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 Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2023 7:37 am
He'd spent hours combing the city, looking for nothing in particular. Draining energy when the draining was convenient, snatching a starseed or two when he thought he could take the temptation of them twinkling in his sootblack hand. Faustite wandered because he needed space and air to think, for his next task was a complicated one in a very different angle than that of the Rift missions, or even the Farnsworth.
This was a fight against one unknown. One of ten people who were present for one event that he hadn't mentioned to anyone else in the Negaverse. One person that he thought he knew, who saw an opportunity to undermine him and took it. Because it was so shockingly unforeseen, Faustite could not rule out any of those ten, which left him at a complete loss for the moment. He had thought that, if he escaped to the stupidly chaotic world of Destiny City for a few hours, the solution would come to him in short order and he could execute it, then possibly execute the mole in their midst. As he wandered, however, it was clear that this demanded a different line of thought than what he was comfortable with.
So he shifted directions. Stalked a White Moon aura out of bored, half-aware stimulation.
He needed to think like Schörl again. Let the means be validated through the results that came with them. Trust in a system that was built on the weaknesses inherent in the human mind. Exploit comfort while lacing it with subterfuge.
He needed a mole for the mole, he realized.
As he crested the top of a bank, Faustite sped up his gait. He didn't know anything about the Basic he tailed, but he might not need to — a few of their ilk were disaffected, unenthralled by the White Moon's pompous display of overblown morals. Some of them wanted more power than the White Moon could offer them. Some were just looking for someone to impress. By and large, the ones he encountered were looking to prove themselves, searching for fights they thought they could win, and there was a chance that this aura was more of the same, but Faustite pursued for the chance that it wasn't.
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Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:02 pm
There was someone following them with intent.
It might've been intent. It might've been any number of things. The nature and fact of the matter was that Roka had noticed someone far more powerful than they were -- and they had been that strong, once, but if they spent time contemplating that they would fall prey to a rush of some not-emotion they could not name, none of it good -- and for the last few minutes, that aura had been on their heels, even after they changed trajectories.
If Roka had still had the capacity to feel that way, their heart might have raced. Their magic was unreliable, now, and if it had carried any further complexity might've ceased to work entirely; at best it came out with too much power, but at worst it was weak as a Chibi Senshi's magic. If they'd relied on it as much as most Senshi did, they would've fallen at a dreadful disadvantage against most anyone.
They were not most Senshi, as it went, and only the knowledge it would break any unspoken covenant of loyalty kept them from taking knives along on their costumed strolls. Earth -- Destiny City -- had plenty of the things, razor-edged, elegantly made. Ah, well; some years they'd done all their best lethal work with no world-given strength boosting their limbs. As always, they would manage. They were terribly good at managing.
If this interloper -- this General? was that what the rank was called, for those Chaos-bedecked Officers -- wanted Roka's head, though, soon this not-a-chase would become something more deadly. And that was no good at all. They made their way to one of those flatter, wider rooftops, something with enough length the two of them wouldn't be in arm's-reach of each other; the fire escape was on the side Roka positioned themself at, something they could drop to if they needed; that was a simple preparation.
Now they just had to wait to see what this General might want, and hope it was at least entertaining. Sometimes these nights became so intolerably boring.
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Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2023 5:06 am
This one didn't keep running. Maybe they understood that they would never outrun a General, or they wanted to pick a fight. Maybe they were just looking for a chance to join up with the Negaverse, and saw this impending meeting as an opportunity. Or they just want to try punching his face.
Faustite didn't know, but he had his suppositions. As he crested one rooftop and dropped to the next, he caught sight of the White Moon individual waiting on the roof ahead, and stared, galled.
That was a ******** fish person. They had fins on the side of their head. Were they a half-youma like himself, it'd be one thing, but the White Moon didn't have half-youma — they were always against that amount of inhumanity. But that — that was a fish person!! That didn't happen among their ranks.
What the ********>, Faustite mouthed to himself as he started for the building between them. What the ********>, he mouthed again as he trod across its graveled roof. He huffed before he came into view of that fish person again, feeling just as galled as before.
What ******** hypocrites, looking at him like a pity case when they harbored a fish person among their number. How completely, infuriatingly unreal.
Faustite leapt down to the parapet that shared a building with the fish person, but he didn't want to get any closer. "What are you?" He asked as a way to hail the creature across from him. Suddenly he felt antsy — what if the wind shifted direction? He didn't want to smell fish. What if they smelled like old fish? Or rotting fish? Or like fish and person?
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Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 2:28 pm
Whatever Roka might have been planning or scheming to say when the General came into view was temporarily swept away by the fact thatAh. This stranger was on fire. Something that might have been nausea forced its way into their chest, weighty as ash in their lungs; they did not choke on it, but only barely; the space they'd gouged out by their fingertips for candleflames and cooking-fires was all that kept them from turning and bolting like any prey creature. This was not the time for - this could not be the time for -
not again not again no no no not again this isn't it isn't it isn't it isn't -
Their voice came out more even than they were expecting, in truth; it emerged from their mouth sounding perhaps a bit dead, a bit flat, but nothing that gave away the stranglehold that his flames had on their pulse. "What? No offering to take me out for dinner, first?" It sounded half-hearted, perchance, but it sounded half-hearted in a way that could be (ideally, would be, should be) assumed to be distraction or preoccupation. (One fin flicked, absentmindedly, not unlike how a cat's ears might; they'd been compared to cats in the past, and they hadn't minded then, either.)
It would have been amusing, how much disbelief and whatever-it-was that he scanned their form with. Growing incredulity, mayhaps? It would have been, except Roka had to divide their focus between keeping their traitorous body under control and behaving some semblance of normal, so that they might betray no weakness; they had nothing to spare for analysis the way they might normally have done. Pity. Pity. Always such a pity.
"You're welcome to speculate. Or I could simply tell you, if we're not in the mood for games."Strickenized tragedy of the day: not only is there a weird fish in front of him, the fish is... british?? just faustite's luck.
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Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2023 1:07 pm
What the ********. What the <********>. Faustite's expression was the concentrated, distilled, purified essence of unmitigated incredulity as he stared at the spawn of Innsmouth across the way. "Thought you were part of the White Moon." He broke into a pace — side to side, smoke lazily wending off of him as he went. Metal heels scraped and clacked against the concrete roof while he waited for an explanation that would somehow make it easier to digest a literal ******** fish person standing before him, because at the moment, it didn't make any damn sense. He'd seen the periwinkle space elves that looked like something straight out of a kids' show. They ran around with their blasters and their laser tag props and ******** around with technology the way the Mauvians did, but with less duplicitousness and more results. He hadn't seen any of them since around when they first arrived, and he was perfectly content never seeing another one of those rejects from the North Pole again. But their appearance hadn't explained the fish person in front of him, unless they came to Earth under similar circumstances? Though, Faustite didn't know how the space elves got here in the first place, so he could only guess why Mx. Fish was occupying space in front of him. daekie ugh, the worst. who asked for a posh fish person???
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2023 8:32 am
He really was, very much, on fire. It might've been fascinating if it didn't --
If it⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀didn't --
Irrelevant. Pointless. Useless. It didn't matter how little air it felt like they kept in their lungs at the moment, to display that sort of weakness to anyone -- especially someone who might well have reasons to want to kill or capture Roka, both unideal -- was not a course of action they would undertake. They had to --
Shallow breath. It might have been deep, if they'd been capable, but not at the moment. Roka folded their arms lazily over their chest, to prevent themself from doing anything unwise with them, and didn't quite look him in the eyes. Close enough. It only needed to be close enough to pass inspection. Was he looking too hard? He oughtn't be.
"Is that what they happen to be calling us nowadays," Roka said, with just the slightest tinge of disappointment; "never much cared for the Moon Queen, but I suppose it'll have to do." A pause. "Sailor Roka, one of the Rokae people. It's a pleasure." It sounded perfunctory, and if they'd been fully centered in their body and their mind, it would have passed for real -- but like everything else, it would simply have to do.
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2023 4:36 am
He'd heard stories of Ganymede calling herself the Moon Queen, and that was the only instance of Moon Queen to ever come into his life. "******** coincidence. Neither did I."
Rokae people. Suddenly Faustite was struck with an absurd thought of his childhood, of watching Scooby Doo reruns with the dog's ridiculous manner of speaking. He could hear it now —
Rokae, Raggy. Ruh roh.
It was so ridiculous that Faustite didn't even think to laugh about it. To ask the fish person if they made it up. It didn't matter, he supposed. This was deeply out of his element. This wasn't even his job anymore, and he'd been so far removed from human interaction for a count of years that his conversation skills had become an abysmal wreck in their deferred maintenance.
Faustite's mouth drew into a line.
"You don't care much for the Moon Queen," he echoed. "What of the other White Moon Senshi?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2023 3:35 pm
That only pulled a noise that might have been a huff out of Roka, and a look of muted frustration. "What of them? Hardly a unified group; no more a whole than swarming minnows. I wouldn't ask you your opinion on anyone who's ever displayed fire magic, now, would I." It was still an uncanny thing to know that lines were drawn that way, rather than along anything that might make sense, such as politics or power struggles; as much as there might have been some assumed kinship even so, Sailor Roka had rarely built connections on senshidom alone.
Then again, they'd rarely built friendly connections as Roka, not that sort; Roka was a face for politics and for brokering deals and for utilizing the power it gave. And a face for everything now, as it was, which they were still becoming accustomed to. There was still that burgeoning temptation and reflex to give their name as Alexis, because what did it matter -- but, alas, it did.
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 6:31 pm
Faustite failed to understand how the analogy that fish person posed made any sense. The fish person gave off a White Moon signature; Faustite had met no one else who had any sort of fire about themselves at all times. And if it was just about fire magic, he actually had quite a favorable opinion on Taenite that he could share.
But that, too, was beside the point. The fish implied that they had nothing to do with the White Moon, and Faustite wanted to believe that meant they had no love for idiots like Encke or Ganymede or Cybele. That could be helpful, especially for his ongoing problem.
Faustite curled a hand against his hip as he watched the fish person's ears. Were they ears? Fins? Something else? ******** if he knew. They were waiting to be cooked, as far as he was concerned.
"Sounds like you don't have any allies, Fish." Roka, he remembered afterward.
Roka the Fish Person.
Faustite looked pensive, then spoke again after a beat. "Imagine you're interested in getting some."
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:26 pm
Why did he have to be still on fire. Exactly as aflame as he had been when their conversation began, even. Roka swallowed and took a moment to recollect themself -- yes, that loss of control was coming, would come, was unavoidable, but their white-knuckled grip on their own nature could at least postpone it long enough them to have one damned conversation, couldn't it, now.
Could they lie? Very easily; it came like breathing, sometimes. Would they lie about some nature of Rokae, some quirk of their kind's physiology, that made them as a species and a people phobically averse to flame? No. No. Even if there were no Rokae remaining in the universe who could disprove anything they said, it was still -- it was still weakness. They could never admit to that in a hundred worlds, a thousand scenarios, as many years as they could count. No.
No.
"True," Roka said, wrangling their voice into a performance that mapped somewhat to disinterested, "the idea does interest me. And what might you have to offer on that front?"
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 3:57 am
Faustite observed the senshi before him, eyed how his metacarpals stood out and the creature remained terribly still. Then he began to pace, more out of habit than his usual need to burn away some of his energy.
The ask was one he anticipated. "Noninterference from the Negaverse. They will not attack you, drain your energy, or take your starseed. That offer extends to certain youma." Their inhuman companions didn't read the Database, nor did they commonly have access to it, so word would need to spread from him to the ones he knew, and from there, through the rest of the Rift. Even at that, he was only a General; there were a number of youma that he'd already met who would refuse to take orders from him.
"If you agree to help me, then I'll ask some of them to help you."
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Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2023 7:10 pm
"Then I trust you won't find much issue with me eliminating the youma that do come my way despite that." It took longer than it should have to control their facial expression into a sly little smile; it was the most they could manage at the moment, and it was likely to suffice.
"And what might you want from me?" They did try to layer that one; basic-Senshi Roka, fresh-to-Earth Roka, half-capable but still feeling out the strangeries of these streets. Interesting enough to be a curiosity; not so interesting he'd take them hostage and make their recruitment a mandatory experience. All the right people were more predisposed towards trusting them, so long as they wore white.
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Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:15 am
"Expect you to leave them be, unless you're forced to do otherwise. Don't waste our energy," Faustite replied glibly. He leveled a stare at the fish person, displeased that they would try to push their luck so. Perhaps they weren't yet wise to what was foolish and what was fruitful in conversation with the earthbound ones.
"Want to know what you hear. Expect you'll leave any news at a dead drop — somewhere of my choosing." He waited, then, either expecting a scoff or some bigheaded nonsense taught to the fish person by the White Moon. If that was so, he would have to hope that fish people barbecued as well as regular people.
Truly, however, it would be best that this fish person take the deal without putting either of them into an unnecessary situation.
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Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 8:22 pm
It was, really, Roka's personal problem if they had any personal desires to slaughter their way through Destiny City; this was true. (Which -- they weren't saying they lacked those. Inasmuch as they had desires at all. Sometimes what soothed the mind and body best was hunting small prey, sometimes it was hunting beasts of more monstrous inclinations, and sometimes it was an inarticulate orgy of violence. It was what it was. They were a simple creature, really.)
"I've no complaints. Anyplace you've in mind, at least for the time being?"
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Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 2:23 pm
"Here." Faustite pointed to a defunct HVAC unit whose fan was stolen long before either of them crossed paths here. Its innards were bare, crusted over with rains and stuffed with refuse that had floated along on whimsical days or delivered in birds' beaks as if it were an eligible next. That, he supposed, would do for a place to store whatever this fish person learned.
"Expect you'll have a lot to say." Flame eyes lingered on the creature before him for a moment longer. Then he turned, perpendicular to Roka, and vanished with a bare few wisps of smoke in his passing.
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