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 Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 12:37 pm
Quote: Muri and Joy also join in later! Strictly speaking, Lete should have been powered down as Gabi, back at home (whether that meant her and Leandro’s apartment, or at her parents’ place with them, her sisters, and whoever else from the extended family felt like coming over right now). She should have been there—and yet, after Christmas Eve dinner had wrapped and a lot of people had gone down for post-meal naps, Gabi had wanted to be pretty much anywhere else. Mira, listen: who the Hell wanted to hang out with a bunch of sleeping people, when the city had so much life to go around? And, more importantly, so much free drainable energy to very politely borrow and send to Mirrorspace like a magical Christmas donation. Hence, Lete. Honestly, she told herself as she hunted for somewhere to work, people probably would’ve been fine with donating their energy to Mirrorspace if you could explain it to them without sounding like a crazy person. Wasn’t it just like giving a dollar to the guys dressed up like Santa Claus and ringing bells outside the grocery and department stores? Y’know, if the Santa Claus guys in question instead wore a lavender-and-seafoam senshi fuku, then perched on the roof of a 7-11 with their Mirrorshards, watching people come and go from various holiday parties or last minute errands or whatever? And if the Santa Claus guys didn’t exactly ask first before taking someone’s dollars clean out of their pockets? Anyway, she was probably less likely to get interrupted tonight. Some of the people out and about tonight seemed Already Drunk, at least to Lete, and even though the ones coming in to buy Slurpees after dark on Christmas Eve were A Serious Mood, they existed in public, where her Mirrorwraiths could go borrow energy from them, so all of this was totally fair. Lete did pay slightly more attention than usual as she sent wraiths out tonight. But for one thing, the bar here was in Hell: Lete usually paid next to zero attention. For another, though, her “mindfulness” came from the need to be sure actual people were around more than having learned literally anything from all the Order folks who’d gotten upset with her for reading or playing her Switch while she worked. Sending a wraith down at no one would’ve been just silly. Hence, enough attention to pick out a mop of black hair and basically nothing else about the person attached to it before summoning up a wraith and directing it their way.
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 12:58 pm
A decade and some change ago, the person who was now Kay had been a dangerous target specifically because he did not look like one. He had broadcast an air of adorable naivete in or out of uniform, and generally managed to avoid dying by virtue of surrounding himself with strategically-chosen allies. Years had not been kind either to his looks or to his social circle. He looked - mostly - like the grown man he was as he weaved gently around the straight line he was attempting to cut down the sidewalk, with only a childish sort of vulnerability that made him look more detestable than anything, especially now, in the throes of Too Much Everything. There were no patient friends in nearby shadows waiting for the trap that was Himself to be sprung. He was in every maudlin sense of the word alone, and acutely aware of it, especially since he'd just disentangled himself from a pretty obvious opportunity to be otherwise. It felt depressingly banal and adult to charm a woman by letting her vent about her divorce. It had put a pallor over the entire evening, even when it worked. That had been hours ago, the pleasant parts lost to an intervening chemical haze and leaving only the figurative bad taste in his mouth. Kay knew better than most how dangerous it was to wander around without your wits about you after dark, but of late he was trading his usual paranoia for self-destructive recklessness, and therefore - distracted both by the lingering stabbing-chill pain in his side and the cold and the hum of his brain turning towards nausea and by how hard it was to manage a lighter with his hands cold and unsteady and for the love of God he had never been more tempted to cement the Sleaze vibes and take up vaping after all - he was not aware of danger until he had blundered more or less into it. Sluggishly, his neurons attempted to supply him with a rundown of the situation: he had not smiled at a stranger in at least a couple of blocks, he was already halfway to falling over, and he didn't even know with certainty what was happening to him. He knew the shape of it, though, fumbling backwards away from what he had not seen but had unmistakably felt in the form of his energy being sapped, and instinctively collapsing - almost literally - into the shape of a Page without much more to defend himself than Kay had had. (There was always that fear that would never leave him, and sometimes made him reckless. He could not remember - did not want to remember - what it had been like. But to this day if someone reached towards his chest, even a middling-pretty divorcee who apparently liked him, it took everything in him not to turn away in terror.) "One ******** night," he yelled to nothing and no one, feeling unusually belligerent and also vaguely thinking it might manifest an actual enemy and therefore let him know what direction to run in. "One ******** night where I get home without this s**t. Underhanded ********."
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 1:20 pm
For all she could’ve paid more attention to everything she was doing, one thing got Lete’s metaphorical ears to p***k right up. Namely: someone yelling about “underhanded ********> and an Order aura, flaring up on her senses where there hadn’t been one previously. ******** annoying, even if it was just a basic senshi or one of the dinky little baby Knights who only had those stupid junk toys instead of a proper weapon like a whip, or whatever fan-staff Lete had seen carried around by that self-righteous Saturn guy with the lemon-lime-lilac alien senshi boyfriend.
In her heart, Lete knew she was a good person who didn’t deserve this.
But hey, since they wanted to tussle, she popped out from behind the edge of the convenience store’s roof, giving them a clear look at her head. Frowning, she peered down at an assortment of earthy browns and golds that didn’t match any of the Knight flavors she’d encountered before, but also didn’t fit the overall look of another senshi. Maybe she should’ve, like, recognized the symbols on the Page’s uniform? Before the slutty, slutty traitor in the legs had betrayed the entire Court and gone running for the White Moon, he’d always had some ******** opinion or other about old alchemical symbols this, and White Moon princesses that, and Knight magic has observable trends, and you can better protect yourself if you pay attention.
Just thinking about Hybris’s favorite sellout whore was enough to get Lete not only peering over the roof, but sitting on the edge of it, right out in the open. Putting herself at the right-hand side of the glowing sign 7-ELEVEN sign, she crossed one leg over the other and tried to project a (non-magical) aura of being Very Mean And Intimidating. (Had she any capacity for evaluating herself from an outside perspective, she would’ve realized that she more closely resembled a child playing at being a badass, but self-reflection, perpetually, Was Not Lete’s Thing.)
“Eugh, I’m not underhanded,” Lete called down at Page Whatever-McNonsense of ********. “Do I look like Negaverse to you? ******** you too, guy!”
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 1:39 pm
"Yes," he spat. He looked even less intimidating than she did, truth be told, weaving on the spot in a somewhat concerning way. "All the same over there, aren't you? Can't even get your hands dirty about it."
In a wiser and less shadowy mood he might have simply turn and run, which was generally the advisable thing to do when facing an adversary unarmed. Instead - embittered by his own decisions which he was choosing to blame on everyone but himself - he bent down to pick up a random bottle on the sidewalk, hefting it in his hand and eyeing her as well as he could when his vision was a little blurry around the edges. Then again, it might as well end up taking out a window, and if he put out a window at her favorite 7-Eleven Elaine would never forgive him. Even less than she currently forgave him.
With the fear of God Joy in him, he hesitated. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of magic at his disposal? He fumbled around in his own head, looking for a thread to grab and pull that might, at the end of it, expose something useful. No - he wasn't one of the chosen few, plucked out of the Cauldron by horrible little paws and bound for immediate Greatness. He'd gotten plucked out of a birthday party by the less-than-stellar ingenuity of man, and this is all they'd gotten for their trouble: an out-of-shape hedonist with nothing useful in his hands but a bottle he wasn't even close enough to glass her with. Some people had all the luck, and yet, still, there they were, hanging back.
"That's the problem with you frilly-skirted ********," he said, answering his own extremely confused and self-contradictory train of thought. "Never willing to put in the hard work to help us out." No, wait. "Them."
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 2:26 pm
“Well, that’s just rude and ignorant!” Crossing her arms over her chest, Lete glowered down at the Knight who had the cheek, the nerve, the gall, the audacity, and the gumption to compare Lete (a good and sweet Dark Mirror senshi who had done nothing wrong ever in her life) (except for all the bullying and irresponsible use of her magic but God forbid Lete have hobbies) to somebody working for the Negaverse (sometimes okay enough on a one-to-one level but, like, also hella complicit in being part of an evil team with an evil ******** Chaos cannon???). “The Dark Mirror Court and the Negaverse are different, a*****e!” Bullying this middle-aged baby Knight was probably not the bravest or noblest thing that Lete could’ve been doing with her time. As she watched him stagger on the sidewalk and pick up a bottle so he could have something that approximated an actual weapon, something inside her recognized that picking on a wasted ******** was some weak b***h s**t. Like going to prison and trying to establish your credibility by picking on somebody who was already known to be everyone else’s punching bag. More importantly (to Lete personally), bullying this guy was the sort of thing that Demeter probably wouldn’t have been super-thrilled with their bunfriend doing to some soggy pathetic little man. But on the other hand, he’d been really rude and called Lete out specifically (and about not doing anything work-adjacent, at that). So, she raised a hand, aimed it in his direction, and began tracing it through the air as if brushing her fingers down someone’s cheek. “Oh, you wanna see hard work, huh,” she called back at him, summoning up her magic. “Try this on for size, then!” Rejam Enemies within a fifteen-foot radius feel something like a warm hand brushing down their cheeks, and then, the world around them seems to erupt in decadent sensation. For the duration of Lete’s attack, affected enemies are subjected to an onslaught of their five senses. Scents and tastes are more powerful, sounds seem louder, colors seem so vibrant that they might as well be alive, and anything that makes contact with their skin feels oppressively, suffocatingly heavy, as if the fabric of their outfit wants to choke them out or as if the slightest accidental touch should leave them with bruises. The initial rush of pleasure from these sensations turns to pain more quickly; such decadence excites the mind, but ultimately proves to be too much. While this sensory overload deals no physical damage and strong-willed enemies can power through it to act, for the duration of Lete’s magic, affected enemies will struggle to think of anything else but the overwhelm. This attack lasts for 35 seconds, and Lete may use it two times per battle. Any lingering effects of the sensory overload after the attack ends are up to individual players!
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 3:37 pm
Another thing that was familiar and unremembered.
Something was off, though: a scene that wanted a missing thing to complete it, in the same that one looked down at a sudden pain when handling a sharp object and expected the welling of blood that it was unnerving to be without. It wanted - some sort of noise, mostly - and people -
Maus stood, his swaying growing more pronounced, his jaw a little slack, and against the screaming of his hindbrain's warnings to move he gently and slowly closed his eyes, only to will the lids partly back up so that he could look at the transcendent beauty of LED lights behind plastic casing. Even Lete herself had an almost angelic look to her, and if there was still a reactive part of him that told him that angels were generally bad news, he couldn't hear it.
He took a fumbling step towards her, unsure even in the moment whether he moved at all, let alone if it was to attack her or to offer her up some word of worshipful gratitude. An especially large snowflake drifted in front of him, seeming lit from within, and he reached out towards it. The gloves seemed suddenly untenable, unreasonable - a cruel, oppressive barrier between himself and all the beautiful world around him - and he tried with fumbling hands to peel one off to catch that flake on a too-warm fingertip despite being somehow certain that the glittering edges of it would only slice him open like a tiny, glacial razor.
(From outside: a thunderstruck man weaving, stumbling, fumbling with his gloves, reaching towards what no one else could see.)
He fell to his knees without even realizing it beyond the shape of the world shifting around him as he did so, and for a moment he thought: I'll go back over. Nothing can be as bad as this is good. He even opened his mouth to offer it up to her for the taking, but in the same moment the cold air against his teeth was a jolt of agony.
For all the many varied turns of his moods over the years, remembered and forgotten - for all the self-destructive episodes, the depressive weeks, the doubt and guilt and trouble - the man that was now Maus had never quite taken on the opinion that he had seen in so many of the people around him. It was good to be alive, and he'd always thought so, which might have been why the guilt of robbing another person of that had been so particularly unavoidable for him. To see a bright light, to hear a distant laugh: these were Good, and it was Good to feel alive.
He had never been more alive than he was in this second. Maybe, he thought numbly in the part of his brain that could still think, no one had. Where he had been trying to form up something like a prayer to her, nothing came out by a choked sound of helpless agony. He had never understood how anyone could think it, but here he was, in the unfortunate grasp of realization: being alive was painful, in a way that nothing ever had been for him.
Except one thing. Somewhere in the onslaught he knew that although living was painful, dying was worse, and he knew that he knew it from something that came close to experience. His own hand felt like a hot branding iron pressed to his chest in some thoughtless move to protect what was within his ribs, and the other experienced an agony of cold as it fumbled in the sludgy snow to try and help him upright, failing miserably.
It would have been nice to throw off a snappy quip or one-liner. It was the sort of thing Sawyer and Bornite would have done in this situation, maybe; the verbal armor around a vulnerable boy who was now a vulnerable man and just as devoid of any other defenses.
"Stop," he said instead, a word swallowed up and almost inaudible.
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 4:54 pm
This, Lete thought with all the self-satisfied smugness of the knifecat meme, was the best part about Mirrorspace helping her sort out the weirdness that her magic had been on for a while after she’d Awakened. No longer could she punch herself in the face with her own attacks, which left her free to enjoy the effects they had on other people. Watching the dumb baby Knight fumble around brought a smile to her face like few other things were capable of. Maybe she didn’t have the same head for combat that smarter, more experienced people like Remarque did, but when she wanted to, Lete was fully capable of bringing bitches to their knees. Literally, even. This pathetic little baby Knight probably couldn’t do anything to her at all right now, or so Lete told herself as she slid herself off the roof. Landing delicately—a privilege afforded to everyone with magical powers in Destiny City, or so she’d gathered, as long as you didn’t try to jump from too high up like a dumbass—she smirked over at the would-be hero of the night. She smirked as she prowled closer, right over to his side, where he’d dropped to his knees. So sad that this guy seemed to have spirit but very little with which to back it up. Part of Lete thought that she could just leave, because arguably, he wasn’t worth the effort to bully when all the fight he seemed to have in him was talk. But on the other hand, the way he grabbed at his own chest seemed, to her, like a really silly gesture. Maybe she was reading the intention wrong? Still, she saw the opportunity to be right while somebody else was wrong, and that lured her in more effectively than a siren made of magnets. “You really don’t know anything, do you,” Lete deadpanned, not kicking while he was down but batting her boot at his chest like a kitten with some string. “Dark Mirror Senshi can’t steal starseeds, idiot. We aren’t monsters. Anyway, if you really want me to stop so badly?” She bent toward him, not all the way down to his level but close enough to tease. “Then why don’t you make me?”
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 6:36 pm
The world had something of the distant, buzzing quality that it might after a flashbang. The ground itself felt numb and alien; all the lights were too dim to see by, and Lete herself was only a shop window's glow haloing through dark hair, her face imperceptible. Move, repeated his hindbrain, but he ignored it, his eyes unfocused and gazing through her, his lips parted slightly around something that maybe, again, was going to try and be some snappy quip back at her and came out only as silence. In the way of an addict, he was already forgetting the crash, and for a moment he quailed, second-guessing himself as much from her assertion that she was not a monster as from a sudden reckless desire to get a repeat of the experience. But Kay knew better than almost anyone what it was to be a liar. What was it to him, if she couldn't reach into his chest herself? Every too-dark shadow in the reeling world was full of danger; the vast chasm of his slurried brain was full of conflicting motives. But he had spent a lot of time in his life fighting while he ought to be incapacitated. It was, if anything, more natural to him than fighting while fully operational. What his thoughts had forgotten his body remembered. He mumbled something, and maybe it was a little plaintive, a little pleading, for all that it was wordless. It formed itself a moment later into a faint, gentle, almost compliant murmur. "If you're going to hurt me," he said, "do it yourself." He hated cats, not least because of the way they acted on the mindless impulse of violence when confronted with something like a dangled string. So his attention, if not his eyes, was on that teasing boot, and equally without thinking he reached out - his arm moving with a speed that startled even himself - to grab her ankle and yank as hard as he could. He was already crawling to pin her before he even knew if it had worked - already moving to get the upper hand before he even knew if it was possible. A dim, hysterical part of him thought that at least if he was doing something to get himself killed, he'd get another few seconds of euphoria out of it. Absence had poured into him, leaving nothing where too much had been, and now something else was rising to fill it. He was not aware of it himself - did not feel the shape of himself changing. He was, even now, thinking to the bottle he'd dropped in that moment that the world became too close to him, unaware that in one hand the laughable trinket he'd been carrying was shaping itself into something more useful.
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 9:12 pm
There was a moment—a dazzling, warm, delightful moment—where Lete allowed herself to continue thinking that she had won. This guy was down. Pathetic seemed to be his most basic nature and that was a valid life choice in general, but right now, it had him in a distinctly inopportune position. Lete had this in the bag. Then, everything got yanked out from under her. Caught entirely off-guard, Lete went down with a very loud and equally undignified noise, somewhere between a squawk and a yelp. Stunned for a moment, she left him with ample time to crawl into place. And she squirmed—too many years spent as a youngest sibling-and-cousin to lay back and let this guy have his upper hand so easily; too many years spent learning that she couldn’t just let them win, couldn’t play by the rules all the time because they wouldn’t either—but as she felt his aura shifting, growing more powerful, her attempts at getting out from under her devolved into useless flailing and little else. Not ******** FAIR, she thought, watching his weird little mushroom start to shift as well. But—hey, she had magic, and he apparently didn’t like it much. Playing fairly was for suckers who couldn’t calm down their flailing enough, trace their hands down the outline of their opponent’s face, and hit him once more with the magic that Lete still didn’t understand Hybris enjoying so much, but she sure knew how to throw it at people who caused problems for her. Rejam Enemies within a fifteen-foot radius feel something like a warm hand brushing down their cheeks, and then, the world around them seems to erupt in decadent sensation. For the duration of Lete’s attack, affected enemies are subjected to an onslaught of their five senses. Scents and tastes are more powerful, sounds seem louder, colors seem so vibrant that they might as well be alive, and anything that makes contact with their skin feels oppressively, suffocatingly heavy, as if the fabric of their outfit wants to choke them out or as if the slightest accidental touch should leave them with bruises. The initial rush of pleasure from these sensations turns to pain more quickly; such decadence excites the mind, but ultimately proves to be too much. While this sensory overload deals no physical damage and strong-willed enemies can power through it to act, for the duration of Lete’s magic, affected enemies will struggle to think of anything else but the overwhelm. This attack lasts for 35 seconds, and Lete may use it two times per battle. Any lingering effects of the sensory overload after the attack ends are up to individual players!
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 9:27 pm
The window between pleasure and pain was much shorter this time - this, too, the experience of the addict - but still open long enough for him to realize that he was on top of her and to throw a punch with the entire weight of an arm that had thrown many, many drunken punches over the years and which felt stronger than it ever had. The expected rain of blows did not ensue, caught up as he was first in going, again, slack and swaying - and then tense as the world and existing in it became, again, unbearable. He scrabbled ineffectually to try and get a hand around her throat, unable to control his own limbs through the haze of oppressive sensation and pain, and finally - with a supreme effort and motivated entirely by thoughtless instinct - he managed to swing the weight that was suddenly in his other hand, slamming it against the pavement. There was an almost-cartoonish little thump sound, and a little cloud of motes swirling up from the contact. The world, constricting to suffocating nearness, now had a smell in it to go with everything else, and he fell away from her - not to spare her from his sudden retching, but because the pain of doing so in his current state made it impossible to stay upright. Quote: A pouch of what looks like mushrooms, with a wrist strap. The mushrooms are not edible, or in fact real mushrooms. Smacking the pouch against someone or something releases a cloud of naturally toxic spores while he is channeling his magic. Hostile characters in a 10 foot radius are subjected to intense nausea as well as visual and auditory hallucinations similar to a bad trip, and may specifically imagine that any signs of nature nearby, be it plants or animals, are suddenly sinister or dangerous. Sawyer can channel for approximately 35 seconds at this stage. aka: you give him a bad trip, get a bad trip in return u_u
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Posted: Wed Dec 24, 2025 11:31 pm
The hands grabbing for Lete’s neck? Ew. Yuck. She hated this for herself. But her attempts at beating them away largely went nowhere. Despite her clearheadedness—or perhaps because of it, considering the current state she’d inflicted on the man she was fighting—she couldn’t find his hands with her own. His arms didn’t connect with her neck, but they also wove around her own arms. Snarling, she tried harder to get his hands, which mostly led to Lete zigging when the Page zagged—or Squire now, she guessed, because apparently, they could level up in the middle of a fight—and missing the mark quite widely. That the punch connected made her face burn so hot with shame, she almost missed what came for her next. Only almost, though. She hadn’t been aware of any squirrels or opossums around here right now. But once Lete inhaled the little cloud that had come up from the Squire’s bag, she became suddenly, violently aware that so. many. little animals were in the nearby alley, digging through the garbage. Likewise, they were all over the trees that lined this street. Trying to scrabble away from the Squire and his puke-bomb, Lete looked up, eyes darting across several of the leafless trees. And no, she couldn’t see the squirrels, but she could feel them. Could feel their black, soulless eyes, right out there in the darkness, staring at her with cold malice. “What the ********> Lete wailed, shrimping up around herself as though that might protect her from the <******** murder squirrels that were waiting everywhere, probably getting ready to assault her with their nuts. “What the ******** what the ******** make them go awaaaaay……” For his own part, Murikabushi didn’t plan to be out for very long. Christmas Eve at home was looking to be pretty low-key. Elior and Asher had provided all their housemates with food for all eight nights of Hanukkah (while Kiyoshi had provided eight cute looks, still being banned from doing very much in the kitchen for everyone’s safety), so nobody really needed another huge celebratory meal right now. Still, the family—meaning, Kiyoshi’s parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, cousins, and godfathers—were coming over tomorrow, and then there’d be the big winter holiday spectacular at Scandals on Friday night. So, Kiyoshi didn’t want to lose too many hours of sleep, powering up and chasing magical girl nonsense all over town, or wandering into another hostage situation, or whatever Destiny City felt like throwing at him. But one of his housemates (Grieve) had a habit of paying the 7-11 guy with dead squirrels, dead opossums, and dead birds more often than money ( Grieve). ………Strictly speaking, Murikabushi was pretty sure that Grieve didn’t use modern human money very much at all. And, well, somebody should go pay the poor 7-11 guy back, hence him powering up and heading in the direction of the specific 7-11 that it seemed powered folks in town really liked (Albite had also spoken well of it, and Kaifeng had mentioned his own “tab with the 7-11 guy thanks to an alien housemate” situation, though all that with Thalassa sounded significantly messier and more volatile than things with Grieve). Closing in on the 7-11, Murikabushi picked up on the two nearby powered auras. Some combination of super senshi and Squire.… The Dark Mirror aura could only be a senshi, but the Order aura could’ve gone either way. And as he hopped across the low roofs around here, Murikabushi tried to prepare himself for anything he might’ve found. Would’ve been nice if it turned out to be Hybris and he was swooning all over some beautiful, Order aura-having man. Muri had holiday gifts for his favorite former comrade in the Court and professional lil’ guy. If not Hybris, then it would’ve been nice to see whoever belonged to those auras getting along, rather than some kind of fight or whatever. Instead, as he arrived on the 7-11’s roof, Murikabushi winced, hearing a Professional Youngest Sibling (derogatory) wail that he recognized all too well. Much as dealing with Lete sounded like an undeserved punishment, Murikabushi had a guy to see about whatever tab Grieve had racked up lately, so he hopped down to the sidewalk. He could have just gone in. Probably should have. Knew very well that whatever Lete had gotten herself tangled in this time, he didn’t owe her anything (not even the tough love of telling her to sort her ******** life out). But he thought of Hybris, wishing Lete would keep herself out of trouble. And he thought of Remarque, who somehow balanced looking after the Court with raising his kids. And thinking of two people he actually respected, Murikabushi abandoned the door for the moment, coming over close enough to sit seiza (more or less) beside the obnoxious pain in the a** with the gauzy overlays on her fuku. “Lete.” Hugging her shins, the little brat whined. “Traitor skank.” Muri didn’t dignify that with a roll of the eyes. “What the ******** did you do this time?” “Nothing!” Despite looking as though she’d be sick if she moved too much, Lete rolled around so she could look up at him. “He’s—he hit me, and he made the squirrels wanna kill me, and—and—and, and, and—” “And I know that you hit first more often than not, so try answering the question I actually asked. What. The ********. Did you do. This time.” While she thought about that, Murikabushi looked over at the Squire, clearly in his own bad way right now. “Hey, Earth Squire. How’re you doing? And what’d she do to you?” If it involved the brat’s magic, then……well, that would’ve explained a lot. Hitting her after she threw that s**t around was honestly letting her off easy.
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Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2025 8:56 am
The squire was stumbling to his feet, not having actually thrown up but still looking distinctly green around the gills. Either Lete’s magic was sticking very persistently, or he'd gone in already close to spilling his guts.
Weaving unsteadily on his feet, he was clearly gathering himself up for a very ill-judged volley.
“I'll kill both of you,” he managed. “Turncoat.”
He had heard traitor skank and only dimly wondered if it had somehow applied to himself. But whatever the case, he saw a senshi playing savior to someone he shouldn't have been and was all too happy to equally accuse him of backstabbing, albeit from the opposite direction.
He did not have time to throw his poorly-planned punch. An Order signature blossomed to life very, very nearby, accompanied seconds later by what looked like the yuletide Queen herself in green velvet and red ribbons and gold and fur, moving at a brisk pace to close her hand around the back of Maus’s hood and yank him back.
“You're lucky Mama pushed everything back by two days or I'd be in Kentucky right now,” she hissed in his ear. With a quick glance at him she added begrudgingly, in a cadence that was a Violet Chachki reference for her own entertainment: “You look good.”
Maus being Maus, he immediately responded with a proposition too blunt and vulgar for this website, and received a solid cuff to the back of the head for his trouble.
Even now Kay’s lost cellphone was sitting in her civilian pocket, sending her on a helter-skelter rescue mission that she hadn't expected to end up like this. Equally lucky for him that she hadn't spent the night at the Garde, engaging in her yearly reading of Sir Gawain in a more fitting atmosphere than usual - doing so, maybe, aloud to an audience who probably would still have had all the appreciation in the world for her voice even if he had had literally anything else to pass the time for him; planting some ideas about future games they might never have the time to play; sharing something she loved with a man who would always handle those things with reverence - and had instead opted to listen to the good sense that told her that she'd be an emotional wreck if she did so.
Grief was difficult and alien, even keeping company with gratitude. Righteous fury was a much more comfortable place for her feelings to be, and she was fairly radiating it. This did not abate when she looked at Muri with her sharp, perceptive eyes - indeed, it seemed instead to double. She even released Maus as if he were a very inadequate attack dog and she was fine with him getting in a few bites, but he only swooned vaguely instead, and she caught him back after a second thought.
“The ******** are you helping her for?” She demanded of Muri. Of the current company, Muri was now three for three on accusations of being a Benedict Arnold. And then, with royal imperiousness, shaking Maus a little by the collar and stopping when he retched: “Touch him and die.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2025 12:54 pm
Tilting his head, Murikabushi watched the Earth Squire with the polite confusion usually reserved for people trying their best to be nice about a friend’s new significant other’s incomprehensible performance art piece. In particular, the turncoat insult made him wrinkle his nose. Accusations of such made sense from Lete, who’d been calling Muri all possible variations on the concept of sluttacious traitor sell-out since before he’d even purified. From an Earth Squire, though? When Murikabushi wanted to help resolve this situation? Maybe Muri hadn’t been loud or clear enough about the fact that he was trying to dispense some tough love and hold Lete as accountable for her bullshit (whatever bullshit she was on tonight) as possible? Or maybe the poor guy was just disoriented. From experience, Muri knew that Lete’s magic would definitely do that to a b***h, which did somewhat help to answer the What did she do to you? question. The flare up of another powerful Order aura earned a petulant groan from Lete and a small sigh of relief from Muri. Seeing that the aura came attached to an Earth Knight he recognized—even if only distantly, as Grieve’s Hot Girlfriend (based on alleged evidence that only existed in his head)—he smiled. This was good. Apparently, she had some kind of relationship—or at least a rapport—with the Squire, so maybe they could split duties on de-escalating things between him and Lete? This seemed, to Muri, an S-tier way for things to go, now that two actual sober adults had come on the scene. Except out came the third accusation of magical girl treason, and with it, Muri’s face fell into duller-eyed, unimpressed exhaustion. Jesus, whose Cheerios had he unwittingly pissed in? Everyone’s, apparently. All the same, as a (hopefully) placating gesture, he held up both hands. Nothing in them, since he hadn’t yet taken out the roll of cash he kept in his subspace. And Murikabushi felt quite sure that he could explain things in a way that made everyone calm down, but right as he opened his mouth— “ Qué <********> estás hablaaaandooooo,” Lete groaned. “It’s está hablando, you ******** gremlin,” Muri snapped down at her, whapping her forehead with the back of his hand. Was it pedantic to correct her grammar? Yeah. But if Lete wanted to use Spanish to get away with subtle linguistic insults, she deserved to get called out (even if Muri’s own Spanish tended to sound like a mutant amalgamation of the old classroom at Meadowview, telenovelas, pornography, and the different cultural dialects spoken by his ex-drag siblings in the Haus of Disobedience-and-Poppins). “You literally just met this lady and you attacked her friend. Pretend that you were raised right and show her some respect, why don’t ******** you too, you traitor. skank.”For that disrespect, Murikabushi took hold of Lete’s chest bow. He took care to get some of her bodice’s fabric in his grasp too, so he wouldn’t rip the bow clean off as he hauled her around into sitting up. As she tried to get settled, she made a soft little eurgh noise as though she might be sick. She wouldn’t be getting an apology, though, when everything Muri could observe and everything he knew about her told him that she’d probably started all of this tonight. “So, hi,” Muri said, once more showing that he had nothing in his hands before letting them fall so he could more freely talk with them. “Murikabushi of Hunger here, and the little s**t with no manners is Lete—” Pouting, she gave him a loud huff and threw up her middle finger. “Yes, Enoby Dark’ness Dementia Decadence Raven Way. Thank you for your input,” he deadpanned. “I think there’s some confusion here? She is calling me a traitor skank because I initially Awakened into the Dark Mirror Court, like her. As you can see…?” He held up one arm, showing off the white fabric of his sleeve. The other hand, he waved up and down his torso, at both the white fabric and the lack of gauzy overlays. “I am no longer with them. But having history with them and knowing more than most Order folks about how they work—” “You are a heartless. traitor. b***h. and literally why does Hybris like you—” “Shut up, Lete. The adults are talking.” He huffed, looking back to Grieve’s Hot Girlfriend. “Anyway, I’m not helping her. I’m trying to discipline her for being a little a*****e and going after your friend. Do you wanna get a few good licks in or something? Neither of them will tell me what she did, but…” Muri cast a quick glance over at Lete and shrugged. “She wouldn’t be avoiding the subject so much if she didn’t deserve a few good licks.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2025 3:20 pm
Joy had been teetering on the brink of saying that she only wanted to get a few punches in if they could be lethal - not actually wanting to kill anyone but feeling that the threat of it ought to be made, on principle - when Lete wailed the name Hybris.  She changed course to instead, over Maus's shoulder, give Muri a look of utter schoolmarm disapproval. This, being an expression she had professionally honed, had some heft to it. She was familiar generally with the idea of being kind to the enemy being a not-uncommon one among her fellow Order members. She was even aware that by hating it as much as she did she was being faintly hypocritical, considering herself a tenuous ally to Lyndin, but this was clearly different. She did not have time to pursue the thought further. "Might wanna let me go," said Maus, very calmly. She did not need to be told twice, letting him go and sweeping her skirts anxiously out of the path of any impending vomit, although none seemed immediately coming. "Take her away," she said, with the same air of command about her, as if giving an order came as naturally to her as speaking at all. Maybe Grieve liked being bossed around by little blonde women? She even had a whip. Or maybe she was collecting a yellow-themed Pokemon team of people who liked being bossed around in generral, since her intervention seemed to have immediately shut down the squire's attempts at murder. She did not introduce herself in return. Maus, swaying a little on his feet, bent to murmur something into her ear, although she jerked away in alarm lest he puke into it immediately after. "And we'll leave," she added on the basis of this intelligence, "when she's gone and not playing the ******** vampire to people not even lucky enough to be home tonight."
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Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2025 1:46 pm
Had Muri expected the look of withering disapproval over Lete whining about his friendship with Hybris? No. But he also couldn’t say that it surprised him. Hybris was an acquired taste, and as a fellow Extremely Dramatic Queen, who could appreciate his lil’ bro’s showmanship and commitment to the bit, Muri had acquired that taste quite easily. He couldn’t expect the same of anyone else, though, especially not anyone with Order. So, although he felt the disapproval radiating off of Grieve’s Hot Girlfriend and knew that he was meant to feel very thoroughly judged about his life choices, and his choice of friends, and everything he chose to do with himself as a senshi or, like, whatever?He met her disapproval with a win some, lose some, unbothered expression and a shrug that asked what does that have to do with anything, b***h?—albeit more calmly than Yvette ******** Oddly had. Hybris had probably earned the disdain of Grieve’s Hot Girlfriend as much as Lete, if probably for different reasons (Muri’s bet was on Hybris’s aversion to doing things literally ever, or possibly his general habit of making other people do the things in question for him). And if Muri’s choice to stay friends with Hybris on the other side of purifying made Grieve’s Hot Girlfriend dislike him, then whatever. She’d be in good company and he would live. Addressing the (perfectly sensible and almost definitely true) allegations was, perhaps, more complicated? If you were Murikabushi and a professional yapper who hated ceding the last word, anyway— “I wasn’t being a vampire,” Lete protested, crashing in on Murikabushi’s attempts at thinking about his words or being diplomatic or whatever, because the description that the Big Titty Boss Lady had thrown out at her was extremely unfair (in her own opinion and no one else’s). “And I wasn’t hurting anybody—” “I think Mr. Earth Squire’s continued retching suggests otherwise, maleducade,” Murikabushi pointed out, earning himself an Extremely Aggrieved Scowl for the fact that he would even suggest this. “What, you think I don’t remember what your magic does?” “ He came at me first—” “Yeah. Because you were draining energy on <******** Christmas. Anyway, are you five? Since when has ‘He started it’ ever—” “It’s not like I was stealing the energy or anything! It’ll come back! Like borrowing!” “Did you ask any of the people you sicced your wraiths on before just doing that to them?” Murikabushi already knew what the answer was going to be. Still, it was good form to ask and give Lete a chance to wilt guiltily before thwapping the back of her head. “That’s called stealing, Lete. This is kindergarten-level s**t.” He heaved a sigh, easing himself to his feet. Lete got no such grace, yanked to her feet by the back of her sailor collar, as if being scruffed by a mother cat. “You’re such a b***h,” she groaned, staggered as she tried to get her feet stable. “And you’re getting shoved through a mirror and going. the ********. home,” Murikabushi told her, keeping his hand in her collar. He huffed, then looked back at Grieve’s Hot Girlfriend. “Don’t know if Grieve told you, but there’s going to be food and people at our place tomorrow. They’re all Order senshi, Order Mauvians, and Knights, except my non-magical family and queerplatonic partner. She can tell you where to go if you want to come, and hey, no hard feelings if you don’t.” First properly meeting over Lete Causing Problems would leave a bad impression on anybody, Muri figured. Plus, what did he know? Maybe Grieve’s Hot Girlfriend had other plans. In the meantime, he had a gremlin to drag off by her collar. There was probably a mirror stashed around here somewhere. And if not, hey, a few extra blocks of humiliation probably wouldn’t make Lete think any harder, but it would give Muri some petty satisfaction.
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