you're so happy to accuse me." She smiled, in a predatory sort of way. "And anyway, doesn't your Court need energy? Are you implying that your energy draining is somehow morally acceptable and mine isn't? Because that would be very hypocritical of you."
amorremanet
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2022 5:56 pm
Watching Sailor Whatsit of Whocares wave her hand like none of this even mattered made Reiki huff in Offended Gay and adjust his posture. None of his usual slight slouch at the hips so people didn’t get all bothered about how tall he was and start acting like yappy purse dogs in a room full of Saint Bernards. Not if she was going to act so cavalier about what she was doing and where, exactly she was doing it.
“Yeah, well, it’d be a pain in my a** to let you get away with that,” he told her, “especially when you ought to know better. If you know what neighborhood this is—if you’re one of us us, like queer us, not all of……” With a heated, increasingly frustrated huffy sound, he waved his free hand around the space between himself and her. “All this West Side Story bullshit about who’s on what magical girl team, and what it means according to whose rules, and which senshi did what stupid thing to whomst and pissed off whoever for the ******** whatever backstory reasons, and whose home-world has bioluminescent bunnies, and all of that?”
He paused just to shake his head and rattle himself back on track—but he mostly came out of it pursing his lips. The accusation she’d thrown back at him……he couldn’t entirely argue with it. Frankly, considering the first person he drained had been poor, stupid Michel, and not very far from this exact rooftop, he didn’t have a moral high-ground at all—but, for one thing, he’d stopped draining around here since Daphne had interrupted him with Michel. For another thing, he hadn’t…actually…drained from anybody recently, and if Remarque kept track of who brought how much energy to the mirror, or if the Court had some hidden quotas he wasn’t aware of, Reiki was definitely going to be in trouble, come the end of the month.
For the final and most important thing: hunting for victims in the queer district was a special kind of evil—especially if Sailor Kale Salad With Arsenic Sauce over here was, herself, queer—and what she didn’t know about Reiki’s draining habits wouldn’t hurt him. Same as with Arsenolite, Reiki didn’t owe her s**t.
Fixing her with a glare (which wanted very badly to be serious, despite Reiki himself feeling more like an aggravated Jigglypuff throwing a tantrum), he went on, “The Dark Mirror Court might need energy, but how are you gonna justify hunting here? Of all places? Among our. own. people? You’re a senshi; it wouldn’t kill you to put your fierce little pumps to work, literally run over to the Financial District, and gank some ******** hedge-fund manager. Don’t us queers get it bad enough already? Without one of our. own. people. turning us into cute little energy juice boxes for Metallia?”
Mirzam rolled her eyes, desperately unimpressed. It wasn't that she didn't care, per se--just that the arbitrary lines this particular Senshi was drawing didn't exactly resonate with her, to say the least.
One hand stayed on her hip, and she made a dismissive gesture with the other.
"Why does it matter where I'm getting my energy from? Maybe that hedge fund manager has a husband, hmm? Or does he not count, in your books, because he's rich?" She shook her head. "Energy draining doesn't do long-term harm. Now, if I was out here taking starseeds, I would understand your ire, and I would never. There's no purpose in executing ordinary people on the street. But a little drained energy and a nice nap is nothing, and this sweet lady will wake up tomorrow no worse for the wear except, perhaps, for a crick in her back."
Well, probably. But Mirzam also did not, for the record, care.
"Honestly, moralizing who you drain from is such a pointless exercise. It's all the same, in the end, so why don't you just get out of my way?"
She brought her hand to her chest, like she was mock-offended.
But under her breath, she whispered "Bedlam Dance," and she let her magic fly.
Quote:
Mirzam speaks the name of her attack, touches her chest, and then gestures outward at a target within six feet of her. Green smoke swirls from her hand to the target, and they are filled with a desire to cause chaos and bedlam--which can include attacking nearby civilians, breaking objects within reach, or any number of other things, including attacking Mirzam!--and if they resist the urge, they feel as if they are burning up from inside, like the rage is causing actual physical pain. This attack lasts for 25 seconds, and Mirzam can use it three times per battle.
amorremanet
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2022 5:13 pm
Even though Reiki didn’t have arguments for, mmm, pretty much anything that Mirzam had said? That wasn’t going to stop him from doing his best to keep poking holes in her arguments. She was here! At his home bar! Preying on his. people—who were also, apparently, her own people, and frankly should’ve been closer to that than Reiki was, considering Mercedes was also a lady—and acting like it didn’t matter if she left them for dead.
She was acting the same way Reiki himself had done, when he’d drained Michel, that first night. Treating all of this like a game, a joke, some big lark where nothing mattered, save her getting hers—which, as the green smoke from her attack swirled around him, Reiki resolved that she absolutely would.
Just maybe not in the way she’d planned on.
“None of your justifications excuse exploiting the safe space of a queer bar to hunt people! Our own people!” Extending his arm toward her, he snapped, “Well, if you won’t stand with us, then why don’t you starve instead. Gnawing Hunger!”
The weight of what he was doing right now wouldn’t hit Reiki until several hours and a long nap later. For the moment, with some fire burning inside him, green like the Incredible Hulk and at least three times as destructive, the only thing on his mind was lowercase-c chaos. Madness. Bedlam and mayhem and destruction. Hurting Sailor Hugetits of Whocares, the same way he guessed she felt was acceptable to do to other queers for no reason beyond happening to cross her path.
Noir Songbird
Extending an arm, Murikabushi bends his wrist back; as he calls the name of his attack, he curls his fingers into a fist, then jerks his hand down as if tugging a cord. Enemies within 10 feet of him begin to feel a powerful hunger or sense of craving, one they feel cannot be sated, and yet, they are compelled to try. This craving can be for anything—food, drink, affection/intimacy, alcohol or narcotics, the answers to the math homework, etc.—but it is quite distracting. This spell lasts for 25 seconds, and Murikabushi can use it three times per battle.
Ugh, god. This one was just as tacky as so many of the people on the other side, moralizing on and on about who she drained her energy from. Worse, even, in Mirzam's estimation, since he, too, was Chaos; apparently, some exploitation of normal people to battery-power an ancient entity was acceptable, but not all, and really, Mirzam could not figure out why he was getting so very in a twist about the whole thing.
"If you're so opposed to hunting," Mirzam said, rolling her eyes, "crawl off to to the White Moon, you self-righteous, arrogant--"
His magic hit her.
Mirzam staggered. Her eyes went wide. The hunger that washed over her wasn't for food, or drink, or anything else--no.
She thought of Helena. Thought of kisses, and hands trailing, and--
She focused on her bracelet, and let it pull her to wherever her Sweet Girl was, fight totally forgotten. There were much more important things for her to worry about.
amorremanet
fin for me~
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:43 pm
Her exhortation slapped Reiki across the face as hard as a backhand from Godzilla’s tail. “Uh huh! Sure,” he snarked back, barking with all the bite he kept forgetting to put into actual magical girl fights. “Because anybody gave a b***h the ******** choice!”
Where else was a b***h with powers like his supposed to end up, anyway? Sticking out like black tights at a white party? The Senshi of Hunger, whose only apparent uses were traumatizing people and being tall, amidst other magical weirdos who made flowers bloom, shouted things like “Kinship!” while trying to attack you, and summoned geese to harass random strangers? Yeah, right. Like anyone would ever let that travesty ******** stand.
As Reiki’s brain caught up to his mouth, what he’d said slapped him harder than what she had……but it also didn’t matter. Not really. She’d ******** off faster than Kerberos had (and for all Reiki was now resolved to Fervently Dislike Her, whoever she actually was, he couldn’t bring himself to just……not. care. about the possibility that he’d triggered her in the same way that he’d done to Kerberos. God, the most selfish part of him hoped he’d never see her again, so he wouldn’t have to deal with any consequences if he had triggered her like that). Either way, Reiki was but a dust speck, screaming his own significance into an uncaring void.
Besides that……she was right, wasn’t she? Well. Maybe not her, exactly, or at least she hadn’t been right about the part now sticking in Reiki’s craw the most. It wasn’t moralizing to go “Don’t hunt other queer people, especially not in what is supposed to be a safe space; don’t we get enough s**t from the rest of the world already?” It was just……caring. About the community that had been part of Reiki’s life since long before any of this high-concept magical Montagues and Capulets bullshit in which everyone else BUT HIM apparently had access to some kind of mystical instruction manual that explained everything.
Trying to live by queer solidarity had nothing to do with morals…………right?
It was just, like………a thing that shouldn’t have needed ******** explaining. One of the self-evident truths of the universe: the sky is blue (except right before a tornado), outer space is awesome (except for when it kills you), and <******** leave the queers alone.
As the rush from her attack died off—and took with it the fire threatening to consume him because <******** her magic, right, he was not gonna ******** up the Scandals rooftop just because some smug b***h with her impressive tits had used her own senshi magic on him—Reiki sighed. His internal logics probably weren’t right. More so than usual, he was probably making an argument no better than I’m a mouse, DUH!
And regardless, he had been given a choice. Despite the heat and humidity threatening to choke him out, Reiki shivered. Hugging himself, he peered down into the alley.… There was a little golden star charm sitting on the edge of the wall (Reiki’s now, thanks much), but that wasn’t the important thing.
The important thing was: not too far down from here was where Levi had saved him. No milk crate boxes sat there tonight, but Reiki didn’t need to see them to remember how it had gone: strong, brave, beautiful Levi smiled at him, and his hair was perfect, and he’d asked if Reiki wanted to become a magical boy.
Then, he’d held out his hand and asked if Reiki trusted him.
Reiki had nodded. Because he had trusted Levi, and still did. And Levi had given Reiki a choice.… Multiple chances to rescind consent, at that.… There’d just…been significantly more fine print than Two-Drink Reiki had been made aware of—not that being made aware of it would’ve actually led to him reading it any, but it still merited consideration that neither Levi nor Soya had explained very much at all about what, exactly, Reiki was getting into……or about how being a magical boy apparently balanced out all the fun you ever thought you were having and the delusions of actually being somebody by making you feel small, and lost, and broken, with ******** interest.
But at the sound of a soft groan, Reiki perked back up.
Not that he actually felt any better, but it wasn’t like Mercedes could get herself to the ER under her own power right now. Heaving a Dramatic Sigh, Reiki hoisted her up and took off for Destiny City Memorial. Only a heartless a*****e would stand around, emoting into nothingness about his own bullshit problems, while a friend (a work-friend, but still) needed help he could provide.
If not for Mercedes’s own sake, then definitely for Soya’s. Regardless of who’d shot first, one of Her Senshi had just attacked a Negaverse senshi, when Soya was technically also with the Negaverse. Not just any of Her Senshi, either, but the nightmare in heels who was, as far as the magical girl business went, fumbling around in the dark and hoping for the best. Getting pep talks from people Soya didn’t think deserved apologies, even when Reiki had hurt them in genuinely Not Okay fashions.
For all he knew, he’d get poor Soya in trouble by simply sucking so much, never mind having actually attacked a Negaverse Senshi, now. Maybe there were rules or something about not allocating valuable Negaverse resources to help Awaken Dark Mirror Senshi if they weren’t going to be good at anything. At least helping someone would make him feel a little better—like less of a complete waste of time—even if it probably wouldn’t make him worth any of the trouble (even if said trouble, as yet, existed in his own mind and nowhere else).
