Poultrygeist (15) : As Destiny City is a bustling metropolis, it’s not unexpected that there should be some strange animals running the streets. Sometimes it’s a tiger, sometimes a monkey, sometimes a chicken. Sometimes it’s something worse. Strange egg clusters have appeared in Destiny City’s parks and officials aren’t really sure what they are; these eggs have nothing inside of them. Though it’s an anomaly, they are chalking it up to teenaged pranks. However, they have advised to just leave the eggs as they are. Nobody wants to say why, but if you’re out late at night, you’ll find out. In the darkness, whispered between the sounds of the city: a guttural, rasping cluck. The creature stands on stilt-like legs, rooted to the ground with razor-sharp talons. It wears a cloak of long, oily feathers that drag on the ground with a sinister scraping. If you stare into the darkness, piercing red eyes stare back at you. That’s all it takes for a confrontation: a mangled bird, maybe a chicken in another life, comes barreling out at you. It stands easily as tall as a person, but the proportions are all wrong. The smell of sulfur follows it as it lunges, pecking and screaming and scratching as it attempts to chase you away. Maybe, from the nests full of empty eggs. The battles are fierce, but fleeting; it will viciously try to chase you away but the effects are always the same: at some point, the eggs are crushed. As always, there’s nothing inside of them, but with one final wail, the bird will vanish into a plume of foul smoke.
Industria was well aware that she was lucky, given that she got to do things like "wander around Destiny City on a beautiful summer evening with Cryptomelane at her side." She hadn't realized how lucky she'd been a year ago, when she ran into him for the first time; it had been such a silly little moment, but it had grown, into something...remarkable.
She was young, she knew, and not exactly experienced in relationships, but Cryptomelane was...unique. Others perhaps saw him as unpleasant or awkward, but Industria herself was not the most socially adept, and in ay case,t hey seemed to understand each other well enough.
And beyond that, Cryptomelane--Preston--hand introduced her to a whole new world, quite literally. A magical one, opening her eyes to the truths that she had only scratched the surface of before.
She had seen the end of the world, nearly. And had come back from it amazed and enlightened.
And now she got to see even more.
They had a quiet night so far, together; she had insisted on going with him a little more often to help him and watch his back after his squabble with a Transcended Eternal over starseeds; Industria had not held back about expressing that she found that kind of behavior worrisome, and given that her magic gave him a boost in clarity of thought, it seemed that she was well equipped to keep an extra eye on him. Nothing so spectacular tonight--until she noticed something odd tucked into a corner next to the stairs up tot he front door of the building they were walking by.
"Is that...a nest?" She asked, aloud, to get Cryptomelane's attention before she moved over to look at them. Curiously, it did seem to be a bird's nest, with eggs and all, but completely out of place here. There weren't any others, and these looked more....chicken-y than pigeon-y or songbird-y.
How fascinating. She remembered, briefly, that she'd seen stories online of people encountering strange eggs and that they were best left alone given that they had a very angry guardian, but...well, she couldn't help herself. And besides, between her and Cryptomelane, they surely had the ability to handle whatever came at them.
"Darling," she said, leaning down to get a closer look at the strange eggs, "come and see. I wonder how these got here."
Amor Remanet
Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2025 8:52 pm
Inexperience with relationships wasn’t something unique to Industria. While he hadn’t explained everything that had fed into his own inexperience, Cryptomelane remained more than slightly behind the curve, relative to where he understood most people his age to be. Why he clicked so well with Industria, he couldn’t really explain, but he treasured that connection regardless of his inability to put words on the nature of it beyond simple things like “she’s my girlfriend” and “other people don’t understand either of us.”
But—ultimately, did the words matter as much as the material, lived significance? Cryptomelane didn’t think so.
That they’d gone out to patrol together tonight, he did wish they’d agreed on under different circumstances. Ideally, something that hadn’t involved Cryptomelane giving Industria such cause for worry. Looking back on the experience, he didn’t entirely know what he’d allowed to get into him? The flow of events felt logical enough: he’d been stealing starseeds. Some boy had shown up, saying……well, he’d been speaking ASL, and could have been saying anything, Cryptomelane knew not an ounce of ASL. But the most important thing was that he could have been a witness and Caused Problems for Cryptomelane, and so, he forfeited his starseed (admittedly without consenting to the process). Or it should have worked out that way, until the interloping eternal senshi had shown up, an irritating White Moon do-gooder with the glowing marks of Transcendence, apparently incapable of minding their own business.
And then Cryptomelane’s memory of his own emotions got……fuzzy. In the aftermath of it all, he could admit that taking on a fight with someone so much more powerful and more experienced than himself hadn’t been his best idea. Even the rush of extra power from one of the starseeds he’d stolen hadn’t helped him. Yet, it hadn’t felt right to simply back down, to yield in the face of a challenge from someone who presumed their own inherent superiority. Never mind someone who had, in seeking to dominate Cryptomelane, reminded him so unavoidably of Brother Horace.
The Negaverse infirmary had handled the plasma burns, though, so in the long run, everything had worked out fine.
Regardless, Cryptomelane could hardly begrudge Industria her desire to look out for him, and she did provide a moderating influence through her very presence. Her magic was likely to do the same, should they have encountered trouble—but instead, they encountered eggs. With a pensive hum, he moved to join her, crouching beside the nest and peering down at them but not reaching out to touch. He hadn’t heard any stories of the monster associated with these nests on the Internet, but rather overheard them around the castle in Negaspace, or in the locker room at the gym. Destiny City harbored such strange occurrences, sometimes, and the Department of Parks and Recreation had acknowledged this one openly, so nobody could worry too much about sounding insane for relating tales of tumultuous encounters with the thing attached to these eggs.
“The creatures placing these things around may be growing over-bold,” Cryptomelane said, looking up from the nest, first at Industria, then over his shoulder. “If there were a park across the street, I would suggest that it might have blown here in a storm, or gotten moved by some teenagers who thought themselves clever. But for them to be here, in the middle of a street…… Even with some birds building their nests around urban architecture, all the reports about clusters such as this have specifically been in parks. Perhaps the creatures have not been met with enough resistance.”
In a nearby alley, Cryptomelane made out the sound of something scraping against debris and concrete. He dismissed any thought of them, however, and focused on the eggs.
Industria made a thoughtful little noise. "Getting far too comfortable for a species that has been noted to be aggressive, I think. Perhaps we would do the city a service by clearing them." And wasn't that part of their job, too? The Negaverse was supposed to protect the planet, and one could absolutely stretch that definition to include "handling invasive species." Probably.
Industria was flexible. It was one of her many talents.
She dismissed the scraping sound at first--there were many things it might be, in the middle of the night. That was, perhaps, a mistake.
Because, out of the darkness, something came charging.
Industria's first instinct was to grab Cryptomelane's arm and pull him away, to get them out of the path of the rampaging...
"Is that a chicken?"
Amor Remanet
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2025 2:14 am
Even as the scraping sound grew nearer, Cryptomelane remained quite focused on Industria. This was, he felt quite certain, only the Good And Correct way to treat one’s lady while she was speaking. Hanging on her every word and giving them the careful consideration that Industria deserved, taking a moment to think about her suggestions and how he wanted to reply to them (in the positive, because she was entirely correct).
He didn’t get to start that agreement, though. Too soon, she was tugging him to his feet, then back away from some……creature.
“Chicken demon, perhaps,” Cryptomelane said, calling his flail to hand and readying it for use against the wretched thing. The beast was too tall to be a chicken, and the proportions were all wrong. On top of that— “It reeks of sulfur. Unless it’s been allowing its own eggs to rot and then bathing in them……?”
Unfortunately, the most sensible explanation was not one that Cryptomelane wanted to give any serious consideration. Doing that might have lent more credence to the things that his brother had raised him to believe, and so help him, Brother Horace was not allowed to win like that. Neither, for that matter, was this inexplicable chicken-demon. Whatever it was, it defied all semblance of logic that Cryptomelane wanted to acknowledge as valid. Therefore, it had no right to continue existing in this world.
Even so, as he stepped forward, placing himself between Industria and the chicken-demon, Cryptomelane hesitated, thinking about the stories he’d heard of this beast. Staring him down with its hideous red eyes, it unleashed a guttural sound that might have been a cluck, if one allowed oneself a fairly liberal definition of that word. Industria was out with him tonight primarily to keep an eye on him and prevent him from doing anything too risky, too dangerous to his own wellbeing. Running headlong into a fight with a mostly unknown opponent seemed a poor way to repay her concern.
“Exactly how aggressive has the Internet made this beast seem,” he whispered. “Or did any of them suggest a means of ending this quickly?”
A demon chicken. Lovely. Yes, that did seem to fit the creature before them. Industria moved, ever so slightly behind Cryptomelane; it simply seemed the prudent idea to let the man with the weapon be betwene her and the homicidal bird that clearly had designs on biting and, if not killing, perhaps at least maiming.
"Thoroughly aggressive," she said, "and eager to defend its....nest..." She thought, for a moment, trying to recall anything she'd read, but infuriatingly, she could only come up with bits and pieces. Not helpful, when the creature looked ready to charge them.
"I think...something about the eggs? Spirit of Invention," she said, frowning. Her magic might help her clear her mind, and indeed, it did sort of resettle her train of thought. "Yes, I think the eggs are the key," which was hopefully timely, as the chicken had started to charge them.
Amor Remanet
Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2025 3:14 am
The demon chicken definitely had hatred and malice in its eyes. But Industria had her magic, and even without it, her brilliant mind. Despite keeping his eyes on the beast, Cryptomelane listened intently to her thoughts—and not a moment too soon, she mentioned the eggs.
Moving quickly, he reached back. Pressed his flail into her hand. Ideally, she wouldn’t need it, but just in case, she would have it. Next, he rushed into the corner by the staircase. He made quick work of stomping all over the nest, crushing the eggs beneath his shoes. First, he noticed the lack of yolks or albumen smeared all over the pavement or his soles. There had really been nothing inside these eggs? What in creation……?
Turning around, he saw the demon chicken, frozen in place somewhat between himself and Industria, as though it couldn’t decide whom to run down. Black smoke, and a worsening stench of sulfur, started ebbing off its horrid body. The wail it unleashed made Cryptomelane’s skin crawl, but at least the demon chicken vanished after that, leaving behind only the smoke and the smell of sulfur.
Sighing, he returned to Industria’s side. “Are you alright,” he asked, gently brushing some of her hair off her face. “And regardless of the answer, could I tempt you away from a responsible patrol with another offer entirely? Tiny cakes, perhaps? I’d need to make them, but I would love to hear about what you’ve been reading or working on while I do?”
Industria gripped the flail in her hands, squaring her stance and preparing to swing at the monster if it attacked her. But ti seemed confused, with two targets, like it couldn't decide who to charge--and before it could, Cryptomelane had succinctly handled the problem and it was gone, in a poof of vile-smelling smoke.
When Cryptomelane came over to her, she offered him his flail and a soft, fond smile.
"Well done, darling," she said. "I'm fine, you took care of it before it could get to me. But I think hat sounds like a much nicer use of the rest of our evening." They had handled a threat to the city--or one of several threats of a similar kind--and that ought to be plenty.
They could take time off for something nice, after.
