Strays (1) : Destiny City News reports several sightings of ‘feral dogs' appearing throughout the city. Those interviewed claim that the dogs would surround them and chase them down the streets, seemingly popping in and out of sight until the person finally found themselves in a well lit area. You have the misfortune of running into these same dogs.
They cling to the shadows as you go about your way at night. Seemingly at the corner of your vision, one flickers by, and you turn and see nothing. Again and again it happens. They are trying to drive you into the darkest corners of the city, herding you away from the light. In the nearby distance are the lights of the city: streetlights, signs, traffic. You have to do something to get there, to escape these creatures. When you make it to any significant light source, you hear a low growl, a wailing hiss; the dogs have vanished.
For now.
It was, perhaps, cliche to call it a dark and stormy night, but that was what it was. The truth, however, was that Dagon liked storms; her homeworld had been free of them for centuries, and it was, in its way, a pleasure to simply sit in the rain and bask. Especially when it was just rain, but even on nights like tonight where there was the occasional rumble of thunder and crack of lightning.
However, tonight she had Viatrix with her, and she suspected her Mauvian companion would not enjoy the rain quite as much as she did. So, she had an umbrella over her shoulder and Viatrix against her chest, protecting them both from the storm.
"One more street and we'll turn back," Dagon promised, "but I want to see if I can find the source of those strange shadows."
The Senshi of Dread did not abide well by things trying to scare her.
xxSeiana_ZI
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2022 5:31 am
Viatrix, indeed, was not terribly fond of rain. At least, not as a cat. The totem form she spent most of her time on Earth stuck in was fluffy and medium-haired at best, and she didn't appreciate looking like and feeling like a wet cat that had chosen the exact wrong time to walk by on the sidewalk with a car flying toward the nearest puddle.
She could get used to being held close and shielded by an umbrella, though. Viatrix had been a rumbling pile of fluffy purrs at first, though now she had settled into looking around.
It was the shadows that had caught her attention.
Dagon didn't like them, and so she didn't either, but she was also wary of anything that thought it could taunt them. When Dagon promised, Viatrix nodded firmly and followed that with a giggle. "Look, keep me away from the wet and I'll stay out here as long as you need me to. Don't appreciate whatever's trying to mess with us."
Or ******** with them, as Anser might have opted for--
Her eyes tracked for more shadows as Dagon walked, but she tried to keep things light with a bit of conversation. "I'm glad you get to experience so much Earthan weather. There're some areas of this planet where it's just very dry all the time. Not the most fun." Not that her bonded's comet had the most weather variance, but at least it was not a desert--
Dagon nodded along with Viatrix's commentary, though she was still clearly quite distracted, eyes scanning for movement in the darkness.
"It is nice. I've missed weather. Dagon used to have the most spectacular sea storms, but....it's all been still for years." She exhaled. "You wouldn't think it, but Chaos even destroys a planet/s weather systems, when it gets in as deep as it has back home."
Because Dagon was still home. Earth was lovely, and she liked it, and liked the people she had found there, but Dagon was home.
Then, there it was. A growl, and Dagon swore she saw it--a s talking, feral creature.
"Aha," she said, and there was a grim satisfaction in her tone, the sound of a hunter who had locked onto her prey. "Let's see how well these beasts hide."
Hunting monsters was nothing strange to her. She took off towards where she'd seen it, an alley out of the way of the street, and only barely recognized that she was leaving streetlights for growing, clinging shadows.
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2023 5:23 am
Spectacular sea storms sounded like something she would primarily enjoy from a safe indoor view, but it was still something she wanted to see nevertheless. If Dagon saw it again, her world was coming back to life, and that was more important than Viatrix's discomfort with water-- "Chaos takes and takes so much, even the natural flow of planets."
She hated that.
"We'll get your magnificent storms back, I promise! You can take me to watch them from a safe little sealed place because I don't want to get wet really, but," she giggled, before trailing off as she realized Dagon felt something.
Viatrix's voice dropped so Dagon could hunt more efficiently without her disruption. "I believe in you!"
And she did.
That belief was strong and pressing in a way she hadn't quite pieced together yet. Of course she believed in Dagon. Dagon was someone she believed in so much that she had vouched for her herself to invite her to the Bell household (not that her bonded's in-laws would have ever rejected. not important). But she felt that she could handle perhaps more than her current outfit implied.
Dagon nodded. "It has been a long time since I believed my world might be restored, might be freed of the taint that poisons it, but...since coming to Earth, I do. Believe."
It was a strange thing, to have hope again, after so long with it being lost to her.
But hope was an overarching thing, a star to chase when she wasn't hunting prey. She prowled closer to the shadows, eyes cutting throguh the darkness, where there were--shapes.
Wolves, she was fairly certain. Or soemtihng like what she recognized as the Earth beasts known as wolves, anyway.
She pressed against a wall by the entrance to a shadowed alley, and folded down her umbrella, tucking ti into subspace.
"Sorry," she said, "we'll have to get a little wet."
She stepped into the alleyway, and was met with far more glowing, golden, beastly eyes than she had expected. She'd thought there were three or four of the beasts--nearly double that prowled in the darkness at the back of the alleyway.
"Ah. Well. That's not ideal."
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:32 pm
Viatrix couldn't help a small simper and the way her eyes sparkled when Dagon admitted she had hope. She liked to believe she did that, or at least had facilitated it happening by being one of the first people to find Dagon on Earth. She leaned her head in and gave her a gentle head bump with a murmur of, "Good. I've seen planets be saved. Know we can save yours too." Know, because there was no other option. Know, because she believed in Dagon and she believed in the whole network Dagon had formed--
She went quiet once more as Dagon listened and stalked through the environment to find what was stalking them, only interrupting that to let out a gentle mewl of disappointment at having to get wet before following up with a, "Fair enough..."
Dealing with whatever was out here was more important than her physical need to not be wet. She could always discard this cat form for a bit now anyway, finally having proper access to her humanoid form and also longer access to a civilian guise.
-- Wait, were those ... wolves?
"How many are those?" she asked, nervously. "... Eight?"
Could Dagon and she manage eight of these wolves by themselves? Her heart sunk at almost the same rate it had risen with nostalgic reminders--
Dagon's expression was grim, as she started backing out of the alleyway. But there was a growl from behind her, and she froze.
"At least eight," she said, and she exhaled. "I'll do my best to hold them off, while you run. See if you can get far enough away to call for backup."
They were probably youma, and youma...she could handle. Or distract. Or at least lead on a merry chase away from Viatrix, if she had to. Except they didn't feel like youma, and....there were so many of them.
Could she outrun them? Could she outfight them?
There wasn't another choice. She had to try. This was her hunt, and she had been wrong about her quarry, and she'd put Viatrix in danger with her. That meant that it was her responsibility to keep both of them safe.
It had been so long, only caring about herself, and if her life was the only one she had to worry about, this would just be a merry chase. But it wasn't. And she had to account for that now. Had to account for caring again.
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:19 pm
At least eight? How many were there? What had they found, and what had they gotten into? Dagon was right with that many they would absolutely need backup, but with that many Viatrix didn't want to leave Dagon alone either. That was dangerous for her, and while Dagon was long used to surviving on her own, Viatrix had no interest in adding to it.
She stumbled to get out her own Mauvian phone, debating just hitting the distress signal to bring in someone else, anyone else really, but the shift made something ache for her attention in her chest.
Viatrix was not afraid of dogs of all things. She supposed these weren't quite dogs, though. Those eyes staring at her were not nearly as cute--
Not at all.
Something struck her, though, as she moved to pull out a way to hit her distress signal, and it felt like it was pulling at her harder than the priority to get them some help was. A surge of confidence, a promise of more, and she realized she detected something similar to what she felt when she had talked to Athalia and when she had patrolled with Cybele and Anser.
"Maybe we don't need help," murmured Viatrix, which might've sounded outrageous, but the manx was quickly busy putting aside her phone and messing with other things.
Dagon's eyes flicked to Viatrix, and she frowned, briefly, but ti was an automatic reflex to respond to a Mauvian's request for her henshin pen by summoning it and offering it over.
And then, it clicked into place.
"....Oh," she said, softly. "You think--"
Was she ready to reclaim some of her lost power? Because if that was the case, if Viatrix could make her more than what she was,t hen she suspected that these prowling beasts would be no trouble at all.
The thought made her smile, rather viciously.
"We may not need help, indeed."
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 10:33 pm
"I think so," affirmed Viatrix, quietly, as she looked over Dagon and the henshin pen she held in her paws.
Almost assuredly, actually.
Dagon had come a long way since she had arrived on Earth shortly after the Negaverse mass corruption on the hill. She had adjusted to living on Earth, found a family of people to stay with, and held her own against the enemies of Earth -- the youma, the Negaverse. Viatrix felt it; her starseed was ready for it.
And the pen responded to it.
Viatrix grinned in her delight as she unlocked the power within, happily holding it out to Dagon.
"You've got this, Super Dagon. I assume you know what to do?"
Dagon let Viatrix fiddle with her pen,a dn wen the cat was done, she gave a sharp nod. Yes, she knew ecactly what to do.
"Dagon Planet Power, Make Up!"
The return of her power felt like a chorus. Like a singing in her very soul, and one that made Dagon's entire being feel alight with power and magic.
It felt good.
Without missing a beat, she called upon her stronge rmagic, and this time, like a hunting dog responding tot he huntsman, it came.
"Aura of Dread!"
There were whimpers of fear. The monsters, nitimidated by asomething far more monstrous before them, slunk back into the shadows, and Dagon turned, and ran for the light.
"Come on, let's get out of here. I think we've seen enough, no?"
Seiana_ZI
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 11:14 pm
She always felt a swell of pride when one of her charges got to unlock their power, and in some ways, this felt even more special than that. Super Sailor Dagon, like Eternal Sailor Cybele, was reclaiming power that once belonged to her. She was in her power again. She was thriving again.
And as a bonus? Well.
Viatrix had helped her from the start. It felt good to see her blossom into a super senshi. It felt good to see the effects her magic was having on the assorted wolves, discouraging them from coming much closer. And Dagon was using that opportunity to carry the both of them to an escape, letting the wolves dread and take their own retreats.
It felt good.
"We've definitely seen enough."
Viatrix eagerly followed.
"I'm gonna get you something nice to celebrate! Are you hungry?"
