Radioactive Mysteries (13) : Destiny City has been booming, but with more people you need more power. Recently, an old power plant has been renovated and updated and just opened for business–but now people have been claiming dizziness or fatigue when in the area. Not to mention the animals. So far one shady, blurry video has been posted online of a strange bear-shaped humanoid ‘monster’ in the area. It’s difficult to tell if it’s a hoax or not, but whether or not you believe it, it might be a good idea to keep your eye out if you’re in the area. Especially because if you pass through, you feel like something’s watching you. It doesn’t have an aura so it can’t be a youma, but if you poke around too late at night you might find a strange creature that's built like a bear, covered in fur, but which has a strangely human presence. Something about it is just off--or, maybe it’s just your imagination. Maybe it’s just someone in a costume having a bit of fun at your expense. Still, its claws are sharp and it’s fast. When it runs through the forests, the trees seem to crack upon impact, and if you explore during the daytime you might find strange scratches and odd markings in the grass. The longer you’re in the area, the dizzier you get.
Note: If you choose to encounter the strange creature, your character will recognize that it is not a youma. The creature seems smart enough to understand human words but does not respond and does not seem to listen. It will always disappear before it can be caught or gravely injured. This RP can be used as a battle requirement for a character, separate from your ‘one youma battle’ per stage if there are two powered characters involved; you cannot write a solo and count this as a battle, and your character must be powered and interacting with another player’s powered character for it to count. This can only be used as a battle requirement once per character, but there is no limitation for how many times a player can use this prompt.
Even before he’d gotten his magical knight power-up, Kāifēng had been what a lot of silly people who didn’t know any better considered “superstitious.” He had not, per se, believed in magic? At least, not in the same sense that people usually meant that term, where the magic existed separately from everything else and as something rather outside and beyond the scope of normal life and human existence. When people said “Do you believe in magic?” or “Do you believe in ghosts,” the entire question took for granted some weird idea that magic and ghosts were somehow not a part of the fabric that made up the rest of reality.
Which wasn’t at all how Kāifēng had always understood things. Magic was real. Ghosts were real, too. So were all manner of strange and fascinating non-human creatures—and all of them were as normal and commonplace as brushing one’s teeth, walking one’s dog, and explaining to far less-than-satisfactory Grindr boys why a sea shanty cover of Nickelback was Good, Actually. Magic and ghosts and so on were everywhere; you simply had to look for them.
Or, in some cases, you had to take the clues that reality handed you.
Such as, for instance, all kinds of rumors flying around Destiny City about some kind of creature causing problems at the recently refurbished power plant. Whoever the critter was, a dubious quality video of it had gone viral in short order and gotten subsequently dismissed—at least by certain Haydens who would remain nameless—as a hoax worthy of Scooby Doo, Where Are You? Trying to insist that there might have been more to the situation had earned Liánlí a flat, unimpressed look and an entirely non-serious warning that, he didn’t care whether or not his best friend was a magical knight with an evil wizard tower now, if Liánlí went after the radioactive bipedal bear-thing, then Hayden would tell Enfys not to go easy on him at stick-fighting class.
Or maybe it was a serious threat. Maybe they’d all find out later. Either way, Hayden had only specified that Liánlí shouldn’t go after the creature.
Hayden had said nothing about Kaifeng.
So, here Kāifēng found himself: lurking in some of the bushes nearby the power plant, palms and the back of his neck itching from the quiet, waiting to see if the bear-thing (or whatever it was) would show itself.… Ugh. Kāifēng knew that he needed to be quiet right now. He really did………in theory. But as he tried to put that idea into practice and Not Make Noise, Kāifēng’s chest felt tighter and tighter, as if his ribcage wanted to smother his lungs until they stopped working. The feeling like being watched didn’t help either. Panopticon bullshit, same as what Zhìháo’s parents and grandparents always threatened the children with.
Singing was right out for soothing Kāifēng’s nerves, tonight. Obviously, you couldn’t stake-out a power plant in the hopes of finding some mysterious creature and then scare it off by singing something from Hadestown as loudly as Kāifēng tended to get with his voice. But, like, what if Kāifēng hummed something, though? Would that be so bad? He could keep it relatively soft, and relatively quiet, while still giving himself enough noise that he wouldn’t feel like reality wanted to close in around him.
Follow that dollar for a long way down, far away from the poorhouse door—Kāifēng’s tongue and throat burned to do more than simply hum, but this would have to suffice—you either get to Hell or to Hadestown, ain’t no difference anymore~! Way down Hadestown, way down under the ground……
(Honestly, how did Selenga get calm from having silence around him? This was a ******** nightmare.)
But just then—Kāifēng perked up at the feeling of another aura nearby. White Moon, like himself, but more powerful.… Maybe he could find the other person, and then they could work together? Better yet, Kāifēng could better handle the quiet if someone else was there beside him. Easier to ground himself in the moment, that way. Easier to remember that he was in Destiny City, Virginia, not some closet back in Boston.
A brief pause interrupted him: the moonlight danced across something blue and sparkly in the grass, and sue him, Kāifēng had to grin about finding the star-charm. Skittering toward the other aura, he idly spun the little sapphire charm on his finger and kept humming the same tune: Give me morphine in a tin, give me a crate of the fruit of the viiiiiiine. Takes a lot of medicine to make it through the wintertime.…~
Noir Songbird_
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2023 10:10 pm
The rumors around the power plant were far, far too interesting for Izanami not to check out. It sounded like one of those things that would be a good Senshi adventure for Amaterasu, especially since her sister seemed to be so good at getting herself into all kinds of trouble. So, scope the situation out, decide if it was real, and maybe bring Amaterasu back if it felt safe enough to do so.
It was probably just some kind of odd anomaly, anyway. Or a youma that was a little too attached to a particular hunting ground. So many things in Destiny City were like that; the acts of the Negaverse or someone associated with them.
Though, of course,t here was always the random magic that seemed to haunt the city....ah, Izanami hated that stuff, because the Negaverse and the Dark Mirror made sense, but this stuff? It never did. It came and went, like the rumors at the reservoir, like the wisps, like...so many things.
Ugh.
Izanami sighed as she approached. There wasn't anything apparent, but then, it was hard to expect something to jump out at her immediately. That would be....a little much.
But there was someone else. A Page, it felt like, and as she turned because she heard movement, she spotted him. With a polite smile, she gave a little wave.
"Hello there," she said, pleasantly. "Seen anything interesting tonight?"
Oh—oh, good. Kaifeng breathed a sigh of relief as he found his way to the other White Moon aura lurking around, and she seemed to be a senshi. A very pretty senshi, all decked out in lovely blues and big, billowing sleeves. She might’ve had the long hair that you’d have expected to see on a Negaverse senshi, but there wasn’t any mistaking her aura. While waiting for his brain to, like, catch up and remember how to talk to people, Kaifeng returned the senshi’s little wave and smile with his own (though he felt fairly certain that the smile probably did not come out as unreservedly bright and pleasant as he might have liked……maybe he could pass it off as just. being nervous).
“Seen anything? Not yet, no.” Kaifeng shook his head but kept up the smile, just in case he risked coming off too negatively. “Well, I did find this……” He held up the hand whose finger had been spinning the star charm—and, y’know what? For the sake of soothing himself as much as possible, he resumed spinning the charm around his finger. “And I’ve felt like maybe somebody’s out here watching me? But I haven’t seen anything like the whole……y’know, radioactive bear? Or whatever is supposed to be happening up here? No footprints or broken twigs or anything like that, either.” Huffing softly, he added, “Kaifeng. Of Saturn. Don’t suppose jiejie’s seen anything interesting yet, either?”
As with several of the other senshi he’d run into, Kaifeng didn’t rightly know if she was older or younger than he was. But her aura said that she was more powerful than Kaifeng himself, so in deference to and recognition of that experience, she could be “jiejie.”
Noir Songbird
Posted: Thu Jul 13, 2023 10:06 pm
The poor Page seemed a little startled, and Izanami supposed that was fair--it was easy to miss noticing a nearby aura if it was someone on your side, since there wasn't the prickle of wrong bad danger that came from being near a Chaos aura. Perhaps he'd been too involved in looking, and simply hadn't been aware of her approach.
Either way, she kept up her polite little smile, and "hm"'d at the presented star charm. "A lucky find. They're always so cute, every year." Not that she'd managed to collect any for herself; it was always something she meant to do and thoroughly forgot about. What one was doing out here was a bit of a mystery, but perhaps it had been dropped by someone at some point, and either way, it had found its way into new hands now.
"Izanami of Cremation," she introduced herself, extending her hand. "I haven't seen anything either, unfortunately." She exhaled. "My little sister is also a Senshi, so sometimes I scope out these rumors because...well, she'll want to come here eventually. Might as well have the lay of the land." She sighed. "And better that she go with me than on her own."
Listening to jiejie—Izanami of Cremation—helped Kaifeng’s nerves settle down. Helped him breathe more easily. As he nodded along, both the noise of talking to someone else and having another person around just……really helped to take the edge off. “Good way of handling things,” he agreed, and tapped his folding fan against his forehead. “Smart……and it sounds like your sister’s lucky, having a jiejie who’s willing to put in so much effort for her.”
Reminded him of Xiuying. Not that she’d ever been literally magical, but under the garbage set of circumstances they’d been given, she’d done everything that she could have conceivably done for Zhìháo……for Liánlí……for Zhìháo. Reminded him, also, of Jiawei—of going down to meet him at the Square after he’d taken the Red Line bus to come spend time with his er-ge and Hayden because he’d desperately needed to get out of the house and away from their parents. Because he’d needed space to just be himself, and let his gege hunt shiny Pokémon for him, and not get constantly subjected to whatever nonsense their parents had been on about on any particular day.
Reminded him of how Jiawei and Jiayi hadn’t even been fifteen yet when Liánlí had left, and—
—And that thought got dismissed with a quick shake of the head, which Kaifeng used to whip himself back into smiling. “Haven’t felt any youma auras out here tonight,” he offered, barely noticing how easily he slipped into ending sentences with that upward lilt that fell ever so slightly short of being a full question, “but then, that’s not entirely reassuring.… I dunno, it feels like there’s something out here, for sure.… But if it’s not a youma, and it’s not exactly nothing, then who’s to say if it’s really the best for a younger senshi to try and tussle with, yeah? Not that your sister can’t handle it, but it might end up being worse than a youma, and then what?”
Noir Songbird
Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2023 1:33 am
Izanami's gaze, for a moment, got distant. Was Himiko lucky? Could anyone be lucky, in circumstances like theirs? Perhaps they were, to have each other. Perhaps their parents' wealth made up for...well. the other pieces. But that was not something to burden a stranger with, and so she put back on her smile, and forced herself to focus.
"I do my best. Our parents are...very busy, and so she's quite often my responsibility. And obviously they can't know anything about...all of this." She shrugged her shoulders. Smiled, as blithely as she could, even if she didn't generally like to put on that sort of air.
"There have been other odd monsters," she said, "not youma, but not quite right either. I suspect this is one of those, and it's usually quite possible to handle them. But not for a little girl--my sister is only eight--and certainly not for a Senshi that only has healing magic." She smiled, wryly.
"But even if we don't find it, it's good to know that it isn't a youma. Affects how to handle things."
Kaifeng noticed Miss Izanami-jiejie’s gaze getting that far off look, but he didn’t quite know what to make of it. For one thing, he’d only just met her and he didn’t know her life, her sister, any of the personal contexts that either of them would have brought into anything. For another, how could Kaifeng honestly judge anyone else for anything regarding younger siblings? Maybe Iza-jie felt like she hadn’t gotten something or other right as an older sibling, and Kāifēng couldn’t rightly condemn her if she had.
After all, Jiayi, Jiawei, and Xiaying had had an er-ge, once. Then, one morning in the middle of June, they’d gone off to Connecticut to visit Qiye, da-jiu, and jiuma with their and Zhìháo’s grandparents. Then, when they’d come back home, they hadn’t had an er-ge anymore. Moreover, the Boston PD wouldn’t have been able to take their good friend Huang Zhìmíng’s side about anything, for once, because Zhìháo/Liánlí had been an adult and had had every right to just ******** off out of the family and the perpetually tangled s**t-show of their internal dramas.
For a third thing, though, the moment soon passed. Izanami-jiejie seemed like she wanted to move on, and personally, Kāifēng felt content to let her. So, with a small smile—hesitant, yes, but overall hopeful—he told her, “Well, I’m sure your best means a lot to her, whatever else is going on. And……” He shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d recommend this specific adventure too much? Whether it’s overall safe or not, the whole……feeling like somebody’s watching you? It sets in after a while and gets a bit much? Might not be a youma who’s out here, exactly, but it might be a bit on the creepy side—unless your sister likes creepy, in which case? Might be fun. And it’s probably not a youma or anything Negaverse, so she oughta be mostly safe in that sort of regard?”
Noir Songbird
Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2023 4:39 pm
Izanami nodded. "Thank you for the advice," she said. It was...good, that he didn't press her. Someone else might have, she supposed. Asked why she hesitated.
And she would not have been able to answer. Not without dumping things that weren't this strange but very nice Squire's burden. Kaifeng did not need to know about her home life.
"I think it may not be my choice, entirely, but this does mean I'll be more prepared." She gave him a brief nod. "Your impressions are appreciated. And I hope we can meet again--perhaps I can introduce you to my sister in the future."
The more eyes potentially on Amaterasu, the better, she figured. And this set seemed particularly good. And even if she hadn't found exactly what she was looking for, she'd found a future ally--so much the better, Izanami thought. All well in the end.
