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 Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 6:37 pm
The rooftop of an old abandoned bank had been ground zero for the fight between the two women. The sky was dark with clouds threatening snow or rain (It was hard to tell with the weather these days.) and Hy-Brasil had been anticipating going home when she felt the corrupts aura. There had been a moment she debated on ignoring it, but the anxiety of letting a corrupt roam without contest was not something the Knight could do.
And now, the two were locked in a fairly even match. One that was going to either end in a stalemate or someone pulling a trick card from their back pocket. Hy wasn’t sure if she had another trick left besides her summons. And as useful as the stag could be in battle, he was close melee, and against senshi it was a crap shoot. Their magic typically gave them the upper hand when it came to long range.
Having just exchanged some blows, Hy jumped back. Breath heavy she raised a hand to the right side of her face where she’d been punched. It was going to leave a mark, that was for sure, but there didn’t seem to be any blood. Just to be certain to wiped at her mouth and checked there as well. Yes. She’d be fine.
Utilizing her staff to take some weight, Hy grinned. “Not too bad.” She remarked. “But you’re going to need to do better.”
Maybe she could goad the senshi into making a mistake.
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 6:40 pm
Chrysocolla spent a lot of time in a stormy mood these days, off on her own, and this fight wasn’t exactly helping that. Actually, okay, it kind of was, but that was mostly because for once she got to fight someone who didn’t have stupid stupid ranged magic; most of the time she was a melee fighter who just happened to have magic, and sometimes that magic was useful, but usually it wasn’t worth much. Against someone who also didn’t have any ranged options, it was a frustrating -- but not unfair -- fight.
It was unfair in the sense that Chrysocolla wasn’t winning, actually, but she wasn’t going to bring that up, because then she’d sound like she was fifteen and petulant and she didn’t need that in her life.
She pulled one gloved hand up and pushed hair out of her face, where it’d fully started hanging in front of her eyes after that last back-and-forth, and huffed in frustration. “We can’t all get actual weapons, okay.” (Chrysocolla would be frustrated on this point until maybe the day she died. In some other world she’d been born a Knight and made an Officer by force, and she figured she was probably a lot more effective in that one!) That stupid staff had left marks she could practically feel already bruising -- but it was cold enough out to wear long sleeves, and it wasn’t like she had a lot of people staring at her arms as a civilian anyways. “Unless you want to hand it over.”
Not that the Knight would do that. Not that, if she did, Chrysocolla even knew how to fight with a staff. Not that she wouldn’t break it over her knee, and then probably watch it be resummoned good as new, or something, whatever Knights did with their weapons.
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 6:58 pm
“Mmm…No, I don’t think I will.” She responded as she moved the weapon from one hand to the other. The chain of the incense burner swung back and forth with the movement while a thin whisp of smoke trailed out of the silver-metal burner. The strong scent of sandalwood tickled the Knight’s nose with it’s familiarity.
“Perhaps you should go running to your higher ups and whine to them about fairness. I am sure your General King Faustite will be happy to hear you go off about what’s fair and what isn’t in this war.” Cause that burning boy certainly was packing far too much fire-power in Hy-Brasil’s personal opinion. That was certainly an unfair advantage along with that nasty-a** weapon of his.
With that, Hy pushed into the fight again. Grabbing hold of her weapons chain she pulled it tight against the wood as she swung the bottom half of the staff at the senshi’s head. After all, she hadn’t come out here to have a pleasant little chit-chat. Unless of course the woman wanted to talk purification, but considering how quickly and willingly she jumped into a fight, Hy-Brasil felt it was safe to assume that that wasn’t the case.
Not everyone could or wanted to be saved from corruption. Sadly enough, it seemed they were more interested in staying than leaving. Their reasons didn’t particularly matter to the Knight. If there was a will there could be a way found.
At least Hy was getting her exercise in for the day.
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 6:59 pm
Chrysocolla took a deep breath. Let it out. Then she did it a second time, because she could feel her eye twitching, and that was never a good sign. It distracted her enough that she barely avoided the Knight’s swing in full, the wood leaving a red mark on her face which... probably wouldn’t bruise? She didn’t think it would bruise. That was what concealer was for, and foundation, and she definitely still had enough left of both to cover up the mark that might leave.
“The only time I would be running towards Faustite,” she said, and it was as pleasant as she could manage considering the voice was coming from somewhere deep in her chest, something viscerally furious, “is to push him into the road, so he gets run over by a bus.” Chrysocolla knew exactly what feeling this was, and she knew what color it corresponded to in her eyes: livid neon red, as bright as those ruby facets could manage. It would’ve been a better use of time to start swinging again, to grab for the weapon as leverage -- but if there was one thing she wasn’t going to tolerate being said about her, it was even implying she’d do anything for him without being held at gunpoint.
“If things were fair, he’d be dead in a ditch or something and I’d be General-Queen. He doesn’t deserve any of it! He’s not worth it! But instead I don’t get anything,” and maybe she was being a little bit whiny, but she thought she was probably allowed, “besides ignored.” Just another good soldier. Just another body in the dark. Maybe if she was lucky, she’d look Laurelite in the eyes once a year, and she wouldn’t get anything more. She didn’t really have the head to run ops, she picked and chose her subordinates really sparingly, and without any ranged magic she’d get run off the battlefield by half her opponents at her power level. It was frustrating!
She’d been the favorite. She was supposed to be the one doing well for herself. Instead she’d gotten -- this, and it’d been okay right up until Faustite had gotten a promotion, at which point she’d gone through all five stages of grief in about two hours and had been seething about it ever since. Actually, forget it, what did some Knight care? It wasn’t like she’d go report Chrysocolla to Faustite for subordination. She might actually be good for -- focus. Focus on that one visceral, bone-deep point of rage. “I was the favorite,” Chrysocolla said, and if words could kill someone in Team Faustite probably would’ve dropped dead on the spot wherever they were.
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:02 pm
The first of the remarks illicit a raised brow from the Knight. It seemed there was some distaste for the half-youma General King among the ranks. Hy would be lying if she said she fully understood the ins and outs of the Negaverse’s system and who was expected to fall in line with whom, but this little tid-bit of information was good to know.
And then the corrupt just kept…going. Hy-Brasil didn’t even need to work for the continued information practically being spat at her. It seemed she certainly had hit a raw nerve with her off-handed comment.
Was it jealousy or…
Ah. Yes. Definitely some jealousy. Jealousy and a bit more perhaps?
“Hmmmm…” She remarked as she bounced back, giving them a bit of breathing room again. The chain of her burner let go. The burner left to swing haphazardly from the weapon poised just in front of her body still clutched within both of her hands. “Was being the keyword in there.” Hy shrugged slightly. “Almost sounds like an ongoing quarrel between the two of you. What made him pull ahead of you in the end?” Her tone wasn't mockery. Instead it was point-blank as she made assumptions. Goaded gently for answers.
“What has he done that you haven’t? You certainly seem to be…enthusiastic…in your work. Or perhaps you can go no further.” To be honest, it was a fair assessment. Hy had yet to meet a royal corrupt. Could they even exist? Perhaps the woman in front of her had hit the peak of her power available to her in the Negaverse? Of course, who was to say there wasn’t one that just kept their head low. Hy certainly hadn’t any notion that she’d had the ‘pleasure’ of meeting all of the higher-ups.
“I mean, when it all comes down to it, Faustite is someone you must take orders from, no? At least…when he’s around.” Another little poke.
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:05 pm
"I'd rather chew glass." Four words, said with as much poison and vitriol as Chrysocolla's voice could physically manage. It was going to be too much information given to an enemy, she already knew that -- but it wasn't like she had anyone else she could talk to anymore, and she wasn't going to vent to her subordinates, who she used on a need-to-know basis.
She wasn't going to talk to Kerberos about work. And Nectaris didn't remember her, and Nectaris had also let a Princess out once, so she would've been a no-go anyway. And Amphitrite hadn't sent her a letter or an email or anything in... years. And she couldn't coach the whole thing in civilian terms, because then it would be some other scenario. So these feelings had just kept festering and rotting all this time, carried over from when they'd started, and objectively it was probably bad for her but she'd rather die mad about it than give it up.
Okay, as part of SpecOps, she did have to talk to a therapist -- and she did! But she'd downplayed it. Yes, she was frustrated, she didn't like him, but she could work around it. Just grudges. Just stupid teenage grudges. She was a good enough liar that if she'd gotten clocked on that one, there hadn't been any consequences yet. And it wasn't really like this information right now was going to reveal any of her hidden vulnerabilities, so it was fine, kind of, sort of.
"...I, um, mentored him when he was a Lieutenant. Back when he was human. I tried to help when it happened." Looking back, Chrysocolla semi-regularly thought, she really should've just killed Faustite then and saved herself a lot of trouble. "I wanted us to get better, so I put us both under a General, and -- she liked me. He was scum," it was dismissive, "but I was one of her favorites." She said it in the way some people reminisced about being teacher's pets, or maybe the way other people reminisced about old flames. "She was what the Negaverse should be. And she was incredible, but -- she's dead now."
(Maybe Schörl wasn't dead. Maybe she was. Probably she was at a branch office in Europe and doing good work there. But 'gone' would probably make this Knight think 'turned traitor', and that was wrong, so dead it was.)
Chrysocolla started to pace, at that point. "...then I left for a couple of years." For Negaverse stuff, her tone implied. "I came back and he had a whole huge team. People who thought anything he said was worth anything. Who were in love with him." And she was back to unmitigated, acidic vitriol. Who'd fall in love with a worm like him? Especially when she was, a little bitterly, still single. Not that she was going to ******** her underlings, it didn't really interest her, but... "I don't lead ops, because I know I don't have the head for it. But he doesn't either! I was always better than him at everything. He just gets better results because he can set people on fire, where I have to do all my stuff by hand, because my magic doesn't even hurt." That world where she was an officer with a weapon was sounding really good as a daydream again!
"And -- nobody ever gets promoted, ever, and he did, and it's --" Chrysocolla stopped pacing, abruptly. She wanted to say not fair so, so badly. It was so childish but it was right, it was true, it wasn't fair and she wanted to stomp and scream about it. But she needed to look like she was someone worth respecting, so she didn't -- "if they gave me a chance I'd be a halfway ******** competent General-Queen compared to him, especially because I'm actually a person -- but Metallia made a mistake. He doesn't deserve any of it. Not the people, not the team, not the power, nothing."
She was certain -- so certain -- that a Negaverse Princess was possible. Cybele had been a Negaverse Senshi, before she'd turned traitor, and Chrysocolla had seen that woman transform into a Princess with Faustite's hand on her starseed. So the potential had to have been there before, right? It had to be possible. And if Hessonite or Laurelite or someone would give her directions, lead her along the way, she could do it, because she was really good at following orders!
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:10 pm
Well. Hy couldn’t say the corrupt was passionate in her views. The woman looked downright ready to have a full on revolt at the mere idea of taking orders from Faustite. It was incredibly interesting to the Knight. She knew enough about the Negaverse to know that rank and file was important. It was the main base of structure for the faction and to hear someone ready to break that structure over a dislike in commanding officers was intriguing. There was a curiosity to how far this could all possibly go.
And Chrysacolla was willing to dive deeper. “So, this General saw you and him for how worthy you both were or weren’t in his case. But her death changed things.” It was a simple story. Something shallow and to the point on the corrupts side. Hy-Basil was sure that had to be more to it but she also didn’t want or need a full sit-down explanation of what exactly had gone on. Easy enough to just connect some points. Jealousy and feeling slighted was the over-ruling feeling here. The woman went from teacher’s pet to just another every-day person. A gifted child thrown to the side for someone she felt was less than capable.
“You’re right though. He certainly isn’t a full-fledge person anymore.” It may be rude or insensitive to say, but it was the truth. The boy General King was on fire for goodness sake. His whole internal workings were stoked by flame instead of intestines. It was probably safe to say it was the energy and magic of youma to kept him moving. Otherwise he’d be 6 feet under. “Th fact that anyone could love him though…” She let that sentence fall away because the thought that someone, anyone would find comfort in that hot, fire and metal body was beyond her. He may be capable in some way or another to have a team and garner a promotion but to be loved? It was like some bizarre beauty and beast story.
“You need to take a stand. Show them what you can do.” She shrugged. “Undermine him if you can. Prove that you were…are the better choice.” Was it possible to throw a wrench into the machine? Mess up a cog and disrupt the flow of the machine? Perhaps! It was certainly worth it to feed this woman. See what the corrupt was willing to do and give for the ambitions she was so certain were deserved.
“Some people break under pressure after all.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:13 pm
If she hadn’t been wearing gloves, the way Chrysocolla was digging her nails into her palms would’ve probably drawn blood, or at least left scratches. “It’s a whole harem. It’s gross. If I do anything openly, though, I’ll be actively trying to undermine a General-Sovereign, and people will think I’m disloyal -” which did make her look genuinely dismayed, she might’ve been a lot of things but she wasn’t a traitor - “and if he found out he could also set me on fire.” There she just frowned. “Which would probably kill me.”
The woman heaved a sigh, shaking her head. “They don’t, um, take back promotions. It’d be nice if they did, but... even if they did it years and years ago? They don’t do it anymore.” There were so many Generals Chrysocolla wanted to take by the lapels and shake wildly, and people either turned traitor as fresh Lieutenants or as experienced Generals, there wasn’t really any inbetween in her experience. And Vitriol, or whatever name he had these days; if she remembered right he’d been a General, once, but by the time she’d met him he’d been weaker. “So there’s not a lot I can do about him, specifically.”
A beat.
She blinked. Wait a moment. Maybe there wasn’t a lot she could do about Faustite, but... people went missing all the time.
“And there’s not a lot I can do about his team. But if someone like you knew where they’d be...”
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:14 pm
The senshi was going on and on. It took will-power for the Knight not to want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her demanding she just get to the point. But, this wasn't a situation she could just fight her way through. To top it off, it was a risk. A large one. But, if she could make trouble for one very specific General sovereign it would be worth all of this trouble.
She forced a smile. “We can't have you being roasted by that fire child.” Hy continued to stroke the woman's ego as she leaned against her staff.
And then the opening appeared and Hy practically launched herself at it. “I'd be happy to scratch your back if you scratch mine. It's clear we have a similar problem we'd like to take care of.
“Do you have something in mind?”
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:15 pm
”One of his,” she grimaced, “boys, Sailor Heliodor... we worked together a while ago. I know who he is out of uniform, and I think he trusts me.” If nothing else, Heliodor shouldn’t have any reason to distrust her; she’d tried to be so careful not to let her hatred of Faustite leak out into her actions, into anything she ever said to anyone who could report it back.
“I can give you his name, he’s pretty easy to look up, but I need some guarantee you won’t immediately report me to the Negaverse as soon as I tell you. It’d look like treason.” As far as Chrysocolla was concerned, it wasn’t, because she was doing this for a very simple reason: Faustite wasn’t fit to be a General-King, and he didn’t deserve anything he had, and she needed to make sure it hurt. But nobody else was going to see it that way.
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:53 pm
Oh ho! Now they were getting into the meat of the conversation and the top reason she had halted her forward attack to actually speak to a chaos oriented senshi. To think the corrupt was willing to throw one of her own to the mercy of order? Hy couldn’t help but believe this was yet another reason why the negaverse was such a poor, cult-esque group. Care for others was thrown to the way-side for personal gain.
“Report you?” She couldn’t hold back her incredulous laugh. “I gain absolutely nothing in doing that. An besides, just dangling the offer in front of my face I would imagine would be enough to gain someone’s attention if I felt like telling them about you. But no. I won’t utter a word about you. For all they’ll know, I found his identity in some other manner.
“Do you require more than that? Think of the pain you’ll cause that damned fire General if I got my hands on one of his. b*****d has been a thorn in my side for awhile.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 7:56 pm
Chrysocolla folded her arms across her chest and huffed a little, but she didn’t have any intention of pushing that front further or giving Hy-Brasil any ideas she might not already have. If the idea of reporting Chrys to the Negaverse, two birds, one stone, seemed stupid and ridiculous? Good. That was safe.
“If you’re bringing other people into it, don’t tell them about me. But I don’t care who you involve.” The other woman could fill a squad entirely with traitors, for all Chrysocolla would care. It’d be out of her hands at that point. (And the less she knew about any traitors out there, the better for them it was. Corruption or death was an always-applicable choice to offer people, no matter how much of stupid little turncoats they’d proven themselves to already be. Sometimes lost memories helped with fixing that.)
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 8:00 pm
”Easy enough. No one will know who dropped me the information. I’ll just say an informant of mine and live with the fact that I don’t want to possibly ruin said informants information. It’s not hard for someone to assume that I’d want to keep identity’s secret if there’s a chance I’ll get more out of them.” She leaned against her staff. The censor’s sandalwood scented smoke filling her nose and the air around her helping to soothe anxious energy. Hy was ready for this whole conversation to end, but damn if she didn’t want the information being dangled in front of her like a carrot on a stick.
She huffed. “Alright. So let’s get to the meat of this. What’s his name? Of course, I’ll have go out and do my own bit of investigating to make sure your information is legitimate. Can’t be going and ambushing people and them not being the correct target after all. But, with his name, making certain you are telling the truth shouldn’t be all that hard.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 8:01 pm
Chrysocolla took a second. Then she pulled a notepad and pen out of her subspace and wrote something down before offering the page to Hy-Brasil. In a fairly generic-looking block print that lapsed into cursive once or twice, in black pen, it read:
Aelius Drayson
Heliodor of Ryuto
“So you don’t have to ask me again.” She didn’t remember what his name had been before he’d been Heliodor, but she was pretty sure it probably didn’t matter; her old name barely meant anything, at least. “His social media is pretty public? So he shouldn’t be hard.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 8:04 pm
Hy took the paper with obvious interest but didn't take her eyes off of Chrysacolla during the exchange. Even if she was being offered free information, actually BECAUSE the information was so readily being given, she remained wary. There was no telling if there was something else going on in the background that she was missing.
Her thumb slid over the paper, crinkling it slightly, as she stepped back, putting a comfortable distance between them again, before she lifted the sheet and scanned the name. “Aelius Drayson.”
It wasn't familiar to her, but some searching online would likely get her some good ideas of who this man was.
“Well, I have some work to do now.” She didn't smile at the woman as she carefully folded up the damning evidence of one Destiny City individual before tucking it securely into her bodice. Putting it into subspace was too great a risk it would get lost amongst other supplies in there. Instead she offered a smirk and a mixing salute.
“Can't say it's been a pleasure, but it's certainly been Informational.”
It was only then that Hy turned her back on Chrysacolla to depart, but remained alert until she finally could no longer feel the corrupt’s signature.
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