For the first time in memory, Faustite needed energy. For himself. As in, somehow, his body wasn't producing enough energy to keep him going when he was normally brimming with it. Not only was that embarrassing, but it was also concerning — and some of his boys were beginning to notice.
He wasn't pacing anymore. He sat down more often than not. He spent fewer hours on the job and more hours on sleep, to the point that he was even feeling sluggish on eight hours a day.
Faustite wanted his normal back, and he wasn't getting it. So he departed the office in the early night, vanished his way into the pub crawl areas of Destiny City where people would be getting hammered out of their own loneliness or out of a complete lack of limits around their loved ones. When he appeared, a wave of dizziness racked him, and the burning General had to steady himself against the brick wall of the roof access point. As he waited for it to pass, the cacophonous melting pot of songs from each of the booming bars filtered up to him. It was irritating. Maddening.
Once he knew he could move again, Faustite started for the edges of the flat rooftop. Peering over each side, he looked for stragglers in the alleys below. They were the easiest — the irresponsible ones who wanted private time with a new friend, or a smoke break, or a few minutes to cry about their job stress without someone walking in on them.
Barring that, he could summon a youma to act as a lure. Headache had seen enough people, now, that it could emulate one and beckon someone over. Someone good-looking like Waru or Emmy would fetch a fair number of onlookers, then he'd have enough energy to possibly be functional again. It wasn't a great idea, but it should work.
Assuming the smattering of White Moon auras in the area minded their ******** business.
tatterpixie
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 10:45 am
There was a time, Puck thought as he made his way over the rooftops toward his old stomping ground filled with pubs and bars, not too long ago really, when he would have frequented these places on a night like this for the ambience (and the booze, especially the booze). It occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, he was an alcoholic – high-functioning, clearly, but an alcoholic nonetheless. Cutting back out of necessity was probably the best thing that could have happened to him, for the sake of his band and his music. Music had basically saved his life, he considered with a smile. His life and his poor liver. He wasn't completely clean, but he was down to a bottle of whiskey a day, and that was something to be proud of.
The familiar sound of people getting plastered and enjoying it drifted up on the light breeze, along with the din of music blasting. There was something else tickling at the periphery of his mind too, something familiar… He knew it was a Chaos aura, but it was something he hadn't felt in quite some time. Someone…
Faustite. His old nemesis.
Puck's smile turned wicked and toothy. He hadn't encountered the Negaverse General since he himself had become an Eternal Senshi. Fluffing his butt-wings, he triangulated Faustite's location and approached in a leisurely manner, stopping on an adjacent rooftop and placing his hands on his hips.
"'Ello 'ello 'ello, what's all this then?" he grinned, his crappy imitation of a comic London cop echoing above the racket from the pubs. "It's been a minute since we seen each other, wot?"
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 10:59 am
All the better that he hadn't summoned a youma, for an Eternal approached. Could be one of the handful that are so violence-averse that they'd let him drain their energy. This one was a senshi, so he was guaranteed he wouldn't be meeting Energy Cow, but if this one was one of her contacts? Maybe someone who ascribes to a similar line of thought? Then Faustite could at least leave with the energy he needed.
But he heard the voice before he turned and witnessed from whom it came. His mouth peeled back into an open sneer of disgust. He opened his mouth, expecting to say something witty like can it, you s**t-swilling ********>, but all that came forth was a coughing fit.
The General hacked and wheezed, thick billows of smoke coming out of him between every breath. He coughed up a spatter of black onto his palm, which he then wiped across the back of his pants when the fit waned. It wasn't long, but it was enough to tip off Puck that something was amiss, he was sure. This one was a pain in the a**, but he was smart enough to survive — even without useful magic. Even without backup.
His witty phrase long gone from his mind, Faustite approached the now-winged Puck with a mix of exasperation and exhaustion. "Unless you're donating energy, piss off," he instructed, words griddle-hot on his tongue. Faustite made a perfunctory shooing motion at the blonde twit.
tatterpixie
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 11:44 am
Puck's eyebrows went up at the General's sudden – and unexpected – coughing fit. "Cor, you don't sound at all well, mate," he remarked, ignoring the shooing motion. He approached cautiously, in case this was a trick to lure him in to drain him, and took a good look at him. "You don't look so good either. You look a bloody wreck, in fact."
Hopping over the low brick wall to the other roof, Puck circled Faustite slowly, at a safe distance. The other man looked tired, and not like his exhaustion was from a battle. "What, your lackeys not bringing you enough energy? No starseeds to nibble on? Out doing your own dirty work for once?" He smirked; in this state, he could easily mop the roof with Faustite.
But he wasn't quite ready to just yet.
"No witty retorts, General? No punches to the face? You gotta admit, I'm very punchable."
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 11:59 am
Faustite rolled his eyes, nursing his disbelief for getting dressed down by this ******** bonehead. "Your opinion doesn't matter," he croaked at the bothersome ingrate who kept accosting him.
As Puck circled, he turned, ever watchful of the one that now held even footing with him. Puck would be more dangerous now, if not by magic, then by heightened strength and speed. When he was already laid low by this illness — whatever it was — he expected an uphill fight if it came to blows.
When Puck surveyed him, he was liable to spot more strange happenings with the General beyond his sallow skin, sunken eyes, or coughing fits. The heat that rolled off of him was stronger than it was before, baking the air around him and chasing away winter's bite unchallenged. One of his hands was bandaged and a pair of thin black lines stained them. Near Faustite's neckline, and especially around the peeks of skin that framed his grate, numerous heat blisters had formed. A couple had popped, and the black pus that drained out of them had baked to the grate some time ago.
"I pull my weight," he seethed back at the boy, words boiling. Faustite was convinced that if Puck spent less time running his mouth, he might actually notice something about the people around him and the frequency in which they appeared.
It had been some time since he'd seen Puck, however. The comment implied that Puck had been active after the op at the Farnsworth; the city must have been large enough that they hadn't crossed paths.
Faustite acknowledged Puck's last statement with a weary nod. "You're very punchable. And in the way. If you're done, move."
tatterpixie
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 12:33 pm
"Why should I move? So you can bag some hapless drunk takin' a piss in the alley?" How often had Puck been that hapless drunk? Too often, he thought, far too often. It occurred to him that he'd put himself in so much danger as a civilian in the past for getting drained – or worse. No more. He felt his liver thanking him.
As he circled, he gave Faustite a good, assessing once-over. The youth really was a wreck: face drawn and haggard, intermittent coughing fits, horrible oozing blisters at his neck and grate, a bandaged hand with curious black marks on it… He radiated much more heat than usual, too. Was this his version of a fever? Puck found he almost wanted to tell him to go back home and rest and allow himself to recover. He also found himself longing for some marshmallows to roast.
Stopping his movement around Faustite, he gave the General an earnest look. "You're in no condition to fight, mate. I'm not going to do you dirty by beating you into a pulp, even though I could very easily do so. Why aren't you letting one of your flunkies do your job for you?" He straightened and sneered. "Not like I really care or nothin'. I'd just as soon pound you into a grease-stain as look at you."
The sneer turned into a smirk. "An' I ain't going nowhere, not til you leave."
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 12:45 pm
Faustite let out a smoky, resigned sigh. "Whatever."
He turned, however slowly, and started for the edge of the flat roof. He knew Puck would be following him; it was ever a White Moon MO to follow their opponents and nag them until they couldn't stand it anymore and left the premises. While Faustite had little intention of abandoning what he sorely needed out of the area, he was under no illusions that he could finish his tasks alone.
"If you don't care, don't ******** ask," he tossed over his shoulder.
He supposed that there was nothing to lose by indulging the little ******** curiosity. Puck was nothing, and Faustite doubted there was anything he could do to stop what was burning through him. If he struck some kind of chord in the pint-sized pissant, then maybe he'd skim off enough energy to get through the next few days. As he considered it, he dragged himself on, ever closer to the parapet where he could scan for more of those oblivious drunks that Puck so wanted to protect.
And if Puck was still resistant to the idea of him getting some energy tonight, then maybe he'd soak one of those drunks in boiling black piss. Not like it mattered to him if they got drained into a nap or scalded.
"Don't like making my 'flunkies' do my work. Rather do it myself." He spoke aloud, but not directed at Puck in particular; he spoke to the empty rooftop, to the ambivalent stars. "They don't need to know how bad it's gotten."
tatterpixie
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 2:42 pm
True to White Moon form, Puck followed Faustite to the edge of the roof, still keeping his distance. "I don't ******** care," he snarled at the General. "For all I care, you've got some ********' bizarre death plague that'll kill off all the Negaverse, and wouldn't that be a treat! We could all go back to our normal ******** lives an' not have to worry about protectin' this city from some arsehole organization trying to take over the world! That would be just ******** lovely if you ask me!"
He drew about as close as he dared – he wasn't afraid of Faustite attacking, the man seemed to be in no state to even swing a punch. No, he was respectful of the General's magic; he'd been on the receiving end of that before and had a healthy regard for what the other could do, possibly even in his currently weakened state.
"Oh, so you're hidin' how sick you are, are ya? Don't want nobody tryin' to push you to the side and take over your position, do ya? I know a bit about how you people play at politics – cutthroat as all ********. What if I was to blab it all over town for ya, huh? 'Oooh, General Faustite's got this mysterious illness'," he mocked in a high-pitched voice. "'Wouldn't it be a shame if something happened to him?' You know as well as I do word would get back to the Negaverse faster than you could stop it."
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Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 3:05 pm
Faustite could ignore the comments about the Negaverse. The senshi wasn't wrong about the organization for which he worked. Nor did Puck need to know that whatever was wrong with him wasn't contagious.
He told himself to brush the rest off. That Puck would go away eventually, would get bored of ******** around, would assume Faustite wasn't a threat and ******** off to do whatever he'd been doing in the years that they hadn't had the misfortune of running across each other. Told himself that once Puck was gone, he could scrape together enough energy to be functional for a few days. Might even score a starseed or two, (or just one, just enough to feel alive again).
But the boy wouldn't leave it be. He couldn't let it go. Kept dogging him and flapping his chops, dicking around at a distance. And Faustite's patience was regrettably, irredeemably short.
"You ******** —" Faustite whipped around, reached a hand out toward where Puck was loitering like a fly on s**t. "If you've got so much ******** energy to waste, Puck, then share it." He tried to focus on spinning out threads of energy from the Eternal, as much as he could feasibly spool into an orb in his free hand. "Shut your worthless ******** —" And he choked on the last word, sent into a coughing fit again.
tatterpixie
Posted: Tue Feb 14, 2023 6:22 pm
Ah. He'd struck a nerve.
Puck realized that he was standing too close to Faustite when he felt the tug of the energy draining from both his body and his soul. He watched in horrified fascination as the tendrils of energy spun slowly off of him into Faustite's hand and the beginnings of an orb began to coalesce in the General's other hand. Try as he might, Puck couldn't pull completely away; he managed a step backward that felt as though he was walking through treacle.
"You ******** leech," he managed to grit out through clenched teeth.
And then Faustite started coughing again, right in the middle of a really scathing insult, great wracking coughs that shook his entire body. Puck saw this as his chance and tried to break free of the pull Faustite had on him while he was coughing and distracted. Before the Senshi got too weak. He knew full well that the General wouldn't stop at draining just enough energy to get by. His life was at stake.
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Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2023 11:45 am
He'd managed a small orb out of it. Not much, but he didn't have high hopes for the resistance and speed that senshi posed. Clenching his hand about the orb, he drew it into himself for some tepid relief from his pervasive exhaustion. Faustite breathed a sigh of mind relief.
"c**t," he finished. Puck deserved to know what he was.
If Puck was going to hang about and be lousy at him, then let him. Faustite could consider it training to stay his rage at witty inanities and potshots against an organization that most of the White Moon didn't — couldn't — understand. He turned back to the gap between buildings and leapt over it in a corkscrew that kept his smoke out of his own face.
He landed with his back to Puck. Pausing, He gestured back at the youth with a one-finger salute. He was feeling a margin better, but he would need more than that if he wanted to feel decent enough to get more work done. So off he went, jogging along the parapets for the chance of spotting a loner or two in the alleys below.
tatterpixie
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2023 4:02 pm
Puck felt the tendrils of energy snap back into his body when Faustite started coughing, and he staggered back, his hand over the location of his starseed. "Blimey, don't wanna go through that again…" he muttered, shaking his head to try and clear his mind. He felt a bit tired now, a little weak, but he was still conscious, and that said something about Faustite's current state if the General didn't just drain him completely.
"Did you know," Puck shouted after Faustite, "that 'c**t' is a term of endearment to us Brits? 'Oi ya c**t, how are ya?' 'What are ya cunts up to?' You usin' that word just tells me you like me!" He shot back the time-honored English two-finger salute with a grin as his nemesis trotted away along the walls bordering the adjacent roof. Did he feel up to leaping across the gap to the next building to pursue him?
Not really, but he was going to try it anyway.
Rearing back, Puck charged forward and leapt across to the building Faustite was on as if he was a wildebeest leaping across a river to avoid the crocodiles: not very graceful, certainly nothing as fancy as mid-air corkscrews, but effective. He pinwheeled to a halt to collect himself, then set off at a trot after Faustite. "Hey, can you drain someone's energy from the top of a building? Nosy buggers wanna know!" he yelled. He genuinely was curious.
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Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2023 3:35 am
Faustite's exasperated sigh was audible, complete with a cloud of smoke that ascended into the air. "Like you better as ******** molten slag," he muttered to himself. Puck really was dead-set on annoying him to death, and Faustite wondered if this ******** boy was going to stick around until the point that Faustite became a youma. Maybe he'd stand there, watching, yelling whatever nonsense popped into his mind while Faustite ate enough starseeds to keep himself going. Then when the inevitable happened, he'd cheer and try to dust him. Who the ******** knew.
And now the boy was asking questions? ******** —
"You going to stop me if I do?" He asked, fully expecting some permutation of yes, absolutely. Whatever those Brits have as an equivalent. Since, evidently, calling him a c**t made them friends now.
Given the opportunity, Faustite had a number of things he'd love to do to Puck, none of them being particularly friendly. But if c**t was a term of endearment? Then maybe he'd take them that way. And that was a thought that sucked the life out of all the violence he'd considered inflicting on the boy. That just left him feeling more grumpy and resigned than before. Faustite huffed.
"If you stay, you're not a chaperone. You're complicit." Faustite coughed wanly, but that hadn't seemed to bother the individual pissing on the wall below. They were on a single-story; Faustite could reach if he was careful. So he stopped, and dimmed flame eyes regarded the ******** scab stuck to him. "Last chance, since you ******** lunatics only care about virtues and morals."
tatterpixie
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2023 10:38 am
"If I leave, I'm complicit," Puck retorted, catching up with the Negaverse General but still keeping his distance. Faustite had a point, though – if Puck stayed and didn't attempt to stop him from draining anyone, he was complicit; but if he left Faustite to do as he wanted, he was still complicit. There was no way to win.
Except to stop the General.
He didn't really have a choice, under these circumstances. Faustite was still in a weakened state, but so was Puck after being siphoned of some of his energy. Thus he didn't want to engage him in a full-blown battle, despite being on equal footing power-wise now that the Senshi was an Eternal. It was a question of who was currently in a more weakened state? Puck was betting on it being Faustite.
Without a word of warning, the Senshi charged, slamming his body into Faustite's with the intent of knocking them both off the roof and to the alley below. If Puck could save one hapless drunk tonight, it was worth taking a tumble. With luck, he'd land on top of the General, knocking what was left of the boy's wind out of him, and that would slow him down, maybe even make him retreat to lick his wounds and cough up a lung as well.
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Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2023 6:51 pm
"Might as well join the ******** Negaverse," Faustite jabbed back. Puck was an absolute pain in his a**. The boy didn't really pose a threat the same way that some of the others had, but he was so damned annoying that he proved a bigger distraction than any of the others. Sure, he wanted to murder Cybele at the first chance he got, but the person who he would rather beat within an inch of their life just for the slow satisfaction of having done so was Puck.
Faustite stewed on that low grade rage as Puck had whatever half-assed moral crisis he wanted to have about being complicit in draining energy. Better that he ******** off into the night so he could debate that s**t with his friends.
Faustite heard gaining footfalls, and as he turned, Puck slammed into him hard enough that Faustite was pitched off his feet. The strike rang through his body, spreading a deep-dull pain through him. Then Faustite dissolved into fire before Puck could have pitched him over the side of the building and passed around the boy as gouts of flame.
Faustite hoped to watch Puck fly off the building, owing to his own inertia, and land in the alley below. Shame that it wasn't more than a single-story drop; Faustite would've enjoyed watching the boy break his own back because he didn't think that the part-fire-youma could turn into fire and forego a solid physical form. When the three motes of flame spun together, they formed a floating boy made of fire at the edge of the building.
But he was exhausted, too. Faustite summoned his tablet to hand only to hear it clatter on the roof. When he stooped to pick it up, he found that it wouldn't collect into his hand, and Faustite sighed at himself before reverting to his normal form. Once he reclaimed his tablet, he made a quick call to Jet.
"Jet," he murmured into the tip as he watched the drunk in the alleyway grow shocked at the commotion and scurry away. Faustite snorted. "Need you to summon me. Too exhausted." Then, in the seconds that followed, there was only Puck.
tatterpixie
Just used this to melt his way out of Puck's grip! Fin if you're cool with it~
Hellborn ;; (Enhancement) Range: Self Duration: Up to 1 minute Use Count: Up to 3x Miss Chance: Escaping his reach Effect: Faustite's fire expands and engulfs him, transforming him into a living embodiment of flame. For the duration of this magical ability, he appears fully youmafied. When he moves, he moves amorphously as a gout of fire. Faustite can pass through or over nonsolid surfaces, and cannot be hit by physical attacks. He becomes highly susceptible to magical attacks and enchantments, however. Any attacks he makes toward others will be fire property, and will provide the illusion of being burned.
