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 Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2023 5:50 pm
Genuinely, Reiki didn’t harbor any ill will about his assorted friends who’d once been with Chaos not telling him very much about the Whole Process. Several things, they simply didn’t know from their own experiences and he couldn’t honestly expect that of them. Kerberos, for example, had been at a massively different point in his life when that Hvergelmir Knight had called Cosmos for him, vs. the point where Reiki was in his own life right now. As far as Reiki knew, that phase in Kerb’s life hadn’t exactly involved needing to plan a whole-a** Family Meeting to, among other things, reassure Obaasan and Ojiisan that maybe they couldn’t talk much for a while, but Yuki would be looking out for Reiki, and ask Ojiisan’s permission to take his personal name.
(The worry What if Ojiisan says “No?” plagued Reiki’s messy b***h anxiety-brain like a bunch of rats Yersinia pestis-infested rats scampering around Crimea in 1347. Was it an entirely rational fear? He didn’t know. He really didn’t know. All Reiki knew was that, once upon a time, Kiyoshi should have been his given name. Would have been, had circumstances played out differently. Only hadn’t been because Ojiisan had slipped off the wagon too soon before Reiki and Junsei had been born, and Reiki didn’t begrudge his Dad the choice he’d made about Reiki’s name. How could he, when that choice had motivated Ojiisan to get sober again and stay that way? But Reiki also didn’t. know. the person his beloved grandfather allegedly became when Ojiisan started drinking. Sure, he knew other people’s stories, plenty of them directly from Ojiisan himself, but that wasn’t the same.
If Reiki had to basically start over again as a person anyway, in order to set right the mess he’d gotten into by Awakening Dark Mirror, then……why not take the name that should always have been his in the first place? As long as Ojiisan gave his blessing for it.)
Then, Amsvartnir, Asmodeus, and Monoceros all had such sufficiently different experiences from Reiki’s own. Lysithea too, though he’d still only met her the one time, and her purifying Monoceros and being Stirling’s Princess didn’t entirely make her and Reiki friends on any kind of personal level—definitely not close enough for him to just ask her about her time with the Negaverse and why she’d decided to leave. Lilith, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of in months, and considering whom all she’d run out on, Reiki desperately hoped that she was doing the smart thing and laying low.
Lilith having done that about leaving the Negaverse gave Reiki yet more reason to want to talk to Faustite before he left the Dark Mirror Court—but he wasn’t the person Reiki wanted to find tonight.
Granted, Reiki didn’t have a specific person in mind, exactly? More so, he had the general concept of “I need help from a White Moon Mauvian; I obviously cannot ask Soya because she’s with Chaos and will try to stop me” and the somewhat less general emotion of raging jealousy toward the White Moon Knights. The one from the battle where Cybele had popped her Princess wings—Kaifeng of Saturn, him of the folding fan and complete inability to make decent life choices—had taken it upon himself recently to teach Reiki something that he’d not previously learned: namely that Knights could use their signet rings to communicate with literally anyone they wanted. Kaifeng had imparted this lesson by sending a message to Murikabushi, Dark Mirror Senshi, is your real sphere kindness? Because Pendour thinks it should be! and it had been handwritten on paper featuring art of Hello Kitty dressed like some little punk girl.
Made Reiki want to ask the little weirdo if he’d bought his stationery at Hot Topic, but unlike Knights, all Reiki had was his stupid-a** compact. It didn’t even have any options for flexibility, because it literally only called other Dark Mirror Senshi (and as much as Hybris’s random updates on whatever crossed his mind got godawful annoying, Reiki couldn’t bring himself to simply mute Hybris, not when he knew the boy could easily end up in some trouble).
Making matters worse, trying to hunt for a Mauvian’s aura was tantamount to sticking one’s hand inside a Mystery Box that could have contained delicious candy, but also could have contained thousands of incredibly pissed off miniature velociraptors that felt exceptionally bitey and probably didn’t have enough manners in their tiny, tiny bodies to listen to Acubens-oneesan and behave themselves. The complication arose from the difference between how Tama’s and Soya’s auras felt when they were in their kitty forms vs. their humanoid ones. Practically all night, Reiki had searched high and low, only to find that the only less powerful White Moon auras running around had belonged to some stray Pages and first-stage senshi, while the only more powerful ones he’d found had led him to narrowly dodging some Eternal senshi whom he didn’t recognize and therefore couldn’t trust right now.
One more time, he told himself as he followed one of the less powerful auras into an alley. Soon enough, it felt close by—but without a person making themself apparent. Turning his gaze toward the nearby fire escape, Reiki squinted and tilted his head up at a golden-eyed, black chonky boy with a bobbed little tail and a telltale star on his forehead, who felt……terribly familiar.
“……Mister Sparkles the Death Dealer?” Reiki wrinkled his nose, but kept his tone politely confused as he asked, “You’re the one who fought Don Diablos at the Night Market, right?”Strickenized_ flying dragon kick to your heart’s content, faust! emotion_bigheart
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2023 6:27 pm
The chaos scum was talking to him, but Faust wasn't listening. No, he was crouching low to the ground, then he was wiggling his but, then he was launching himself bodily at purple-and-pink Frilly ******** with one back leg extended and all of its claws out for blood.
Minutes before this, he had been taking a nap on top of the dumpster outside Cut My Life Into Pizzas, where he had eaten all of the greasy pepperoni off a slice left for him at the back door. This was after he'd visited his neighbor for a can of tuna, then his other neighbor for a small sample of salmon (and this neighbor cooked well, but was always stingy about giving him portions and always telling him he was fat. She just didn't know the difference between fat and rippling muscle). Then he had a pattern where he hit the library for free pets and snacks, then the pet store for a dog biscuit, and finally the pizza shop for any leftovers they wanted to spare that day. Usually he preferred the Italian sausage over the pepperoni, but he would live with the pepperoni tonight.
The nap was also customary, for there was no better way to treat a food coma other than an impromptu nap on top of a dumpster. But, unluckily, some a*****e Dark Mirror aura crawled over him and woke him up from a dead sleep.
The only logical response, then, was to fly at the Mirror Senshi's face in flying dragon pose. "Eat this, you chaos piece of s**t!" The Mauvian cried as he rocketed toward his target's face.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2023 7:24 pm
Mr. Sparkles the Death Dealer—or whatever his proper name was—apparently did not feel much in the mood for conversation. Such became obvious to Reiki in the brief flash of stillness and inner peace during which he managed to think, I am about to get kicked in the face by an incredibly ill-mannered cat.
Somehow, he managed enough presence of mind to knock his glasses up onto his forehead. Got them out of the way before the vaguely chunky-looking black smudge-blur that felt like a Mauvian and definitely smelled like cat whacked into his face. Which got a physical wince out of Reiki because……duh, how couldn’t it? He’d just gotten kicked in the face by an incredibly ill-mannered cat! Still, Reiki bit back on both the pained sounds he could’ve made about a giant, chonky, pizza-stuffed fur-bag flying at his ******** face!!! and the <******** ******** OWWW ******** ******** CLAWS!!! of it all, and the string of borderline unintelligible, mixed-language cussing that Aunt Satomi’s Duchess usually managed to get out of him whenever she pulled stunts like this.
“Hey! Quit it,” did manage to snap out of him—but after batting at the chonky boy, trying to get him down, Reiki made himself pause. Take a deep breath. Sigh dramatically and knock his unbroken glasses back down into place. Then, he tried again at refusing to take any s**t from this ridiculously nimble ball of pudge and fur, but still being overall polite: “Look, my name is Murikabushi. I’m sorry about the Chaos aura. I want to fix it, but I’m looking for help with that.”
Surely, this would get through to Mr. Sparkles The Death Dealer—if that was his real name—right? He was a Mauvian! He had the star on his forehead and everything! And Mauvians helped senshi with How To Senshi Good. That was just how the universe worked, last time Reiki checked.
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2023 3:04 pm
There was the satisfying buckling of flesh beneath his steely toes, and Faust would have smirked if cat lips had that ability. Instead, his smugness lived in his eyes as he landed effortlessly (read: smacked the ground and rolled) and about-faced to stare down his formidable foe.
No Dark Mirror Super was going to give him s**t tonight. Wiggling his butt, Faust tightened up his stance and —
"The hell didn't you say that before? You got some kinda death wish?!" The cat asked incredulously. Faust shifted to sitting on his haunches as he regarded the senshi with suspicion. He'd heard of s**t like that before — evil senshi and agents pretending to want a clean slate, only to ambush any trusting White Moon Senshi or Knight and ******** them up bad, if not kill them. Faust wasn't going to be taken like that. He'd been at this for too long to fall for bait.
"Listen up, 'Murica Business, ain't nobody on yo' side of the fence gonna take me for a fool. So if you're asking me for help, you better be ready to prove it.
"And my help don't come cheap — you want answers? I want a filet o' ********' tuna. You feel?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2023 3:23 pm
Reiki pursed his lips and wrinkled his nose down at Mr. Sparkles. “What in the—” Again, he nudged his glasses up, this time so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “You kicked me, Mr. Sparkles,” he pointed out. “I wanted to introduce ourselves like civilized beings instead of treating you like a fuzzy dispenser of henshin pens and fix-it solutions, and you decided to kick me.
“But—okay, sure, whatever.” ******** it. Reiki couldn’t contact Order Mauvians very easily, so he didn’t really have that many options. Tonight, he’d drawn the short-straw about finding one who happened to have an attitude like Duchess’s and this was just what Reiki had to work with now. Letting his glasses slip back down into their proper position, Reiki reached into his subspace to produce his clip of tip money, just to demonstrate for Mr. Sparkles that he was good for any promises he made regarding money and spending it. “There’s a sushi place a couple blocks away where they have good tuna. We’ll go there and get you whatever tuna you want.”
Soya-hime had liked their salmon before, but bringing her up felt too risky, when Mr. Sparkles already didn’t seem to like Reiki and when getting his help already felt so contingent on Reiki just……playing nice and letting Mr. Sparkles have his way about things. Tucking his money clip back in his subspace for the moment, Reiki said, “So, d’you want to walk together, ride on my shoulders, get carried, or what?”
Mr. Sparkles was a good bit bigger than Soya, but……well. Reiki had inherited the same broad shoulders that ran in Dad’s side of the family. He could manage a chonky Mauvian just as easily as he could manage Soya.
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Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2023 6:36 pm
"Ain't my fault you rolled up on me wearin' that aura." Faust snorted his offense, then licked his chops in displeasure. Maybe he shouldn't have awoken as a Dark Mirror Senshi if he was going to get so bent out of shape about a White Moon Mauvian kicking him in the face on sight. Faust knew he was justified, so all this senshi was doing was whinging about it.
Thus did he sit a little straighter.
At least the senshi had the good sense to accept the deal that was offered to him and follow up on it. Faust didn't give half a damn about what kind of place it was, whether it was sushi or szechuan or tacos, as long as it had fish in it that he liked. Grunting, Faust got to his furry feet and arched his back enough to say now pick me up, slave if this senshi spoke fluent Mau.
But he must not have known fluent Mau if he was asking questions like that. "This," Faust jerked his furry head toward his body, "means you pickin' me up." Using his legs was effort on top of the effort he needed to expend to eat, and he already wasted a lot of effort on flying dragon kicking this senshi in the face. In fact, this senshi was lucky to have survived it without his cheekbone being obliterated and shot out the other cheek like a hundred projectiles. But since he was slow on the uptake about all things Mauvian, Faust felt that he had to go easy on him.
Somewhat. b***h didn't need an excuse to skip arm day, though.
"Talk on the way. What'chu wanna know?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2023 8:19 pm
“I agree about the aura but—y’know, plenty of people get forced into this garbage. Or lied to, told they’d be able to help someone they cared about, then preyed on ‘til they don’t feel like they deserve to leave. Or some people get exploited. Or just—ugh, whatever.”
Reiki could have brought up the option of people not being told anything at all about what they were getting into. Could’ve brought up what had happened to him, instead of the forcible corruptions like Monoceros and Heliodor had endured, or the lies that Kerberos had heard from the Negaverse before his Hvergelmir had helped him get out, or how the Negaverse had taken Faustite when he was a teenager and exploited him.
Ugh, whatever, though. One thing Mr. Sparkles was unquestionably right about: Reiki’s situation wasn’t his fault, nor was he actually obligated to help or listen to a Chaos rat senshi, as if the ‘senshi’ part could ever outweigh the ‘Chaos rat’ part. Getting indignant about other people’s sob stories probably already skirted close enough to breaking the thin ice Reiki was on with Mr. Sparkles. Best to shut up about it and comply, hoisting the bitchy little fur-bag up with no trouble. Heavier than Soya? Yes. But eh, Reiki regularly hoisted up a sixty-pound pitbull when he didn’t have the advantage of his powered up senshi strength. As he set off in the direction of the sushi place, he tried to hold on tightly enough for Mr. Sparkles to stay safe, but not so tightly that the little guy couldn’t get himself comfortable.
“Anyway, my ‘leaving the Dark Mirror, need a new life’ question’s about medications,” Reiki explained as he walked. “Had an ADHD diagnosis since I was six. The meds I take for it are a controlled substance. Doctor has to submit annual authorizations just so a pharmacy can fill my prescriptions. So, like……do I have to go through the whole humiliating diagnosis process all over again? Or is there some way of copy-pasting my current medical records into my new identity? Is there a way of, like, putting in some filler scripts for my new identity, saying they’re from some other doctor, or otherwise making sure I don’t run out of meds while I try to get in with someone who can more reliably give me my prescriptions? And……”
Did he really want to say anything that sounded like an apology? Well, not particularly, no.
But Mr. Sparkles clearly didn’t have much regard for anyone with a Chaos aura, no matter how much they hated it and wanted to not have that aura anymore. So, probably best to attempt nominal contrition (even though Reiki hadn’t done anything wrong): “And I’m sorry if that’s a basic b***h question that isn’t worth your time, or whatever? But I want to not run out of the meds that help my brain function like it’s supposed to, I obviously can’t ask the Mauvians I usually see because they’re both with Chaos, and they’ve previously talked to me more about my magic or why I’m sad about some stupid boy this time.
“Not, like, problems more in the vein of ‘I’m burning down my entire life, leaving my family, sacrificing the years of work I’ve put into my PhD and building my profile in this town’s drag scene, probably letting down or hurting quite a few people I care about, and giving up on a hopeless crush-boy who’s happy in the Dark Mirror—all to get this unholy. smothering. Chaos-taint. *off*. my goddamn starseed. If I have to endure another whole-a** diagnostic evaluation just to make sure I get my meds, then fine, but I want to know that instead of having it dumped on me after a Princess has already helped me get out.’”
Aside from not being able to ask them about this, he also didn’t have a good way to contact Tama without bothering a Saturn Page who apparently hadn’t had enough people in his life call him out on being such a performative b***h, but that was beside the point.
“Not asking what I was actually signing up for? That’s how I got myself in this mess in the first place,” Reiki said, feeling very compelled to bestow scritches on Mr. Sparkles but holding off. He’d already expressed his distaste for Reiki’s aura. No scritches without permission. “I’m sure you can understand why I’d like to not make a similar mistake, this time.”
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Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2023 7:07 am
Damn did this senshi talk a lot. Faust was used to Thraen and Hydor, and neither one of them had much to say, which Faust preferred. It was easier to get scritches when someone wasn't running their damn mouth to kingdom come. All Faust got from that whole spicy comeback was that recruiters were shitty and manipulative. But he was talking to a recruiter, and Faust didn't think he did a damn thing wrong with it. Sure, he impressed the importance of the whole world getting used like a damn bloodbag for the Negaverse, but powering up? Faust couldn't make that choice for them.
But Complainer switched gears well enough. But the question wasn't something Faust had to tangle with often, and it took him longer than a minute to think about it. In fact, he was wishing for that cut of tuna to materialize in his damn mouth already so he'd have some brain food.
The cat gave a grunt from where he was held against the Mirror Senshi's chest. He didn't bother responding to the 'basic b***h question' bit because, frankly, he found all this medical s**t boring as hell and he was much more suited to punching a ******** in the face than figuring out their normal life nonsense for them. But if this was what it took to get another senshi on their side, one who sounded like he was pretty damn done with the Dark Mirror? Faust would have to give an answer worth giving.
He didn't know anything about ADHD, nor did he know anything about how regular doctors went through with diagnosing ADHD, but he did know several people among the White Moon who could handle this without all the damn shenanigans this senshi had to navigate before.
"We got doctors," he began. "N' they've handled s**t like this before. People comin' over, needin' meds or care or whatever, and they do their best to get you the same s**t you had before. N' sometimes that means we have to finagle some paperwork for 'em, so if you got your records, keep a copy for when you come over to the right side. That makes everything a helluva lot smoother. Not everybody does, though, so don't feel too bad if you can't wrestle up all the diagnosis codes n' whatever those damn notes're called. Detergent notes or whatever.
"Think you'd only have to repeat the whole damn diagnosis if you wanted to switch to a different doctor n' they wanted to redo the tests. Or if you wanted to go to a regular doctor from the start n' they didn't like what was already in your records." Maybe some of them were like that. Faust didn't know, he didn't talk to any damn doctors but for the ones on their side.
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