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Snowy Showdown (16) : There’s something magical about fresh fallen snow–completely undisturbed and untouched by the rest of the world. It should be relaxing and peaceful–a sign that no one has been around and you’re perfectly safe. Except, the best predators lie in wait, completely invisible to their prey. What do you do when a patch of snow starts clumping together and taking shape right before your eyes? When it all comes together, it looks like a person, only there are no features, just a snowy white form. Maybe there wouldn’t have been an issue if you hadn’t seen it, but it’s too late. In frantic, panicked movements, it lunges at you with icy fists. It feels like being pelted with snowballs, but each hit lowers your core body temperature–rapidly.
The creature is highly susceptible to heat and will melt if exposed to it; if you hit it, snow splatters everywhere. It may attempt to reform, but eventually it loses strength. You might not want to stick around to see if it just needs a little more time. If the creature manages to knock you unconscious, you may wake up covered in snow and with a bad cold. You may be more aware of strange, snowy figures that seem to be standing around in odd places; who knows where these things are hiding?
The creature is highly susceptible to heat and will melt if exposed to it; if you hit it, snow splatters everywhere. It may attempt to reform, but eventually it loses strength. You might not want to stick around to see if it just needs a little more time. If the creature manages to knock you unconscious, you may wake up covered in snow and with a bad cold. You may be more aware of strange, snowy figures that seem to be standing around in odd places; who knows where these things are hiding?
Winter should have made it more difficult to find potential energy donors, and yet, Cryptomelane didn’t find himself struggling much with that. Plenty of people seemingly wanted to celebrate the winter holidays by getting out and about. Made it perfectly easy to find people.
From the shadows of some Destiny City park or other, waiting with Ympe and surrounded on all sides by freshly fallen snow, Cryptomelane had an easy enough time of draining off pairs of people without taking so much that they might get suspicious. Sure, they might have felt more sluggish and exhausted, but who didn’t feel that way during the winter holidays? As Preston, Cryptomelane didn’t even have anybody to impress or any engagements to keep up with, but he’d still worn himself down.
(Maybe he didn’t have anyone to impress, but Cryptomelane had, rather abruptly, found himself with two people he wanted to do right by, somehow. Brassite had been a bit of a struggle to find something for, with Preston……really not understanding what teenagers were into in general, and being quite a bit different in his own interests from America. He’d eventually settled on getting her a brightly colored planner that promised 365 days of girlboss motivation and a little cake that she didn’t need to share with anybody. Not the most expertly made cake, but Preston had tried his best.
Lucette, on the other hand, had gotten a box of tiny cakes. Again, not the most expertly made, but they’d been assembled with heart and care. Accompanying the gift had been a tarot deck that had turned up in stock at Lavender Haze, featuring black and white illustrations that, in their stylings, fell somewhere between Gothic and Noir.)
For his own part, Ympe had mostly gotten starseeds, which seemed to be one of his primary interests. Indeed, right now, in the middle of their draining adventure, Ympe tugged on Cryptomelane’s trouser leg. “Melly,” he hissed. “Mellyyyyy~! Hey, Melly!! Are we gonna steal any munchy-munchies? Draining’s great and all, but we oughta steal some munchy-munchies!!!”
Cryptomelane hummed, but before he could answer, he felt the unmistakable flare of an Order aura that matched his own. “Patience,” he told Ympe gently. “None of these civilians are Knights or senshi, not that we can see. But one of those might be coming around the corner.……”
Noir Songbird
