|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2023 8:11 pm
Friday night faculty meetings were a plague upon civilized society, Dr. Hikaru Rokugin knew this fully well. Even for the sake of debating an immensely important thing like this academic year’s tenure appointments, anything said in a meeting on Friday could’ve been an email. Period, end of discussion. No room for argument.
……Well, maybe some room, Hikaru supposed. The debate about tenure appointments had, sadly, wound up being one that he doubted anyone could have had over email. For one thing, the passive-aggression would’ve been through the roof, probably to the point that nobody wound up saying anything useful. Unfortunately, STEM departments more than knew how to hold their own about disrespecting each other while pretending to do no such thing, despite Hikaru preferring to think that such things fell exclusively in the realm of humanities departments like his father’s, social science departments like his wife’s, and interdisciplinary departments somewhere between those two options like his mother’s (which would one day also include one of his sons).
On top of that, they’d gone on long enough to require a dinner break—a <******** dinner break! On a Friday night! Was nothing in this world sacred anymore?! Why couldn’t they have just gone home? (Because there’d been no other time when everyone on the tenure committee could convene to finish finalizing their decisions. Hikaru knew this fact, but that didn’t mean he liked it any.)
So, it was much later than Hikaru preferred, as he finally skulked out of the science building, toward the lot where he’d parked his car. The walk wouldn’t have been terribly far……except that Hikaru got to the spot where he remembered parking and found it empty.…… Took him looking at his phone to remember: he’d told his mother and Noshiko to just take the car and head home without him. The Uber app couldn’t be that complicated for a physics professor to figure out.
After a few minutes spent installing it, setting up an account, and arguing with his phone about what he wanted to have happen, Hikaru finally had a driver coming his way……he thought. Honestly, he had so many complaints about the app design and how little sense it made to him……but maybe that was down to the wave of exhaustion that seemed, out of nowhere, to hit Hikaru like a truck.
At least the steps outside the science building’s front steps had little faux-marble statues of the DCU Dragons. Hikaru could just……sit himself down and lean against one of them, waiting for his ride.Most Friday nights would have—should have—seen Reiki at Scandals.
That had, in the past few years, admittedly tended to be the case less often when new seasons of Drag Race (either the American main series or the All-Stars seasons) were airing. As much as it benefitted the bar to host viewing parties, Scandals was never the venue that might end up booking any Drag Race queens—the sainted echelon of ~*Ru-Girls*~—so they did not, like Roscoe’s Tavern in Chicago or this season’s coolest bars in Manhattan and Brooklyn,have a chance for insider tea to spill during commercial breaks. So, they needed their local talent to vamp, fill time, host as if the viewing party were any other show.
For all Reiki could complain for a solid hour about how Rupaul’s Drag Race had completely changed the economy of drag artistry—neither wholly for the better nor wholly for the worse, but definitely for the “marked increase in complications”—Reiki did enjoy the show. He’d even been known to enjoy hosting viewing parties at the bar, when somebody had some kind of emergency and needed a last-minute replacement. But he didn’t enjoy the rather essential aspect of a Drag Race viewing party: pretending everything was normal and that shows at Scandals Bar always happened this way, even though they didn’t. All that dissembling made Reiki’s skin itch like he wanted to crawl out of it and find a hole to die in (not entirely unlike the way that Mirrorspace had made him feel lately, but thinking too much about that didn’t help).
Tonight, though, Reiki wasn’t at Scandals at his drag moms’ suggestion, and his Mom-mom’s request. All of them knew how much he needed his art for life to be worth living, but they also knew how he’d seemed other than well lately, despite taking this semester off on a mental health leave. Worst part, Reiki couldn’t even argue.
Strictly speaking, he didn’t think that “powering up into Murikabushi and patrolling around the DCU campus” was what any of the maternal figures in his life had had in mind for what he should’ve done tonight.…… But, well, his visit to Mirrorspace had been quick—practically an in-and-out—and the night was young. Plenty of time for someone to cause trouble and someone else to need a rescue. Half of him didn’t expect to find a damn thing noteworthy around DCU, but the other half felt like even interrupting the student body’s drunk-a** hijinks constituted a good use of Reiki’s time if it prevented somebody from getting hurt.
Good thing the latter half won out.
As Reiki’s roof-hopping and darting through shadows brought him ‘round to the science building, he felt a Negaverse aura flare up on his aura senses. Weaker than he was. Maybe they weren’t causing trouble. He would’ve really liked to believe that.
Except, as he got closer to the building, Reiki saw his Dad.
Moreover, he saw his Dad looking exhausted and rather like he had a headache. And the Negaverse aura felt so close, like it was right on top of Reiki.
What is Dad even doing here so late?, Reiki wondered—but he had no time to dwell on that. The combination of “Negaverse aura,” “late night on Friday,” and “Dad looks like he’s being energy-drained” left Reiki with only one conclusion he could draw. In turn, that conclusion left only one course of action available to him: hopping up on a dumpster, then using that to bound up onto the roof of the science building.
Fortunately, the dark shadow of a likely Negaverse officer made itself immediately apparent.
“Hey!” Reiki called out, rushing toward them. “Who the Hell do you think you are?”
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2023 7:11 pm
Vesuvianite struggled to find his place in the Negaverse. Sure, he got on okay with General Bellite and everything, and he'd made friends, sort of, with this other General... Faustite.... But even thinking his name kind of hurt right now, and he wasn't nearly as close to him as all those other people were. Something was going on, he'd heard whispers, but fretfully few. It wasn't like he had many friends. Hopefully that would change soon—if he could just get this guy's energy and bring back some stuff to impress someone—! Something! The guy was kind of a DILF, though. Almost made him feel bad to be draining the guy. But it was necessary. The world had to be protected. It wasn't like he was killing anyone, anyway. When he felt the Chaos Senshi—not a Corrupt, but one of those other ones—at first, he wasn't concerned, but when he was shouted at, he paused the energy drain, looking confusedly into the night at the rapidly approaching figure. "Whoa, whoa, calm down," he said, storing the energy and flipping his hands up. "I'm, um, Vesuvianite, nice to meet you, look I wasn't killing this guy, okay?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2023 8:48 pm
Reiki skidded to a halt just shy of running into the boy……and ********, “boy” did seem to be the right term here. For all the Negaverse officer didn’t look too much younger than Reiki himself, everything about him seemed green as summer grass. Wide-eyed, nervous, innocent—and here Reiki was, a more powerful senshi from a faction that was supposed to be allies with him, coming at him like some kind of rabid animal (or Reiki imagined that he looked that way, but he didn’t know this guy or his life or how he thought Reiki looked, ******** a sigh, Reiki held his hands up and in the open, where Vesuvianite could see them. “I’m Murikabushi,” he said, much more calmly (though with the quiet tension of someone realizing that he might have ******** up a little bit here). “And—I’m sorry for startling you? I know you have a job to do and your bosses probably give you quotas to fill or whatever? But……” He pointed over the ledge, down at the stone dragon where Dad sat. “All I saw at first? Was my dad, looking like somebody was draining him. Again, I’m sorry, but……you can understand why a b***h might jump the gun here, yeah? Like, what’s the point of having magic and a cute superhero outfit if you can’t protect your ********, did this kid even have a weapon? Negaverse officers, as far as Reiki knew, had weapons instead of magic, like Arsenolite and his bow. But all Reiki saw on this kid looked like an orange stick.
“Listen, Vesuvianite, would you consider a trade?”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2023 10:00 pm
Vesuvianite drew back just a little bit, watching Murikabushi carefully. He didn't quite trust the hands-up gesture—not when he knew the Senshi could just cast magic at any point. But then, when the guy explained, he gave a horrified gasp and covered his mouth. The last thing he wanted to do was take from someone who was supposed to be on his side. Damn, he'd messed up again. He really didn't want to get in trouble for this! Last time, he'd tried to drain a General in his civ form!! "Um, yeah," he said, already pulling the energy ball back out of his subspace pocket. He glanced down at the man he'd just drained nervously.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 15, 2023 10:39 pm
Now would’ve been a great time for Reiki to actually know more about how the Negaverse’s energy-draining worked, but……okay. It took the form of a little ball, apparently. That seemed a good sight better than the Mirrorwraiths. Reiki seriously doubted that anyone could get energy back from one of those things, but maybe there was hope for that little energy ball.
“Can you release that energy back to my dad?” Reiki asked as gently as possible, lowering his hands but keeping them where Vesuvianite could see them, so he could see the Reiki wasn’t doing anything with them. “I really don’t know why he’s here so late, but whatever it is? My grandparents—his parents—live with him and my mom. My grandfather’s been sick recently. I just……I don’t want something to happen to him, if he needs my dad in the middle of the night or something? And my dad can’t help?
“So……if you give that energy back to my dad, you can drain off me, okay? You won’t get in trouble with your bosses, you’ll still hit your energy quota, and nothing happens to my dad or my grandfather.”
Faustite draining Reiki’s energy hadn’t been so bad. Not the most fun thing that Reiki had ever experienced, no, but—he’d go through all of it again, and more, to prevent anything from happening to his family.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2023 10:22 pm
He was still wary—after all, the guy could just grab his dad and vanish, but... weren't the Dark Mirror meant to be their allies, or something? Taking a deep breath and hoping he didn't just mess up, he passed the energy back to the man on the stairs and skittered backwards, watching the Dark Mirror with apprehension, guilt, and something akin to fear. Deeper than wariness, but not quite true fear, either. He couldn't name the feeling, just... He didn't want to get hurt. Or mess with their allies. Or wind up being picked on. Or any of that kind of stuff.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 2:50 am
……Oh, damn, this poor kid. The more this encounter wore on, the more Reiki felt like “kid” really was the most appropriate term for this guy, regardless of how old he was. “Thank you for that,” Reiki said gently, watching him disperse the energy back to Dad. “It……it really means a lot, okay? You letting my Dad off the hook. I’m gonna reach into my subspace really quick? And then I’m gonna sit down and you can drain from me, like I promised.”
Promises that Reiki wholly meant to keep. For one thing, he didn’t need to go causing too much trouble that would actually get him into s**t with the Negaverse. If he got himself into too many tussles like the one he’d been in with that Sylveon-looking fuku’d Negaverse senshi the other day, then Reiki doubted he’d earn that much protection from the fact that Arsenolite inexplicably trusted him and that Reiki? certainly? had? a something-ship? going on? with Faustite? Especially when Faustite died (because as much as Reiki wanted to hope for an “if,” he realized that, much like with Ojiisan, Faustite’s luck couldn’t last forever—but both of those bridges, Reiki could burn when he got there).
For the moment, he took one of his chilled bottles of water out from his subspace and proffered it toward Vesuvianite. “I’d offer you a ‘thank you’ snack or something if I’d packed any tonight, but……I didn’t, so? Even Negaverse agents need to hydrate, right?”
Whether Vesuvianite took the water or not, Reiki planned to sit down and lean against the ledge. Being on his feet while getting drained………had not been fun. Definitely not an experience he yearned to repeat.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 9:51 am
Vesuvianite hesitated for only a few moments longer before he decides to trust Murikabushi. It didn't seem like he had any ill intent right now. So, he shuffled forward, taking the water bottle and with a hopefully subtle check of the deal, cracked it open and drank a little. "Sorry, about your grandfather," he finally said. "And, um. Thanks for the water. I'm Vesuvianite."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2023 1:06 pm
Reiki blinked for a moment at the reintroduction. Jeez, poor kid really was nervous about all this, wasn’t he? Checking the seal on the bottle made perfect sense—would have been really stupid of Vesuvianite not to check, since……stranger, giving him things, from another Faction, even one whose members semi-regularly worked with the Negaverse on things—but introducing himself a second time was just peak “oh, honey” behavior.
“Thanks,” Reiki said, giving Vesuvianite a small smile as he sat down on the roof. “It’s just been rough on the whole family, so—like I said? I really appreciate you letting my Dad off the hook. And by the way?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Reiki pointed vaguely in the direction of Kerberos’s bench (which was several blocks away from DCU, but Reiki’s point stood). “If you ever need help meeting a quota on draining? There’s a White Moon senshi with long blue hair, name of Kerberos. He’s usually at a bench over in North End Park. You’ll know it’s him because he has beautiful white flowers—asphodel blossoms—growing at his feet. He did some cool thing that White Moon senshi can do to bond with their planets, and now, he can share energy with people and he has a lot of spare reserves. And I know, I get it, you don’t have any reason to trust a White Moon senshi? But Kerberos isn’t hostile, and if you’re polite about it, he’ll let you drain from him.”
And maybe Vesuvianite would get something good out of talking to him. Reiki could hope.
“Anyway, whenever you’re ready for the draining.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
