[B] A Familiar Beast (Diesel/Urania)

[Indigo_Plateau]

Meighei

Diesel was really more of a summer boy, himself. He tolerated the cold. There were things he enjoyed doing in the winter months: skating and snowboarding and sledding, but if he could have his way, he'd prefer the warm. It suited him more, he thought. A backdrop of frosty blues and grays hardly did his effervescent personality justice. He deserved to be in the sun. ...Though Negaverse Senshi barely did anything in daylight, did they? It felt wholly cruel to rob the earth of such an opportunity.

But they all had to settle, didn't they? The earth would witness his visage only at night, and Diesel would go out in the cold.

This night was hardly expected to be anything extraordinary. He'd go out, tend his chores, and go home. Diesel didn't want to be out longer than to do anything else, when the alternative was being comfortably home and warm with his partner. Although... he could be tempted if something interesting reared its head.

He slung himself up and atop a low brick fence separating the street from an otherwise innocuous field, landing sitting in the snow that had settled on the flat surface. At the base of the fence, the wind had whipped up the snow into piles, where a girl was peering curiously down into the snowdrifts. Diesel had never seen her before: not particularly surprising, as he hadn't seen many of their ilk before.

Peering down from his perch with a canted head and curious, widened eyes, Diesel asked, "What'd ya find?"

It had completely escaped his notice on a precursory glance, but if he started at where the girl held her attention, he thought maybe he could make out something sleeker than snow nestled against the wall, hidden by the shadows. "Aw, cool! A big lizard! Man, that's weird, huh? Things like that are supposed to, y'know, not do that great in these kind of temperatures."

At least, that was how lizards from Earth were. He had a pretty limited grasp of Senshi and their worlds, but- well, they were worlds, right? So anything could be there. Theoretically.

"Did you bring it from home?"  

[Indigo_Plateau]

Meighei

Basic Attack -- Fan the Flames

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Diesel must make physical contact with another person or object in order to use his magic. The energy expelled by the impact provides the necessary 'fuel' to power his abilities, and so the magic's strength varies dependent upon how much effort he exerts. Simple contact may cause a flash burn, while something more forceful could cause a contained burst of flames that allows Diesel to forcefully repel enemies. Severity and duration of damage is up to target. He is capable of activating magic on himself (by clapping, snapping, stomping, etc.) to propel himself nearer to targets. He has thirty seconds from casting to make contact with something, but the magic itself lasts for only a single burst on impact. May be used three times per battle.

"Huh?" Diesel's face scrunched as he glanced first back to the girl, then more closely at the reptile. Yeah, it was a 'big lizard,' alright. With the sleekest, whitest scales he'd ever seen on a creature- and wings. Actual wings, smooth and glossy, with a flank slowly rising and falling with its breathing. If it hadn't come from her world, it must've come from someone's. She didn't look young enough to still think fairy tale dragons were real. At least, not here. Not on Earth.

And most of their kind's worlds were said to be extremely sparsely populated, though Diesel wasn't sure of the details. He would've believed her if she'd said it was her- animal guide or whatever.

But he was less inclined to believe that it was just out here laying in the snow.

He slid from the fence, heavy boots landing with an obnoxiously loud crunch as he sidled closer to the girl and the lizard for better inspection. "Sometimes I wish I knew what kinds of things used to be on my world." Then maybe he'd be more equipped for whatever oddities presented themselves here. Going purely off of Earth's wildlife led him to think that this 'little dragon,' laying huddled in the snow, probably needed their help. It was too cold for earthen reptiles to be out.

The creature was still breathing, so not dead. But it must be close to catatonic if it wasn't even slightly disturbed by their presence. "Guess I should warm it up a little, huh?" He invited, and didn't wait for her confirmation. Diesel crouched down next to it. His magic was a single flash of heat, dependent solely on how much effort he exerted into bringing it forth. This time it was just a light snap of his fingers, enough for a loud crackle of heat. Even when the harshest of it completely dissipated, the warmth of it still settled in his palm.

He reached and touched first the tips of his fingers, then his whole palm to the top of the lizard's head.  

[Indigo_Plateau]

Meighei

"Couldn't tell you one way or another," he replied with a dismissive shrug. Diesel knew some like him found ways to have fleeting glimpses of who they'd been in a past life: where they'd lived, what they experienced, things they'd seen. He'd had no such visions. Whatever planet had birthed his senshi starseed may as well be completely dead and lost. And for all that he always thought he might should give his mineral name when asked who he was, he never did. It never felt like his. More like an insult someone pinned on him. "Name's Diesel," he said instead.

She'd said there were dragons on her world. Being someone with a whole other planet, with all those long-past memories popping up whenever there, that had to be as close to a fairy tale as anyone could get.

"Did they look like these, huh?" Diesel asked, dragging his finger down the tip of the lizard's maw as it opened its mouth in a yawn. He still had to be careful not to plow through all of his magic too quickly. He didn't want to have nothing in the chamber if this random White Moon girl decided they were gonna throw down once he'd exhausted himself. So he settled for just petting, experimentally feeling over chilled, scaled ridges with the pads of two fingertips. "Seems pretty docile, for a dragon."

He did snort softly at her declaration of 'wonderful magic!' "Feels like I gotta use it for something like this at least once every season or so. If I were a little bit crueler, there'd probably be an extra handful of pretty girls dead from the cold."  

[Indigo_Plateau]

Meighei

“Yeah, that’s what I hear,” Diesel admitted with a little shrug of his shoulders. If he considered it, he supposed it was a sad occurrence. He- and every other senshi, probably- might have liked to see a real dragon! But it was so difficult to miss something you’d never actually interacted with, especially when that thing was lauded as ‘imaginary’ for all his life.

But it must make them sad- those other senshi- to know that whatever massive failure their past lives brought them a thousand years ago was still well in effect today.

Diesel definitely didn’t begrudge them having those memories.

“At least it wasn’t your fault, right? I mean, not really. Whatever person existed back then, even if they had the same starseed, wasn’t really you.” He didn’t know what ‘other Diesel’ had been like, buuuut a part of him expected that they hadn’t really been the same at all. How could they be, when so much of himself was tied up in the things he’d experienced in this life.

The little body moved under his fingers, chilled scales rippling as it started to wake.

He snorted. “Hey, hey, hey. No one said anything about attacking. Where’s the sport in attacking someone who can barely walk from shivering so bad? Just meant it’s sometimes tempting to not pull your freezing ilk out of icy waters they ran themselves into, or maybe leaving them in those lightless caverns. I got a lot to offer, and it’s a real pain bailing other people out of their own mistakes.”

“But not this little guy, huh!” He cooed softly, now using both hands to ruffle the lizard-dragon’s wings. “He’s a cutie!”

He’d barely said the words before the creature was suddenly staring dead at him, much more stone-still than it had been up to that point. It snapped at him, and Diesel wrenched his hand back. “And feisty.” Interesting combination.  

[Indigo_Plateau]

Meighei

“Yeah, yeah. Same or not. It’s whatever,” Diesel retorted flippantly. He got it, he understood. Same starseed, same person, different life. But man, these Moon losers would probably be happier if they stopped trying to fix their past-self’s millennia-ago mistakes.

But that was probably as far as they were going to get on that matter. The little snow dragon seemed to be reaching the end of its patience with them, snapping out their fingers and scrambling away from their touch. “Ah, it- woah.”

The senshi’s compliments did not seem to appease it, as a stream of frosty blue… something left it’s mouth to attack her.

“I definitely don’t know any Earth creatures that can do that!” And then it turned to Diesel, looking as disgruntled as a fluffed up kitten. And the condensed orb of frost it shot at him whizzed over his shoulder as he lurched backward and toppled over. “Or that! It must’ve come from someone’s world, if not yours. And I dunno if it wants to be messed with, anymore.”

But… they probably couldn’t leave it here?

It probably wouldn’t like what happened to it if normal civilians- or the Negaverse- caught it. And it’s be a bad look if it started picking off Destiny City’s wildlife (dragons were carnivores, right?). “Look, you probably know more about this kinda thing than me. What do you wanna do with it?”  

[Indigo_Plateau]

Meighei

Oh, yeah. This thing definitely had some degree of intelligence, even if it acted like a feral animal. It looked at Diesel and seemed to know what he was thinking, that it wasn't about to get out of here without a fight. "Uh, yes," he shot back at the other Senshi incredulous. "We can't just let it run off!" But for all that it had seemed pleasant enough when they'd first approached, that must've just been a pliant, drowsy state. The lizard-dragon did not look like it wanted to be petted now.

"Get on that side of it," Diesel ordered, flicking his hand for the girl to stay toward the front. If- when it fled from him, she'd be there to block it.

He lunged, diving toward the snow mound where it had been resting. It skittered away from his hands, hissed at him (like a cat?), and scrabbled along the snow and ice, easily scaling the snowdrifts with a dept claws. "If it gets away, it'll make trouble for-" Well, he didn't really know. "-someone, surely!" But the creature did not seem to care about Diesel's opinion on the matter. It was quick, and there was obviously no hope of either of them getting their hands on it, again.

And that wasn't even factoring in the frost it could shoot, or the way it seemed to disappear against the snow as it moved. Maybe he should've let her take the lead. "If you got any special powers for this, now would be the time to show them."  

[Indigo_Plateau]

Meighei

‘Blind it?’

More like blind him!

Diesel was still scrabbling around in the snow, fumbling to knock his hands against anything that felt like a solid creature when the girl’s magic went off. Maybe shed surprised it enough that the little dragon creature decided it was fully done playing with them and bolted before either could get another look at it.

…Or maybe she didn’t actually want Diesel catching it, because one second he saw it trying to escape from him, and the next second, the bright light of her star magic was going off in his face, and the whole world went white.

Even when he reeled back to get away from it, light still danced behind his eyelids. “Hey!” He spat, head whipping around toward where he knew the girl to be. “You did that on purpose!”

And if the creature hadn’t been about to get away before, it definitely was gone now…