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 Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2024 4:38 pm
Quote: Firework Flowers (13) : A rare and unique breed of flowers that blossom into long, stiff-stamened, spherical orbs like those of the blossoming Powder-Puff flowers are on full display in Destiny City. A unique hybrid of several species, these plants were being engineered at a small landscaping company. While they were only meant to exist in their private greenhouse as they continued development, a simple accident resulted in thousands of seeds spreading across Destiny City. Thankfully, the Firework Flower is a beautiful, albeit temporary addition. The stems grow rapidly and look like tall blades of grass until the week before the flower blooms; the bulb is hardy and opens overnight to reveal the beautiful firework flower, which can be found in almost any color. However, unlike normal Powder-Puff flowers, when these flowers are jostled they explode in a burst of colors. Whether it is a simple touch or a strong breeze, these ‘Firework Flowers’ seem to burn up from the center of the flower outwards. It creates a beautiful display of light–especially at night. Scientists describe it as a harmless chemical reaction and encourage everyone to appreciate the flowers while they are here. The dust from an explosion can carry on the wind and will glow for a few hours after the reaction. The explosion cannot harm anyone and poses no danger to anyone. Settling onto a patch of grass, Ilmare marveled at the patch of Firework Flowers that she'd managed to stumble onto. She knew vaguely about them, but this was her first time seeing them in person and she wanted to savor it. She should have been out patrolling, but she could always do that after some flower therapy, right? So, her plan was to sit, watch quietly and hope for a good breeze to pick up so she ould see the flowers explode first hand. Making herself comfortable, she dabbed her hands into the grass and blinked as she felt something hard. Picking g it up and squinting in the dim light, she realized she'd found a star charm, though it was hard to determine the color. Neat! Tucking it away in her fuku, she turned her attention back to the flowers. Only to feel an order aura approaching nearby. "Oh, come on! I'm just sittin' here!"
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Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2024 6:48 pm
“...Yeah, that’s kind of what drew me over here,” Meninx answered. She wasn’t quiet enough for him not to hear, and honestly her voice made it much easier to pinpoint where she was.
He approached with caution. A crimson star charm had been fixed to the end of his staff. He’d found it earlier but he didn’t know why he’d picked it up. Maybe because it felt like a good luck charm.
Although, his the night was still young. His luck could still turn sour.
Maybe it just depended on the Senshi in front of him.
He didn't seem flustered by her; though his face seemed a bit sour, he didn't seem like he'd arrived with any venom.
“Seemed like a weird place for the Negaverse to be lurking. I came to see what was going on.”
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Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2024 7:13 pm
"Of course you did," she groaned. "Of course you did. You people can't seem to leave me alone when I'm trying to be good."
Sighing, Ilmare covered her face in her hands and began to laugh helplessly. First Parsifal, now this guy. Who sure didn't look or feel like a senshi, so... a knight then? At least Order was showing some variety when it came to annoying ******** sake," she muttered after a few moments before slapping the ground beside her, indicating RBF Boy should be mildly sociable. "You. Sit. I'm not going to bite or drain you. And if I did, you'd have to ask really nice since I don't know you."
She noticed the star charm on his staff and nodded towards it agreeably. "Looks like those things are thick around these parts. So," she paused and took a moment to size the knight up before continuing. "How is this gonna shake down?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2024 7:55 pm
“I’d rather not sit,” Meninx said, but despite his unimpressed, almost agitated expression, there was still no bite in his words. Senshi had magic in a way that he didn’t, and he thought it would be irresponsible to trust her.
He hadn’t come here with the intention of fighting. He was just prepared for it if it did happen.
Meninx lowered his weapon; he wasn’t trying to be threatening.
“I guess everything depends on you. If you’re not out to bite or drain anyone, what are you doing?”
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Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:07 pm
"I wanted to see the flowers," she replied simply, choosing to ignore his standoffishness, "And if I can honestly tell the Generals in charge that I went out patrolling, they generally let me be. I am not a good liar, so I'm going to have to tell them about you when if and when they ask."
She huffed, amused despair flickering across her face. She had honestly just wanted to look at some pretty flowers and relax. Tilting her head up so she could actually look at the guy, she grimaced.
"I don't really want to get into a brawl, but I also can't lie to my bosses. So I don't know what's supposed to happen now."
As she glared up at the knight, she thought about the flowers she'd come to see and their little quirks. An idea was forming, but she wasn't sure Mr Sourface would be willing to play along.
"Look, I got no shame and we can both benefit here if you're willing to play along. How do you feel about throwing hands real quick? The flowers will make it nice and dramatic looking. I can loose and honestly tell my bosses I lost a fight to a stronger opponent and you can have the cap feather of having defeated a wicked corrupt. Whatcha say?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2024 9:44 pm
Did Meninx have anything to gain by playing along? Not really. Did he have anything to lose? Also, not really.
For a few seconds longer he debated, and then finally he shrugged.
“Fine,” he said, but there was doubt in his voice. It didn’t feel like she was serious. It would have been a good trick–something that would have undoubtedly worked on a few others that he knew: present it as a game, make them lower their guard, go for the kill.
It was difficult to trust anything someone from the Negaverse had to say.
“...We ‘throw hands’, and you go home after this? No trouble from here to there?”
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Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2024 7:05 am
Holy s**t, he was actually considering her offer! Ilmare could have kissed him if she didn't think that would get her yeeted into the next county. But she did visibly brighten as her natural cheeriness came back.
"No trouble from me at all and I'll go home," she promised. "I won't even use my magic. So, you'll probably have to leave a mark or two. Just don't knock me in the teeth, please."
Pushing herself into a crouch, the corrupt stood and shook out her skirt. Then, she walked towards the flowers she'd been admiring. Turning to look over her shoulder, she winked at the knight.
"Well? Let's get this over with. Better tell me if you have any off limits places hitting wise. I'd really prefer not hurting you when you're doin' a solid for me."
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Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2024 5:29 pm
Meninx grimaced, less because he had anything to actually be upset about and more because he just dreaded making the wrong decision.
“Don’t aim for the face, I guess,” he said, but that was a given. If he’d had any weaknesses, he wasn’t going to broadcast them.
She was serious about this? She really just wanted a bump or bruise as an excuse to be done with this?
…All right. Even if he felt strangely off about it.
“I’m ready. But–no offense, but you don’t seem like you’re really big on the Negaverse things. Why are you working with them?”
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Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2024 6:33 pm
"Avoiding the face. Got it!" she agreed quickly. It was only fair after all. As she got closer to the flowers, she grinned and beckoned him in.
"You know about these, right? They make lovely little explosions of color and glowy dust. It'll look very impressive if we do this just right."
She broke off her explanation to stare evenly at the knight before sighing. A discussion of her motives was really something she'd wanted to discuss before finding Saiph and talking to her, but here she was.
"They found me and took me in," she said simply. "I do my job and make sure that I don't ever really hurt anyone and it keeps the peace with my superiors. In return, I have a safe place to stay. Well," she added, thinking of the youma, "mostly safe."
Dismissing the matter for the moment, she considered the patch of flowers. It would be a pity to ruin them, but in the big scheme of things, it was her skin versus them. She tended to prioritize herself.
"All right. Hit me."
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Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2024 11:40 am
Something about her encouraging him to hit her just made Meninx feel sour about the whole thing–like, he knew they’d talked about it but he was still dreading actually doing it.
He resisted the urge to groan.
“Okay,” he sighed, but undeniably dragged his feet to get close enough to her to actually consider lashing out.
She seemed excited about the flowers, at least. He’d heard about them but he didn’t think they were much more impressive than dandelions on steroids. Maybe he’d been in the office for too long, he needed to get out and appreciate nature more often.
Her motives for being with the Negaverse were…
Well, he wanted to trust her. She seemed level headed. She seemed like she had a good goal in mind.
So, when he struck out with his staff, he aimed for her side to make sure she didn’t hit anything too hard or inconveniencing. He didn’t use his full strength but ‘as long as she got some bruises out of it’...
Ugh.
He didn’t even feel good about fighting with her; she seemed nice, all things considered.
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Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2024 12:41 pm
Seeing the hesitancy, Ilmare flashed a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, really. At least with this, you can trust me.”
When the hit came, she could feel that there was some holding back and, in spite of the situation, found it weirdly charming. He might not like it, but he was trying. And even with him holding back, the blow hurt. And when she stumbled into the flowers, it was no sham. Fortunately, her just brushing up against them started the chemical reaction that led to the flowers looking as if they were burning and exploding in a cloud of color. This was what she’d hoped for. Enough color and light and weird, glowing dust in the air to hide the fact that she and the knight didn’t actually want to kill each other.
And this was a decent sized patch too. They could move about fairly easily. Ilmare chose that moment to lunge at the knight, hoping to tackle him down. It was a good move and should there be even a remote chance of anyone seeing this, it would look impressive. More importantly, it would put them under all the flash and flare and make them harder to see.
“Coming in low,” she hissed so only the knight could hear. She’d honor her promise of no magic and avoiding his face. She wasn’t sure why, but she really wanted to prove to this grump that she was trustworthy.
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Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 11:11 am
At least with this.
She warned him, so Meninx knew what to expect. In some ways, it felt like wrestling with his brother except with less bite. Or, less biting.
If he’d really put his back into it, he probably could have dodged her, or kicked her to the ground, or given her any other miserable time.
But, she’d warned him. So, he let her tackle him.
He hit the ground but it wasn’t hard. The flowers exploding around them made it look like it was more dramatic than it felt. The grass here was soft and he landed no harder than if he’d just dropped to the ground to lay down.
He flipped her off of him easily. The bush next to them jostled, making for another dramatic and explosive display.
He didn’t want to trust her, but there was a split second where he was lying on his back, looking up at the sky and the brightly bursting flowers where he couldn’t help but just lay there and watch.
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Posted: Wed Jul 03, 2024 8:16 pm
This was working out even better than she could have hoped. Ilmare let the knight toss her off, she scooched back carefully, admiring the exploding flowers all around them.
"Just toss me around a couple more times," she whispered. "And I can slink off home. I'm going to stand up and 'kick', but I won't connect. The flowers'll hide that fact. Sound okay?"
As close as they were, she dropped a feather light kiss on his cheek before scooching away to stand up a few feet away. And then she ran in and swung her leg. To anyone further than two inches away, it would have looked as if she was kicking him in the gut. Instead, her foot missed his body by a decent bit.
But with all the flowers going off, who wuld even be able to tell?
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Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 8:18 pm
At first, Meninx intended to just huff and go along with it. So far, Ilmare had been fulfilling her head of the bargain. Despite his best efforts, he was lowering his guard.
She had an opening that he wasn’t expecting and instead of trying to use her magic or attempting to starseed him, she kissed him. It was practically air and the contact only lasted for a fraction of a second but he still felt it. He knew what she was doing, what she’d done.
And she was so calm about all of this! She seemed like she was enjoying this!
…It was a good thing that she was putting so much energy and effort into fabricating this battle because if she was this dedicated to actually fighting then he might have a problem.
“How can you say things like that?” Meninx grumbled. He didn’t protest.
She wanted him to toss her around a few more times so he waited until she was close enough to safely grab. He flipped her over his shoulder and tossed her again, into a patch of overgrown grass. Whoever had been doing the lawn care here had been avoiding the bushes but if you weren’t standing right there with them how were you going to see? The flowers exploded right next to her and it looked like it had been an aggressive collision.
Good enough.
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Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2024 8:32 pm
Blissfully unaware of the knight's inner thoughts, Ilmare had to fight hard to keep from giggling as she was quite literally tossed into a patch of flowers. It was ridiculous, but this was fun! The knight was strong and yeeted her like a pro!
And say things like what? Giving him fair warning? He was doing her a huge favor and being a champ about it. It would have been rude to not communicate with him.
Laying still for a few seconds to mimic mild distress, Ilmare staggered to her feet and charged the knight again. She had no set plan, but hoped he'd just grab and toss her again. Two tosses was about all she was willing to go through in the name of acting. Once he threw her, she hoped he'd go home so she could in turn go home.
"One more should do it," she whispered once she was close enough. "See, I'm not so bad."
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