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 Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 3:01 am
Today was the day. Niter had been dreading it — not only because he had to learn a new thing, but also because he had to talk to someone in order to do it. It was different from Souls games, where he could just murder the NPC if they said anything untoward to him. Aqua wasn't an NPC — and even if he was, he was Jet's … something first, and also a whole lot stronger than Niter. And he had a pointy weapon. Niter knew he wouldn't last long.
It meant that, if Aqua told him he sucked at this, Niter had to keep his head down and accept it. Which he could! He'd been doing it all his life! But the possibility of being told off occupied a fat lot of space in his mind, rent free.
The day that he was to show up at Aqua's office, Niter hadn't slept. It wasn't unusual for him to stream all night into the early morning, then sleep all day, but the dark circles were present and accounted for. He promised himself 24 hours' worth of nap if he could just get through this, learn to teleport, and then have some peace of mind for being able to vanish whenever someone approached him. Okay, bribe set, and it was time to visit Aqua.
He'd hitched a ride with a Captain that wanted him to help find a lost bone in his office (what? okay???), then made for Aqua's place. He didn't really know the way; he hadn't spent much time in the wing of the Citadel where the Generals were set up. He didn't much care for it — sometimes there was yelling, sometimes there was fire, sometimes weapons were flying or weird noises that weren't really screams came from behind a closed door, and just. It was less quiet than where the General Sovereigns were set up. That day, there wasn't any yelling or fighting or weird sounds, and all he encountered was a sudden increase in temperature in the hall when he passed one of the doors. Once he got to Aqua's, he forced himself to knock.
He stared at his feet. Forced himself to say words. "Um, it's Niter. Can I come in?"
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Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2023 10:42 am
“No,” Aquamarine said — not quite hostile, but flat, uninspired, bordering on annoyed without quite reaching the correct tone. “We can do this with you standing out in the hall.”
They couldn’t. Well, maybe they could. Some people took to it fast, required hardly any assistance beyond a brief explanation and accompanying demonstration, but Niter’s demeanor didn’t exactly inspire confidence that this would be one of those times.
Aquamarine often struggled to understand why Jet bothered to recruit so many Senshi. Niter was no exception.
“Get in here. I assume you at least know how to open a door.”
Aquamarine sat at his desk. His office did not inspire the same sort of welcome that Jet’s did. He has his desk, his chair, two much less comfortable chairs facing his desk, a few filing cabinets and shelving units, and a decorative room divider behind which a large bed was only partially hidden. All well made, all clearly not original to the castle, but there was something severe about it all. The dark, often grotesque paintings that adorned the walls certainly didn’t help the atmosphere.
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Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2023 4:45 am
"Oh," Niter responded almost immediately when he heard the negative in Aquamarine's voice. He had already turned around to leave when he heard Aqua's amendment.
Somehow, that amendment was worse than simply being sent away like an annoying servant. Niter felt his shoulder's slump under the weight of his dread.
But the instructions changed again??? Or, what was more likely to Niter, he missed the sarcasm in Aqua's initial order. He permitted himself a small, dejected huff as he turned back around to face the door, put his hand on the knob, counted to three, and opened it.
And, well, he wasn't sure what he expected out of Aqua's office? But it made sense, right down to the picture of Saturn eating his son and looking absolutely mortified in the process. He forgot who painted that one, but he remembered it well — it made quite the impression on him when he was younger. Given the paintings, if Aqua was anything closer to friendly than he currently was, Niter would have asked him if he played Dark Souls. And if he didn't, Niter would have offered to stream it for him so he, too, could immerse himself in the series' macabre tragedy.
But this was Aqua, so Niter politely kept his mouth shut.
Niter did not sit, because sitting made little sense to him if he was learning to teleport. He'd mostly be upright when he was teleporting, he thought, so he made it about two feet beyond the threshold of Aqua's door and managed an impotent salute after.
"Um, Niter, reporting for, um, teleportation duty."
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Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2023 11:23 am
Aquamarine appeared unimpressed. This was common; he was always either unimpressed, annoyed, or angry, or some combination of the three. He made no effort to be friendly because friendship didn’t seem necessary.
He sat in silence for a moment, eyes fastened on Niter in something of a careful study, perhaps trying to determine for himself what Jet saw in him. All Aquamarine saw was a timid Senshi. He was almost surprised Niter had lived long enough to even make it to Super. Then again, the White Moon hadn’t exactly been a fierce foe as of late. No doubt the most danger Niter had seen in the last few months had come to him by way of the Rift.
Eventually, Aquamarine straightened a pile of papers, then left them on his desk in a neat stack as he rose.
“Teleportation is one of our most useful abilities,” he said. “So long as the White Moon has little to no reliable means to combat it, it will continue to be our greatest advantage.”
Instead of walking around his desk, Aquamarine simply teleported to the other side of it. He leaned back against the edge, arms loosely folded over his chest.
“Stay there by the door,” he continued. “Unless you’d rather go to one of the training rooms, we can practice here just as well as anywhere else. I want you to choose a spot in the room to stare at. Familiarize yourself with it.”
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Posted: Tue May 16, 2023 5:34 am
Niter stared at him. By him, it meant Aquamarine's shiny boots, because to stare any higher than that was to welcome some uncomfortable interpersonal dynamic in which Niter would never be caught dead. It wasn't that Aquamarine said anything groundbreaking — it was all sensible stuff, and probably needed to be said to certain recruits — but it was the fact that Aqua said it without cursing or insulting him.
It was mystifying. Niter didn't think it was possible.
And he even demonstrated. Without a single glowering or rage-stricken glance. Niter was beginning to feel cautiously optimistic.
A change of scenery might mean other people, and other people might mean that Aqua goes back to being a cat whose fur was pet the wrong way, so Niter didn't bother considering changing rooms. This was fine. This was good. Besides, changing rooms meant this whole thing would take longer by virtue of travel time (unless Aqua teleported them, but Niter didn't know why someone would expend that much energy when they could just walk without any real consequence).
The instruction was an easy one, so Niter nodded. Niter was good at looking anywhere else but at a person, so if teleportation worked off of that? He should have it down with no trouble. There was a nice spot in the corner that was still on the acceptable side of the privacy screen. It seemed the most acceptable spot in the room for the moment.
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2023 5:28 pm
Aquamarine seemed to relax. He wasn’t much for conversation, but often found himself pulled into them against his will. He’d grown used to Albite’s way of doing things, barging in with all his boisterous chatter without any concern for what Aquamarine might already be doing. He’d almost come to expect that sort of invasion from others, no matter how unapproachable he let himself be perceived.
Niter’s silence was unnerving, in a way, but not unwelcome. His obedience was certainly preferable to all the irreverent fools who grated on Aquamarine’s nerves.
“Once you’ve familiarized yourself with it, I want you to close your eyes,” Aquamarine said. “Picture it exactly as you just saw it.”
He shifted into a more comfortable position against the edge of the desk. This sort of training didn’t require much effort on his part, unless someone needed several demonstrations. Aquamarine didn’t think himself much of a teacher; to him, teleportation had never been a complicated skill. It was exhausting when first practiced, but it came naturally to him. That it might not come naturally to others wasn’t something he considered all that often.
“Feel the power in you. It’s what lets you transform. It’s what allows you to use your magic. It’s what gives an agent access to their weapon. And it’s what you’ll need to teleport. Feel it, focus on it, let it spread through you, then think of the spot you’ve chosen and will yourself there.”
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Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2023 6:44 pm
Boiled down to just a few simple steps, teleportation sounded straightforward enough for anyone to do. And, he supposed it would have to be easy for everyone in the Negaverse to do it. Like how mandatory quests had to be tuned lower than optional ones, they would have to set the bar pretty low so everyone could get over the hurdle of teleportation. It only made sense.
What didn't make any sense was the physics behind it. Niter was aware that, according to quantum mechanics, it was technically possible for a human to teleport to the other side of a wall. The problem was, it would take at least a million years to do it. The Negaverse found a way to do that instantaneously, and Niter could accept that much. However, problems arose when he started to think about what that would look like on a molecular level — all his atoms going from here to over there, somehow remaining in the same order, and somehow not becoming irrevocably mixed with other atoms.
Niter could remember the corner of Aqua's office well enough; he didn't think that was a challenge. But he didn't think he could memorize the office on the level of a quark; he couldn't tell the atoms of his body to stay out of the floor, or don't fuse with the picture frame, or end up stuck inside the privacy screen. Niter hadn't heard of that happening to any agent? And he figured the White Moon would say the Negaverse probably wrote those agents off as MIA, but Niter didn't think that was the case, even though physics dictated that it was probably happening to people.
Aqua mentioned the power they all had — the power to transform, to take up a weapon, to wield magic, to teleport. If the same power was behind it all, then he had to trust that Metallia's power would not let him mess it up like that and lose his legs in the desk. They had power. He had power. And that power wasn't going to let him down, so long as he didn't let it down.
Once he was done staring down the minutiae of Aqua's office. Niter shut his eyes. He waited until the sensory memory of the room faded from behind his eyelids, then tried recreating it in his head. He remembered the angles of objects first, how they fit together given his viewing angle, then the details that brought them to life. It took several seconds, but once he recalled the last edges of the corner that Niter struggled to remember, he opened his eyes again to find himself facing outward from that very corner.
And he suddenly felt enormously tired. "Oh," he muttered resolutely. "I'm going to need a nap."
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Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2023 1:47 pm
“I don’t run a ******** bed and breakfast.”
If Aquamarine was pleased or impressed that Niter managed it on his first try, he didn’t show it. He behaved as if he expected it, as if he would accept nothing less. Given his proficiency with teleportation, Aquamarine didn’t understand how anyone might have difficulties with it. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be a new Captain, with much stricter limitations than he had now.
In contrast to the acerbic tone of his voice, Aquamarine leaned over his desk to riffle through the top drawer. From the depths, he pulled out a protein bar and tossed it at Niter.
“Jet likes to give out chocolate,” he explained. “Maybe he picked it up from Axinite? With the sweets? ******** if I know. That’s all I’ve got right now. Use some energy or pop a starseed before you collapse on my floor. You’ll have to push past your limits every once in a while to start with, to know what they are, and to move past them.
“The more you practice, the easier it’ll become,” Aquamarine continued. “You’ll need to focus at first, carefully visualize where you want to appear, but if you put the time and effort in, it can become second nature. By the time you’re promoted again, you should be comfortable doing it. Perfect it. Everyone should. Unfortunately, half the dumb ******** who get recruited never ******** listen to me, or to anything other than their own dumb ******** thoughts.”
Maybe Niter was one such Senshi. Aquamarine wouldn’t know. Niter never seemed to express himself. He was quiet, unobtrusive, unlikely to take initiative the way the more ambitious agents and senshi often did.
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Posted: Thu Jun 15, 2023 5:37 am
Niter's attention darted to the floor as soon as Aquamarine snapped at him. "S-sorry, I didn't mean to, um, imply…" He didn't think that's what the bed was for? He didn't have a sign on or around it or anything proclaiming that it was free use. Clearly Niter should have thought better of it and kept his comments and his tiredness to himself. That was unprofessional, after all, wasn't it? His grandmother would have chided him too.
But because he was string at the floor so intently, Niter didn't realize there was a protein bar coming at him until it pegged him in the hip. He startled perceptibly, then bent down to pick it up off the ground. "Thank you," he managed.
It was probably more polite to eat it now and show gratefulness for it, so he started unwrapping the bar while Aqua elaborated. He could eat and listen at the same time (usually). Niter didn't have a lot of energy left in subspace, having recently turned in his quota, but it might be enough that he could try getting home and then promptly pass out face-down in bed. Plus, like Aqua said, it would be practice. And he knew his own room really well! Surely if he could do a corner of Aqua's office, then he could do his own room without needing to stare at it.
"I'm sorry that, um, the dumb… People don't listen to you," Niter tried. "I'll do my best to make up for them." It was, after all, better than listening to his own thoughts most times.
"And, um, thank you for the lesson."
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Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2023 11:53 am
Apparently Niter didn’t understand sarcastic humor. Or maybe Aquamarine was bad at it. His sense of humor was pretty s**t, if not nonexistent. He frowned but waved off the apology without bothering to explain himself.
“You’re welcome,” he said, voice low, like gratitude made him uncertain.
He didn’t really get Niter. Then again, Aquamarine didn’t really get a lot of people. He either thought them dumb, or annoying, or a waste of space. Sometimes all three. Niter wasn’t so bad. The obedience helped. Looking at him, Aquamarine couldn’t imagine he’d survive very long on the battlefield, but he’d been there at the generators, hadn’t he? He’d survived the Rift, too. And here he was, alive. Maybe he deserved more credit.
It would take a lot more for Aquamarine to decide to give it to him. For now, he would be satisfied with Niter’s deference and not give him too much s**t for being so timid as a reward for his successful teleportation. That was about as kind as Aquamarine could be about anything for anyone other than Jet.
“Come back if you have trouble,” he added before Niter could decide to bolt, “but if you can do it with me looming here I can’t imagine you’ll have any issues doing it on your own.”Strickenized Sorry for the wait, life is life! emo
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2023 1:02 pm
While Niter understood sarcastic humor, his grasp of it was limited to people he knew well. Aqua wasn't someone he often spent time around, and even if Jet was to make a joke like that around him, he was as likely to get it as he was likely to miss it. It seemed safer to take everyone seriously.
"Okay," Niter accepted as he headed for the door. It sounded like a dismissal, even if it wasn't outright a dismissal. He was tired, anyway, and Aqua wasn't about to let him fall asleep on his feet in here. But if he wanted to teleport home and straight into bed, then he needed the space and the privacy to do that without feeling like someone was watching him and waiting for him to mess it up.
When he left the office, he closed the door behind him as quietly as he could, wincing at the loud latching that these ancient doors were famous for. But it meant he was alone.
It meant he could think about his trash-laden apartment with its hundred Mountain Dew cans and empty power bar wrappers and plant friends and clothes on the floor and the bed and the couch. He could dwell on its privacy, the coziness of its walls, the few windows in a basement dwelling that allocated to him minimal sunlight. Then there was, of course, his desk and gaming chair, where he spent most of his time. It was a familiar place with a familiar smell and it guaranteed time away from other people.
In an instant, Niter was gone. In the next instant, Laike was face-down on his pillows.
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