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 Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2023 7:29 am
What Niter needed was basically Negaverse business, so he made an appointment with Jet. He made sure to let his boss, who was like, way more boss than he was before, that it wasn't anything urgent. Niter didn't want to take precedent over more important things, like doing promotions or killing traitors or whatever other stuff Jet needed to do and not talk about to anyone else. It was rude, and Niter wasn't raised to be rude.
Even though what he was asking for was… Kind of rude, but Niter tried to put that out of his mind. He was always told to reach out if he needed help, and now? He really needed help.
The new job was helpful, but now there were other problems to solve. And it opened up questions about Niter's future that he didn't feel comfortable discussing with his parents or grandmother, or even his younger sister (who would probably, good-naturedly, tell his parents or grandmother). That wasn't to say that Jet was necessarily a father figure — Jet was pretty young, like him — but since he wasn't as involved in Niter's life as like, his parents, he could be a good outside opinion? Niter didn't know.
Niter must've practiced about fifty different ways to ask the question to Jet — everything from casual to serious to trying to be funny. Eventually, though, it was time to march to his office. And that was a slow trip, full of harried thoughts and accidental wrong turns, until he reached the door.
And even though he was at the door, Niter was hesitant to knock.
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Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2023 6:44 am
Jet was still getting used to having people make appointments with him, even after a year. It was strange and a little uncomfortable when he was used to people just coming to find him when they needed him. Although, he supposed he was grateful for some time to clean up before anyone decided to join him in his office. He could have snacks or whatever ready, and then wonder if he was picking up too much of what Axinite did, but figured there was no harm in it.
“You can come in,” he called to the door. He had a small station with a fancy coffee or tea maker where you put the packet into the machine and it made whatever a visitor wanted. It was Aquamarine’s find, of course. But now his office felt more like a corporate one instead of the Negaverse. As if the decorations on the walls didn’t make it look less spooky. Save for the eerie glowing light from the Negaspace’s questionable sky. If it was a sky.
He’d cleared everything he’d been working on into a cabinet he’d set up near his desk. It had open shelves for books, but drawers he could lock on the bottom. When Niter came in, he was standing by the coffee machine where the screen flashed insert packet to continue.
“I’ve never seen one of these before Aqua showed up with it. Look, there’s like… twenty different drinks. And if you like extra froth there’s that too,” he gestured and then shrugged kind of hopelessly. “Oh, and snacks.” Those were in a basket near the coffee and tea and cider and whatever else maker, along with a mini fridge with cold drinks and water.
“Does this remind you of a doctor’s waiting room?” he asked somewhat absently, and then sighed and took his cup of coffee that he’d set down. “Help yourself. What’s up?”
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Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2023 4:55 pm
Niter entered when he was bidden, though he didn't expect to walk into Jet's office and find Jet looking puzzled at something in his own office. Niter stared at him for a time, unsure what to think. Then he looked at the litter beverage machine to which he was referring, and said simply, "Oh. Yeah, my cousin had one of those. His was way cheaper, though, so he was always asking me to fix it." But his cousin paid him, and that was nice. At the time, it was just like, easy money for funding his energy drink habit.
Niter had never been a coffee fan, nor did he drink tea any more than was expected of him. He could've gone for an energy drink from the mini fridge, but the conversation that loomed ahead of him soured his stomach enough that he settled for a bag of white cheddar popcorn that he could mess with aimlessly.
After taking a seat, Niter took up the easy question instead of addressing his reason for being there. "Um? Maybe not so much a doctor's office, but a hospital? Like the ICU waiting room for like, a for-profit hospital, or one that got lots of donations from wealthy people who wanted oddly specific things."
As far as Niter was aware, though, people didn't go to Jet's office to die the way that people went to the ICU to die. And if they did, Jet's office had a much lower mortality rate than an ICU.
"Well. So I. Uh." Niter sighed, clamming up before he even asked a question. "I wanted to see if, um… The Negaverse had housing options? I'm asking for a friend."
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 8:39 am
Jet made a face when it was suggested it looked like an ICU waiting room, and then laughed, because of course it would be something ridiculous like that. He couldn’t say he’d been to an ICU waiting room for a for-profit hospital, but would take Niter’s word for it.
“You have a friend who needs housing?” Jet asked, a little surprised, since the Dark Kingdom wasn’t exactly a very welcoming place to anyone not in the Negaverse. But if that friend of Niter’s was already in the Negaverse or a potential recruit, well… that was less to worry about.
“We have the barracks where people have their own rooms. Kind of like a dormitory. I lived there for a little while before I got things sorted out back in the city for my old apartment. I’ve also talked to General King Axinite in the past about wanting to get some of those houses built up. No point in having a whole city that’s in ruins and not take advantage of it. General Faustite would be a good contact for trying to figure out where to start with getting a house put together. The other part youma agents we have also live full time in the Dark Kingdom, so they’d be good sources to talk to as well,” he hummed thoughtfully to himself.
He hadn’t exactly been invited to see what Faustite did with any housing, but he’d heard others talking about housing situations. And they had that little house set up for their Velencian friend.
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 3:50 am
Niter nodded to Jet's question. Yep, he definitely had a friend who needed housing. Yes, that friend was definitely part of the Negaverse. Yes, that friend was definitely a Lieutenant, so he couldn't teleport, but that friend could really use a place to stay.
No, he did not want to talk to the spicy General about the ruins outside the Citadel. He — his friend — definitely did not want to live anywhere near someone who was on fire and had a violent temper. Even if Jet thought he was okay to work with, Niter liked himself, and all of his things, not on fire.
Er, his friend would.
"Um," Niter started, looking down at the desk between them. He sat in one of the chairs slouched forward. "So, my friend is a Lieutenant? He can't teleport yet, so I think he was looking for a place in…" He pointed upward, as if anyone had any understanding of where dimensions existed in relation to each other, and if M theory was correct, Niter liked to assume that Destiny City was the Above dimension and Negaspace was the Below dimension, but they could well have intersected in the middle, which allowed all their officers to teleport into the Dark Kingdom, but that was all conjecture that Niter had come up with from way too much thought on the subject from an earlier time.
"Yeah, he would really like to live in Destiny City? If that's an option. I mean, I dunno if the Negaverse has any housing up there that they acquired."
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Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2023 2:09 pm
“He could always contact someone on his tablet when he’s ready to come back to Negaspace,” Jet suggested, his brows knitting momentarily in confusion, but stayed that way as he contemplated the problem.
“I know obtaining a kind of housing is a project Aquamarine is working on. We don’t have anything yet, just research for now. And it wouldn’t be housing housing. But… I can suggest some inexpensive options for housing around the city,” he hummed thoughtfully.
“I can talk to them, if you’d like. I know it’s kind of a pain to be in the middle trying to help someone. It’s really thoughtful of you to try and help them out. Who’s their commanding officer? I could talk to them instead, if you’d rather me not get involved directly.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2023 3:22 pm
"Oh," Niter almost wheezed. Aquamarine was working on it? Aquamarine always seemed like he was in a bad mood, so Niter did his best to avoid crossing paths with him. It worked pretty decently so far, but — "Does that mean I'd have to talk to him? I mean, I don't want to bother him? He seems… Busy…" Niter trailed off.
As if Jet wasn't busy. Niter mentally kicked himself.
Worse than that, though, was the fact that Jet was asking more questions. A lot more questions, and the kind that Niter couldn't just make something up and hope that Jet didn't look into it. These were the kinds of questions that said I'm going to look into this, probably right in front of you, and Niter knew from experience that being caught in a lie in real time was about a hundred times worse than being caught in a lie and not being around when it happened.
So he slowly inclined his head and stared at his hands, willing himself to collapse into a Niter singularity and vanish in a flourish of metaphysics. Too bad he couldn't just whistle a song and make himself disappear the way he disappeared Galvorn's weapons, or that one Squire's shield.
"Um. It's me. I'm the um. Friend."
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Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:33 am
Jet almost didn’t hear him at first. And when he did, he wasn’t sure what he was saying, but context quickly pieced everything together.
Niter wasn’t asking for someone else. He was asking for himself.
“You could always contact me -- or Lazurite or Cymophane -- when you’re ready to come back to Negaspace,” he suggested, not taking more than a moment to switch the conversation from a mysterious friend to Niter.
“Do you not have a place to stay at the moment?” he added with a frown, more concerned about it now that he knew it was Niter asking for himself. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you talk to Aquamarine. He uh… can be kind of a b***h if you’re not used to him.”
He said it in the most loving way possible, while also wearing a sympathetic grimace.
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Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:46 pm
The sigh that left Niter was akin to a corpse's death rattle as their soul — their starseed — left their body. It was the sound of the Spirit of Niter ascending to the starry skies to high-five Cosmos before returning to his loathsome body and circumstances. It was the sigh of someone who suffered the thousandth lash of disappointment as they finally fell to their knees, unable to resist any longer.
Or that's how it felt in his mind.
"Y-yeah," He nodded, painfully aware that he would Absolutely Never impose upon someone else unless he was actively dying and his family was at risk, whether his plant family or his people family. Especially now that he was a Super. The only reason he was able to get to Negaspace was simply by volunteering to help a General or an Eternal with some nonsense task they didn't want to do, and in return, they teleported him down to Negaspace. Most of it didn't warrant much thought on Niter's end, so he didn't feel like it took up too much time. And it kept up appearances.
But having to ask for a ride? Social nightmare. He felt like a failure enough already.
And his next question — Jet really knew how to get directly to the point, no holds barred for his embarrassment. Niter tried to become smaller where he sat, but his bones refused to telescope back into themselves.
"Um. I do, but. The rent's too much now. They, uh, they raised it recently. And I'm like, paying month to month now, so…" They could raise it again on him at any time.
"But, I'm sure Aqua's great? I just. Don't know him."
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2023 1:30 pm
Niter’s little, pained nod seemed to make something click in Jet’s mind. He was still focused on talking about a Lieutenant who needed help getting into Negaspace. Someone who couldn’t teleport yet. Not a Super Senshi.
He frowned at Niter with bemused concern.
“So you either need additional income or a new place to live. Or both,” Jet offered a summary of Niter’s concerns about his housing situation. He knew how difficult it was to live from month to month, eating the cheapest options for food. It was not an ideal situation, and he didn’t want anyone in the Negaverse having to live through that. He had been young and didn’t have anyone he thought he could ask for help when he was in that position. It was before Axinite was there, although Jet wasn’t sure if he’d have been able to offer any advice more than what he had for Niter.
“But…” he paused again, brows furrowed with concern. “You don’t know how to teleport?”
That was definitely dangerous. And inconvenient for Niter, who Jet knew didn’t like burdening others, otherwise he wouldn’t have been so shy about asking for help now.
“I’ll look into things to see how quickly we can get housing secured, if that’s even possible without putting anyone at risk. But if you’re uncomfortable with teleporting, Aqua is definitely a good person to talk to. He’s the best I know when it comes to teleporting. Spent a lot of time practicing.”
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Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2023 9:47 am
Niter turned a darker shade of red as he nodded once more. In fact, he may now have transitioned to purple.
But the shift in conversation was relieving enough that he let out a breath, even though Jet was tackling another area of Niter's ineptitude. "Um… No."
There was no step-by-step walkthrough about how to teleport in the Negaverse Handbook. Maybe there didn't need to be, since it was mainly for orienting new recruits to the organization on a whole and what to find in it. Maybe it was primarily geared toward Lieutenants and Basics, and Supers and Captains were intended to learn how to teleport from some other resource that he had yet to find, Niter didn't know. If it was the lattermost, then he felt embarrassed for failing to find it in the first place.
Even if he could self-teach teleportation, it seemed dangerous to try. What if he messed it up and phased himself out of existence? Or teleported himself into a concrete wall? Or ended up opening a wormhole and bending time and space in an incredibly inconvenient manner?
All of that was soon beside the point as Jet suggested going to Aqua. Aqua had never been mean to Niter, never really gave him much thought (which Niter preferred anyway), but Niter still found him scary.
(To be fair, Niter found everyone scary until they proved themselves not-scary.)
"Yes sir." Niter gave a tiny nod, too. He would probably take the next three days to slowly approach Aqua's office only to chicken out and retreat, until he finally built up enough nerve to knock, and then he'd probably try to retreat anyway, but Aqua could teleport so Niter doubted he would make it very far. He might make it into a very uncomfortable conversation, though.
But that was the cost of learning to teleport, as far as he could tell. And if the Negaverse came through for him on housing? Then he'd have to figure out even more ways to pay back that kindness.
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Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2023 1:23 pm
Jet let out a small sigh. Not in exasperation or anything negative, except for at himself. He didn’t want anyone to fall through the cracks, especially not anyone he’d recruited.
“We’ll get you up to speed, don’t worry,” he promised. Even if Niter didn’t want to talk to Aquamarine, there were other options. Like Cymophane, who was probably more friendly but could still be a bit much. But he’d befriended someone like Kamacite, so maybe Cymophane was a better option, socially. But since Niter needed quick training… it was probably best for Aquamarine to tackle that.
“You know. Once you know how to teleport, you can easily escape from conversations and situations you don’t want to be in,” Jet pointed out, although this time he was trying to hide the small twitch at the corner of his lip. He shouldn’t find it funny, but knowing that it was an option for anyone who didn’t want to be around someone, well… maybe Niter could use that as motivation.
“Let me know if you get anything worked out, or if you need anything else. I’ll figure out what I can and be in touch with you as soon as I can, okay? You’re welcome to go whenever you’d like,” he offered, not wanting him to think that he had to wait to be dismissed. Not that Jet wouldn’t mind conversation, but Niter seemed eager to run.
Hopefully, one day, he’ll feel more comfortable with himself and everyone else. Only time and patience and practice would tell.
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