One Foggy Night (6) - As the seasons shift, the temperature changes too. It’s not uncommon for fog to roll in, sometimes from the mountains, sometimes out of nowhere. This fog is particularly thick and difficult to see through; Destiny City has issued several weather warnings and cautions being out or driving at night. It’s easy to get lost and difficult to see obstacles. Not to mention the strange, smothering sensation of dread and fear that rolls in with the fog. While there is sometimes the sensation of being watched, it worsens when the sun goes down. Some have even said they’ve caught glimpses of a tall, horned figure traveling with the fog. The news has reported that this is probably just a side effect of climate change and suspects that weather patterns should return to normal towards the end of the month.
The weather cooled, the leaves turned, and Faustite had a lot on his mind. More than he ever wanted on his mind, really, and he often tried to avoid thinking about any of it by starting scraps or delving into work.
But that hadn't cured much of anything. It didn't alleviate him of what burdened him. Instead, it provided him with a healing black eye (he could finally open his left eye all the way), a braced wrist, a formerly dislocated shoulder, and a bouquet of bruises bright enough to give someone the wrong impression of his pastimes. If nothing else, his temper grew more explosive the longer he put all of it off. It wouldn't be too much longer, then, before he started putting other agents at risk.
Despite knowing this, Faustite wasn't ready to sort himself out because he didn't know what needed to be sorted. And if he couldn't figure it out, maybe someone else could — someone who knew him well. Of the available options, Ren seemed like the smartest choice.
As he sighed over his tablet, Faustite knew he still wasn't up for solving whatever was wrong with him. Maybe, then, he and Ren could just hang out. If it came up, fine. But if it didn't, he wouldn't press for it. That seemed amenable enough to settle the whorl in his fire.
"Type this out for me," Faustite instructed his doppelgänger as he pushed the tablet across his desk. "Send a non-urgent message to Taenite. 'Meet me at my office. Take a walk with me.' And don't ******** it up this time."
Nodding absently, Headache wrote out his dictation verbatim and sent the message to its intended recipient.
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Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2023 12:26 pm
“‘And don’t ******** it up this time.’ Really. I didn’t know our walks could be ******** up but I’ll clearly have to do better.”
It was how Taenite announced his arrival, as if his aura didn’t do that enough. He was still holding the tablet in his hand as he gave Faustite a pointed look, before sparing a glance to his secretary.
“Perhaps some diction techniques could help improve communication,” he suggested with a scoff, although his sarcasm was clearly meant to tease and not tear down. “Imagine if an unintentional message was sent to the Queen!”
The tablet was reduced to a pen and then disappeared into subspace, leaving Taenite’s hands free to place on his hips as he let out a dramatic sigh.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he jerked his head towards the door (fully aware they could just teleport). “What’s on your mind? Need me to plant some incriminating evidence on someone?” A pause, and then a shrug. He could.
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Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2023 4:17 pm
"You piece of s**t," Faustite hissed at his youma as he hunched over his desk with emphasis. The words crackled in his mouth as he spat them at the creature. "You had one. ********. Job." Pen in hand, he threw it like a dart at Headache, nailing but one of the cloud of fireflies as they dissipated their coherent image.
"Whatever. ******** you. Mind the office."
Faustite stood, then, his ostentatious chair groaning across the floor. He considered Taenite's jest as he rounded the matching desk. "Queen could behead me for insolence," he decided. "I'd be fine with that." She was powerful, she was the face of the Negaverse, and if she decided Headache's constant attempts to undermine him reflected on him? He'd accept that judgment. She could even ask Jet to do it for her, though he'd be somewhat disappointed that he didn't get to bleed on the Queen personally.
"Don't know," he answered after a sigh. "Everything, I guess." Getting out and beating the White Moon to death in the name of the Negaverse was supposed to help. It was supposed to prove to everyone that he was still good at his job. It was supposed to prove to himself that he was good at his job. But all he received for his troubles were a few starseeds, myriad bruises, some cracked knuckles, and wrists that were about ready to snap. If fights hadn't done the trick — even with Cybele dead — then he wasn't certain what would work.
"Feels like I have to be perfect at everything. Supposed to be one of the best. But I'm no Jet, or Axinite, or Hessonite. Not even sure what I'm good at anymore. Just find fresh new ways to ******** up every day.
"Rest shouldn't be said in front of Headache." He reached out, then, taking hold of the boy's elbow in a gentle, easy grip. The park was but a thought away.
And in the next breath, they were surrounded by a wall of fog so thick that Faustite was certain his fire made it worse. "<********>," he belted out irritably. "Can't have one ******** nice thing, can I."
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Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2023 1:22 pm
If Taenite felt any sympathy for Headache, he didn’t show it. His attention was purely on Faustite. On the shape he was in. On the bruises, on the injuries, on his tone of voice, posture, the way he sighed, the way he grabbed hold of him. There was no need to be concerned about burns. Not now that Taenite wore the charm he’d had crafted from the crystals imbued with magic.
He kept any comments to himself until they were out of the office, until they were away from Headache, away from the often oppressing aura of the Dark Kingdom.
And right into the fog of night.
“Relax,” he said gently, his voice low and calm in a purposeful counter to Faustite’s irritation.
He didn’t stay powered up. Instead, he let himself slip back into his normal appearance. All black clothing. All clearly expensive.
“You have me, don’t you? That’s one ******** nice thing.”
There was no doubt in his voice that he was a nice thing to have. His tolerance of others only went so far. He certainly wouldn’t spend time with others like he did with Faustite.
“You know those assholes aren’t perfect,” he scoffed, reflecting on how the others were. “Hessonite thinks too highly of herself but does nothing to prove her self decided superiority. Lepidolite is lazy and only shows his face when he can get credit for something. Jet’s got a stick up his a** and can only follow orders -- no mind of his own. Axinite… actually, you’re right. Axinite is perfect.”
All in good natured jest. Ren nudged his partner’s arm with his elbow to make sure he knew he was joking around. Not that they could see anything.
“You know all of the things we could do in this fog and no one will be able to tell? We could make some pretty spooky noises, I bet. While doing other activities.”
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Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2023 5:13 pm
"I am relaxed," Faustite hissed back. It was an uncharacteristically convincing lie, coming from him, primarily because he believed it himself.
But Taenite's aura soon faded, and it occurred to Faustite that his firelight only worsened the soupy fog. With a dejected sigh, he shifted form to Eion, whereupon he immediately felt all of his aches and pains. Eion, who was wearing Mucha-inspired leggings with a clashing pea green double-breasted coat and purple feathered cowboy boots. Eion, who felt how these clothes sat differently on his body than his General's uniform, and felt all the more aware of himself. Aware of how the cold rushed in around him, how it burrowed through that coat and into the borrowed taupe sweater beneath it.
Immediately he was clinging to Ren's waist to leech some of the warmth from a boy who now felt warm instead of refreshingly cool.
"You're a nice ******** thing. That's different." ******** nice things were only required to be nice. He had other expectations for Ren, however.
Breathing a sigh through his nose, Eion looked up at Ren despite the jest. "But they all do their ******** jobs. Sometimes well." Sure, Axinite was overly a**l about a vast amount of his work, but he was reliable. And Lepidolite always had money and an opinion. He was fairly certain that was a flavor of reliable. Jet always seemed to know what to do. For the short stint in which he worked with Hessonite, she had sense about her for the business part of their job. To him, it seemed he was the odd one out — the one who struggled through it all while the rest breezed through their tasks.
His next bawdy comment earned a sigh and a hitch of breath that could've been a laugh had it not pained Eion to do so. "You sound just like Waru." And he could see Haru making a similar comment, but —
Certainly not the one who was branded the albatross around his neck.
"Think you were right," he began, apropos of nothing but his own thoughts. "About Heliodor."
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Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 6:30 am
“Do they, though?” Ren asked in a strained, skeptical voice that clearly wasn’t so sure that the Sovereigns did their jobs. But who was he to know for sure?
But the confidence in his assumption certainly didn’t die when Eion decided to announce that he thought he was right about their little liability problem.
“Oh?” he hummed with feigned curiosity, his arm around Eion’s shoulders to keep him close as they strolled through the fog. It was not uncomfortable to him, because if something really was dangerous lurking in the dim, they would just have to vanquish it or something dramatic like that.
“What brought about this little revelation? Something that happened? Or something you suspect will happen?”
And while he asked, he drew in a breath to sigh. “Believe it or not, I don’t like always being right. What does Waru think about it? He was put in charge of the troublemaker wasn’t he?”
Sure, he could ask Waru himself, but he didn’t want to cause him stress when he was already having to babysit a grown man.
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Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2023 5:18 am
"I think so." He had no way of verifying that for Lepidolite, who he hadn't met. But he could say as much for Axinite and Jet, who he'd spent the most of his time around insofar as Sovereigns were concerned.
Eion was less concerned about the fog itself and more about what it may conceal on the ground, so he moved slower than his usual purposeful gait. Better that he didn't take a header in front of a boy, especially this boy whose ring he wore. But he could only stare at the ground in scrutiny for so long before he missed seeing that boy's face, and he could only look at that boy's face for so long before he tripped over a rock or some other hazard. It was trying.
Eion huffed when Ren invited him to talk about what happened. "That ******** piece of s**t," he mumbled. "Went to check on them. Was part of the arrangement. Waru teaches him how to forgive himself, I come over once in a while to make sure they're not dead. Didn't have Waru report in to avoid antagonizing Aelius. But that ******** has ******** changed in years. Same exact boy came back from overseas. Same exact boy rejoined my team. He won't ******** let anyone help him and he won't shoulder any of his own ******** blame for his circumstances. And he has the gall to goad me —
"Nearly blew up his ******** house for it. He and Albite are lucky to be alive," he sighed wearily.
Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2023 8:00 am
“Yeah, let’s not murder Waru,” Ren hummed in a noncommittal way that made him seem both cold and uncaring, but his tone suggested he was not making a request. It was probably a little too obvious that he left out the other disaster that had been mentioned, but as a distraction Ren gave Eion’s shoulder a hopefully comforting squeeze.
There was a lingering heaviness that felt like it had nothing to do with the conversation and everything to do with the fog around them. Ren wasn’t much into superstitions, so any mysterious figure in the fog was clearly a youma of some kind. Not that it seemed to be giving them any trouble, but the feeling was there.
And he hated having to deal with the feeling of unease.
“Some people just won’t accept help. Some don’t deserve it. It sounds like this one is both,” Ren suggested, the arm around Eion hopefully giving him enough confidence to not have to look at the ground if he didn’t want to. That was for Ren to do. He kept an eye on everything around them, his hand in his pocket around the pen he needed for a quick transformation. Not that he could outpower Faustite, but Ren was less likely to be distracted by things it seemed.
Like him. But he couldn’t blame Eion for being distracted by how perfect and beautiful he was!
“So what are you going to do? He was pretty aggressive about you before. And that other guy was pretty aggressive about him being aggressive. Probably spooked your little mousey friend into avoiding everyone associated with you,” he suggested with a shrug. Not that he cared about how anyone else felt. Just about how the extent of problems the liability caused seemed to stretch beyond just Eion.
“I can punch him the next time I see him. I’ve wanted to since I first saw the guy,” he let out a small bark of a laugh, but there was no humor in it.
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2023 4:25 pm
Eion huffed. He'd been doing his level best not to murder the boy, but Albite had a death wish that he often made known when Faustite was on the cusp of losing his sanity. The number of times that he and Faustite had gotten into scraps were uncountable by now, but each and every time, they both saw it through alive. Maybe with a few more scars, but neither of them complained about it.
This time had been different, though. Waru was bystander to that mess, and remained a bystander to it while Eion was wound past his limit. Perhaps the boy had no words for the occasion, rare as that was. But the end result was indisputable — Waru was nearly executed for someone else's mistake. He knew he shouldn't forgive himself for it, perhaps ever, but finding words to speak about it only caused him to quake with rage. And his body still complained about its myriad fights too much to tolerate more abuse right now, much as he wanted to punch a tree and vent some of that frustration.
Eion grunted from the squeeze, because there was a soreness that came with that, too. Then it was quickly forgotten.
"He's both. Much as I want to pull his ******** starseed and put him to better use…" Eion grit his teeth. If ever he needed someone — something — to attack, to bear the brunt of his fury and frustration and impotence, it was now. But he had only Ren with him, and such a thick fog that if someone stood six feet away from them both, Eion would not have known. He thought he'd seen something as he stared at the ground, maybe a tree root or a snake tail or a tentacle? But upon barking a vicious order for it to get out, it slowly slipped back into the fog.
It wasn't helping. He thought his core might burst through his human disguise in seconds if they kept up the conversation.
"I don't know what to do," he admitted begrudgingly. "I'm not ******** good at this, okay? I don't have all the ******** answers that everyone ******** wants me to have." He slipped from Ren's grip, taking a few steps back.
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Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2023 5:39 pm
When Eion pulled away from him, Ren let him go. His eyes were still on the fog around them. He was alert. Protective. Despite his company being a General King.
But he was never one to coddle. If Eion wanted to keep distance from him, then whatever.
“You’re overthinking things and beating yourself up over nothing,” Ren said simply. Maybe it was a little too blunt. Maybe Eion needed someone to hold his hand and tell him everything would be okay, but Ren was never like that, and Eion knew that, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked for his company.
“Other than you, who cares if you have any answers?” he asked, finally turning to look at Eion through the thick fog and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Other than you, who has harassed you about not knowing what you’re doing? Has the Queen told you that you’re not good at -- anything? It’s in your head. Quite literally imposter syndrome. If Metallia could afford to trust people to become a General Sovereign, why the ******** not just give everyone that power and wipe the god damn White Moon off the literal face of the Earth? The only one holding you back is you.”
He knew it was probably harsh, but he’d built up his own business from not knowing anything and just pretending like he did until he actually knew what he was doing.
“Are you mentally covering your ears and screaming into the metaphorical void to drown me out?”
There was obviously trauma that Eion was dealing with, but unless he took a moment to fight against his own thoughts, he would just spiral in the same circle over and over until he crashed.
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 8:51 am
Eion huffed, the heel of his hand coming up to meet his temple. "Is that right?" Was he overthinking? He couldn't be, right? How could one overthink anything when handed such a position of power?
"Heliodor, the team, the whole ******** Negaverse — they're all depending on me, right? Expecting me to help lead in some way. Whatever that way is. That requires knowing something." Preferably, it meant knowing what he was doing. Knowing how he could help. Knowing what to do next. But these were all aspects that he understood in a General's capacity; he knew how to plan and organize missions, or how to offer guidance to Supers and Captains. But to go beyond that was out of his element in a manner to which his awkward, fumbling ascension to General couldn't compare.
And even if he was the one holding himself back, he didn't know how to stop. If he could stop.
He supposed that, if he kept being this inept, a demotion would have to come eventually. That felt like something of a relief. The crown would get taken away if he continued to suck at his job. But they hadn't taken it away yet, and he still had yet to figure out how to be good at it.
"What the ******** am I supposed to do," he muttered to himself as he began to pace. He had to come up with something on his own eventually, right? He couldn't keep turning to Axinite for advice or Jet for an example or the others for a warning. So what was he good at? What could he do?
"I'm not ******** covering my ears, but I'm not — I don't know. I can't ******** explain it. So I guess there's no ******** problem at all, is there."
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 9:54 am
“Scaring this s**t out of the White Moon helps,” Ren shrugged, trying to figure out how to navigate the turbulence in Eion’s words.
And then came the pacing.
Ren let out a dramatic, frustrated sigh and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Guess there’s no ******** problem at all,” he repeated, but in a way that was clearly mocking. Not so much because he didn’t respect Eion. He did! He just didn’t understand the sheer panic that was radiating from him about something that he didn’t have to worry about. Or at least shouldn't have to worry about.
If snapping Eion out of his pacing by being an a** would work, then of course Ren would try it. If he died in the process... oh well.
“Oh, but call me out to take a walk with you and then… shall I count down how long it’ll take you to run away?” he wondered, taking a glance at his watch-less wrist. “That’s the same ******** thing as covering your ears. And if no one else is going to give it to you straight because they’re afraid you’ll blow them up, then I guess I’ve lived long enough.”
“You existing reinforces the Metallia’s power. Tell me you haven’t run into all those White Moon idiots that thought you were dying or turning into a youma or whatever, and they weren’t freaked out that you’re now a General King? I don’t know, but that’s kind of badass that my husband is a General King,” he shrugged again.
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 11:02 am
"No one's afraid of me," Eion whined. "Not even the White Moon. Whatever they ******** thought, they were happy to try and defy me." And defy him they did — up to the point where one of their worst defectors became a Princess right around his fist. Eion considered it such a blemish on his career that referencing it — however circuitously or vaguely — roused a bitter regret over how powerless he truly was.
The White Moon only ever seemed to win and win and win and win and win, no matter how clever or tactical he thought he was being.
"Be better if your husband was a General-King who was worth a s**t at his job," he glowered. "Don't have any other ******** options but to leave, Ren! What the ******** good do I do by staying? I can't figure s**t out on my own, I can't figure s**t out when I'm with you, or with Aelius, or Waru, or anyone! I'm just — ********, if I could give you all this power instead, you'd know how to ******** put it to better use."
Anyone would. Even — dreadful as it was to admit — Chrysocolal would.
"So if my existence 'reinforces Metallia's power', then I'm making her a ******** laughingstock among our enemies." Cybele had gotten one over on them all at Augusta Bank, and the wings she sprouted were a symbol of her ultimate defiance. Then, when he thought he'd killed her, she went to Albite acting like she was a ghost and scared the s**t out of him. Would that he could truly kill her, take her unguarded starseed, would he have done something then? Earned a shard of respect from anyone? From Ren? From himself? The thought seemed so distantly impossible, but it was the only direction he had.
"If I fix my ******** and kill Cybele for the last time, would that do anything?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 1:13 pm
Did Ren roll his eyes? Yeah. He rolled his eyes as Eion whined about nobody being afraid of him. He even drew in a snarling breath before letting out an exasperated sigh.
“You do it to yourself. Of course no one is going to be afraid of you when you’re having a little tantrum,” Ren gestured wildly at Eion’s pacing and glowering and talking about being a laughingstock.
“Those royals are like cockroaches, but if it makes you feel like you’re going to accomplish something, then sure, put Cybele’s heart on a plate and present it and her starseed to the Queen. I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up. And honestly that’s most likely the problem. You get so worked up about your supposed failures that you are blind to everything else. How many times have you survived near death? Besides, you still haven’t told me who thinks you’re a failure, other than yourself.”
If Eion wanted to beat himself up, then that was fine. Ren would be as supportive as he could while also not holding his hand and telling him everything was okay, because as far as he was concerned, Eion was still covering his ears.
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Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2023 4:35 pm
"A little tantrum?" Eion echoed, incensed. "What the ********, Ren!" He seethed, turning away from the boy to pace more furiously in the endless fog. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, encouraging him to move faster, faster, faster, keep up with the rage that was boiling over for a chance to be let loose.
His gestures grew more erratic as they chased after his words. "Almost dying is a ******** problem, not a success story! Why the ******** should I be proud of that when I never should have almost died at ******** all!"
In that, he wished he was more like any of the other General-Sovereigns. He never heard of any of them encountering failure but once, and that was when Axinite's prior team was exterminated on bad intel. It wasn't the fault of Axinite at all, who did the best he could with a damning situation. He didn't get himself into that mess by his own shortcomings. And the only one who'd been captured was Jet, who let himself be captive with intention; he wasn't suddenly knocked out by a Knight with a clockwork blade and locked up on a Wonder to stew for a while.
Maybe Ren would argue that there was no way for Faustite to have known that the generator was going to blow. But Eion couldn't see it that way in hindsight — he and Kamacite both had seen every other generator explode when damaged enough by the White Moon. He saw them. He knew the White Moon were piling onto that generator, and he let himself think — mistakenly — that he could shock them all away from it and prolong their field just a little longer.
He was wrong. He paid the price. He was only alive because of the boy who stood before him, challenging him, and a senshi that he hadn't seen since.
"Look the ******** around, Ren! I'm sure you'll spot someone who looks down with me if you just open your ******** eyes in the Citadel! I'd stand around and ******** chat about it, but I've a ******** Princess to kill, don't I!" With a last seething breath, Eion melted away to Faustite, and Faustite vanished with only smoke to mark his departure.
