Fandom Soul Eater: F.A.T.E

[EmperorsChosen]

Eloise Keegan - Hawaii Resort
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Elly tapped her finger idly against the glass that sat in front of her as she looked over the menu. Having been promoted to a team leader, she felt it would be unbecoming not to accept. That, and even if Elly was a busybody, she still wasn't going to turn down some pampering and lavish amenities. She'd sit through a hundred of these speeches for the food presented and not having to worry about anything for a couple days.

Dressed in a pink frilled swimsuit with a sarong and white thin hoodie, she pondered what to do after this. Perhaps she'd go sunbathe or have a dip in the water. Looking around, she observed some old faces and a lot of new ones. Unsurprisingly the recent "success" of the program lead to its expansion, and whereas before there were only a couple groups, now there were over twenty.

So many new people and new souls. Souls that Elly could see clearer than ever thanks to training with Frederick Stein. On the one hand, being able to make the Stein's acquaintance and learn from him was invaluable, but on the other hand there was no part of it that wasn't odd to anyone paying attention. Whether or not Elly had excelled was beside the point. There was no way she'd have got that meeting without strings being pulled.

She could only hope that no one was paying attentions or started asking questions. At least here, that wasn't likely to be anyone's concern, of the newbies that didn't know her nor the others that did.

 

[The Regal Rper]

Ark | Outrigger Resort, Hawaii | Rings: 1/1

The hassle of carrying things inside, changing, and then finding his way past the surge of other agents was all worth it to sit down near the bar. Being in this place, reminded him of visiting a Nigerian beach resort once. It had been a nice place and unlike his time there, at least here he would find the opportunity to enjoy his time at the beach.

He'd been to beaches before, but not a place like this. It wasn't like he couldn't swim, he knew how to do that and a lot of that stemmed from learning how to do it after a near drowning incident thanks to his cousins. Already seated before Maria had made her appearance, and studying the menu in detail too busy to notice right off the bat, Ark had himself a brief glance around.

So many people. More than he had realized were in FATE. Most agents. Very few faces he knew if he were being honest by just glancing at them. Then again he'd spent most of his time in the African branch so it was unlikely he'd know most people here in the Americans anyway. Between it and the Western European branch he only really knew Agents on this side of the planet because he'd visited here for vacation and attended some summer activities that gave him the exposure to meet other agents also part of similar programs.

Seeing Dani, Maria, and Adrian, Ark rose from where he had been seated a distance away. In nothing but a light buttonless shirt and dark blue swim trunks, he was an essential giant as he moved past tables and chairs, chatting parties towards the trio ahead. Offering a wave to Dani and whoever the other young man beside her was as he approached.

"Hey Daniella, nice to see you again. Nice swimsuit also." He said politely. Though from how the she and her male companion stood to how they seemed to be talking to Maria as he'd approached, he assumed that he'd stepped into some sort of conversation. Directing his attention to Adrian, he nodded at him. "Pleasure, Ark." he replied amicably. "How are you doing Maria? Everything okay?" He asked with a raised brow.

That's when he caught the glimpse of heat on her cheeks, that slight blush, and the pieces clocked quickly. Embarrassed? They must have been trying to convince her to relax.

At this Ark pulled a seat out and sat within some space of Maria. Enough she didn't feel like he was encroaching. He wasn't close to her like, if he was reading the room right, Dani or the other guy might have been. Comrades in combat and in their fields certainly, but they'd hardly hung out much in the last several months outside of training together.

Still though, seeing the sense of embarrassment on Maria's face was refreshing, and in its own way cute.

Either Rand's sister had rubbed off on him, or that stereotype of Realmborn loving see others squirm, might have been true after all.

Maria was quirky, she could be oblivious too, these were things he'd gotten used to. This though, seeing her flush with embarrassment, he couldn't tell if it was anxiety or if it was discomfort. He felt a little bad for her at that. It really did make him wonder what sort of life she'd had under her Wiccan guardian. The social cues she missed were glaring. Right now though, he couldn't see that occasional sense of awkwardness in her bluntness she was oft to display.

Right now, he was finding her somewhat distracting in a way he hadn't ever really bothered with before. At least not with a girl like her.

That wasn't to say Maria wasn't easy on the eyes- she was pretty, certainly, but he'd never really honed on to it in their time together. He could appreciate the view, but it was rare that was enough for him now. If he felt it was within his bounds he could flirt like a scoundrel, but it was rare he did it outside of his own personal friend groups. The sort of flirtation very few sorts of friends allowed between them. Years of being placed in Assembly Events, as a higher member of his House since he was a young teen, had left him desensitized to the wiles one could pull. Especially when it was always tied to political interests or personal advancement.

But then there were moments like this, where something shifted about a person he knew was good looking that made him actually garner enough interest to pay it more attention.

His bronze eyes had been glancing at her as he'd taken the same menu and looked it over. Waving a server over he requested one of the ice creams. He'd mastered that skill. Feigning interest in something else when really you were testing the metaphorical waters. It was a skill Grangran and his aunts had taught him to be able to observe without looking like he was. She fidgeted, he noticed one of her thumbnails looked chewed on, that habit of hers- oh she was definitely nervous.

Yet still, he found it oddly cute.

With Maria though, he was aware enough to know that teasing her here and now, when her friends were trying to put her at ease would be in poor taste. And frankly, it was rude manners.

When he'd passed by he hadn't gotten that good of a look at her, with the way she was covering up also it made it hard but as the waitress came to take the order and questioned Maria if she might like anything he caught glimpses.

In all honesty he was pleased to see her breaking out of her mold a bit. He'd half expected her to come with a swimming dress to maintain that sense of modesty that he hardly ever did when they were out on the field.

"As awkward as you might feel at the moment, I can reassure you, you look delightful, Maria." The compliment dropped, suddenly and out of the blue. With emphasis to boot. "Hoodie really is doing you no favors, if anything it just adds to the appeal. Try to relax a bit though," he eased up, "I'm sure this speech will be done soon then we'll be free to go about our day. Do you have anything you were thinking of doing?" He asked her, but his eyes also turned to the others by extension, Dani and Adrian, as if prompting them to say something too when the question wasn't meant for her alone.

Mentions: n/a

Interactions: EmperorsChosen Sir Les Paul RedArmyShogun

 

[Mook-LandStrider]

Annika Lindstrom
OUTRIGGER Resort, Ka’anapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii
Sir Les Paul EmperorsChosen Merciless Medic Shotgunpenguin​

First class accommodations, a peaceful trip across the world and a place to rest her head for a few days of high end relaxation. It was something she had been wanting for weeks, having been running herself rampant getting trained up with her new partner Wes. The recent months were intense, like stupidly intense. She could count on her hands the amount of days she had entirely to herself. Still, despite the chaos and constant pressure she had come quite a long way.

Things began not long after their return from Romania. She had managed to drag Gauss to a hole in the wall restaurant. It was an enjoyable experience and something she made sure happened a few times over the months, often the only days she had to ‘herself’. Hanging out with Gauss was pretty much the most relaxing thing she did during the last several months.

She had made great headway into her Magi-tech obsession. It wasn’t cheap, she was acutely aware that whatever she made in the lab could be considered proprietary to the company as a whole. It didn’t stop her from continuing her pursuits there but she took a significant shift in getting her disorganized workspace up and running once more. Luckily, money while not flowing like a river did come in steadily as she began a modeling side gig.

It was perhaps one of the best idea’s she had, kicking off heavily just after the first days of summer. It was enjoyable, she was never one to feel self conscious about herself or her body. It definitely helped her keep a steady mindset, not at all worrying what others thought of her. All she cared about is that the publishers liked it enough to keep paying her for more photo shoots. It seems they did, and it was now something she did between missions and whenever the publishers reached out.

Through her side gig she was able to get new machines, sure it was nothing compared to the lab but it definitely beat the rundown machines she had been using. Having been given her family’s home in death city she quickly began to move all the equipment into the first floor, changing it from a living area into a sort of machine shop. While it was hers and entirely hers, she still had a long way to go to get it fully set up.

Personal pursuits aside, her training with Wes was working out great. They had made a few leaps and bounds towards solidifying their abilities. It was honestly hysterical to her, being paired with someone who was to put it lightly… apathetic. He didn’t seem to care about much but that didn’t slow them down at all. Though, she felt it was likely due to her own polar opposite personality traits. Where Wes was apathetic and disinterested she was animated and constantly into something. It made what could have been a difficult partnership work out far better than most likely expected.

That was all the past now, the future was apparent all around her. The ranks of FATE had swelled in recent months, from a tight nit group into a sprawling program hundreds deep. She felt both pride and anxiety over how it was turning out. She knew the program was growing in part due to her and her previous groups' successful missions and actions. Despite the numbers, she still kept close contact with her ‘friends’ even if it's been difficult to get together recently.

Meeting up with Wes, she quickly made her way into the large seating area. It was obviously setup for a group much smaller than this, but they had brought out extra tables and it was clear they had all hands on deck. Looking through those already seated she tried to pick out her friends, eventually picking out Noah, Arky and Gauss. Looking to Wes she smiled “I’d like to sit among friends. It's crazy seeing how many new agents there are. Makes me a tad bit uncomfortable.” She spoke openly to Wes. Going over to the Trio she gave a small wave. "Wes, this is Noah and Arky." She introduced Wes to the two he wouldn't know.

Her outfit was vibrant, composed of purples, oranges and yellows. Settling herself into her seat she spent several minutes pouring over the menu before settling on a grilled chicken salad and a glass of wine. “How was the trip for the three of you?” Annika asked them.

 

[RedArmyShogun]

Maria Mayer - Ka’anapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii - OUTRIGGER Kāʻanapali Beach Resort
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While Maria had hoped the coat and being off to the side one a resting couch would left her unnoticed it seemed to have the opposite effect, first Dani arrived, telling her she didn't have to wear this if she wasn't going to swim and that she couldn't be locked up in her workshop all the time. To both of these she glared, though she couldn't stay mad with Dani. "I don't know if I want to do anything, all I know is magic and my craft, I've never even been to a beach outside of a job. And don't say that as if you and Nadia had no hand in me getting and wearing this."

Then Dani's boyfriend was next to come, greeting Dani first, as he should, the Sorceress watched the interactions between him and Dani. But at his own words, on her longevity and how he presented how she was acting like spending time with them was a bad thing. Her reaction was instant, short, but instant. Maria looked as if she were slapped, though it was short lived and soon to go away. Those few words seemed to have caused her pain, like slapping small animal.

"Not forever, but I will be here when even your great grandchildren are old. Too short is the time I'll have to spend with Dani and the rest-" Before she could finish what else she had to say, it was then that Ark showed up, asking how she was chiefly and giving her a compliment, plus pointing out the coat was just drawing more attention to herself with it. With a twitch of her Jaw, she sets about removing it at once, either not picking up on his remark, or at least understanding it, or pretending not to do so. The question, she answered however.

"I... Planned to either follow Dani or Nadia and see what they were doing, either swim in the ocean or the pool on the grounds. After that I may see what others are doing...the early bird catches the worm, but the cat catches the bird... Maybe they will have something to do. But afterwards I'm changing back into my usual dress and gathering rare materials and resources from the landscape or the shops, maybe I will take the time to tour the place or find something to do here."


Interactions: Sir Les Paul EmperorsChosen The Regal Rper

 

[EmperorsChosen]

Aki Kiyoko - Hawaii Resort
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Unlike the others who were seated around, calmly conversing with others or perusing the menu while they waited, one small blur in particular zoomed through the crowds. In her arms, she carried what appeared to various smoothies and concoctions in fancy glasses. With utmost speed and less so precision, Aki maneuvered through the crowds, bumping and nudging plenty of people who were less than thrilled with the woman's antics.

In her route, she nudged between Annika and Gauss with a sparse word of apology, and after them went on to run right into Adrian. However, given the disparity in weight and size between them, Adrian was more akin to a wall and Aki a bouncy ball. Nonetheless, while she ricocheted back and almost lost her plunder of drinks, she managed to steady herself with a spin before scurrying past him.

"Sorry spiky guy!" She said, less a comment on his weapon form than his hair.

Afterwards, Aki honed in on Feng's seat and made a b-line to her side, laying out the way-too-many drinks out in front of them like an excited puppy. "Feng! They have all kinds of crazy drinks! That's strawberry-mango smoothie, watermelon and kiwi, chocolate Frappuccino, caramel, peanut butter--they call that a screwdriver for some reason--Oh, and that's an iced tea apparently. Don't know what kind though, when I asked, they said it was long island, but who knows what weird flavor that is. But, I got it anyway, cause why not!"

Finishing her rant, the girl dropped herself down next to her partner, pondering which drink to get first.

Sir Les Paul Mook-LandStrider RedArmyShogun

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Midori☆Hoshi​

"Dark Star"​

Species Death Golem
Partner Eloise Keegan
Rank Two-Star

Location OUTRIGGER Resort, Ka’anapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii
Mission A Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride
Status Relaxed, annoyed

​

Tags: EmperorsChosen

"I bet your Soul Perception is going crazy right now," Midori commented, his voice somewhat quiet and his tone fairly relaxed. Monotonous, even.

He had already ordered a random drink off the menu, not really putting any significant effort into trying to decipher what they were. He had a penchant for swapping up his drinks in rapid succession anyway, so the expanded menu with weird names only made his game of alcohol roulette that much easier to play.

Midori notably wasn't as thrilled to be there as some of the others. While clearly not as displeased as the dollmaker with her breakdown, this type of oceanside resort reminded him of his binges along the east Coast. He spent a few years while still under the guise of a returned agent after Eros killed his original self and Ao on a bender, ending up in places just like this. What he was actually doing through the puppeteering of Eros was unknown to him. He might have been a sleeper agent. It might have just been a way to ruin his reputation further. Trying to decipher the intentions of that demon was impossible.

In any case, the ocean views and bright, sunny weather had a paradoxically poor effect on his attitude. It was a debate on if he should even come. He was technically a mentor and to his knowledge, only two other mentors were present, and even then, only for the sake of secretly supervising the agents. He was sure everyone assumed there was some level of a watchful eye, but he couldn't quite help but feel like being a mentor surrounded by agents was a akin to being a warden surrounded by inmates.

Worse off, he knew that there were a select handful of agents here that were capable of actually messing with him. Not everyone in the program was as low on the totem pole as the others, or himself for that matter.

But, Elly was promoted, and he was her partner, the entire vacation was paid for, and he couldn't deny that he didn't enjoy seeing his partner in that skimpy, half-covered outfit she elected to wear.

He could think of enough valid reasons to show up. It was also doubtful that the majority of the agents would recognize him as a mentor anyway given he was only ever sent Autonomous Weapons or assassins to help out, and even then that was rare as he was now officially paired with Elly.

"You know, Elly, actually not a huge fan of these beaches..." Midori said aloud, although lowly. He was awaiting his drink regardless. Perhaps that would help him loosen up.

"But, I can't deny the style suits you..." he added, tossing out another one of his sly comments he had became more than generous with over the months.

 

[EmperorsChosen]

Daniella Ethalyn - Hawaii Beach Resort
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Dani looked back to Adrian a coy smirk. "Very impatient with what I want," She remarked back playfully, a fact he surely would know by now as Dani grew ever more outgoing and taking more initiative as they grew closer. While a bit shy and complacent before, she was now more open when she was interested in something, or a certain someone for that matter.

Standing up a bit straighter as Ark arrived, poor Maria it would seem would be getting far more attention than she wanted. Though, it was at least people she knew and liked.

Still, Dani internally cringed a bit at the use of her full name. It seemed mostly just he and Cyrus referred to it, though with how verbose they were, it may sound weirder to use the nickname.

"Hey Ark. Uh... thanks," She replied, noting the nod he gave to Adrian. She presumed the two hadn't met, which wasn't surprising as the witches seemed to stay mostly separate from the duos despite the plans to integrate them on missions. "Oh, this is Adrian, my boyfriend. This is Ark. We fought in the pit fight--not the asshole one," She introduced, aptly naming Ark as the 'non-asshole sorcerer' from the fight to distinguish him from Raph.

Though moving onto the topic of Maria's anxieties, Dani gave the girl a comforting rub on the head again. "Don't overthink things. You're stuck with me for a long-ass time," She assured her, looking to Ark. "We were gonna go to the beach after this 'n try surfing after this. That's an option. I'm sure there's also plenty of materials and craftsmanship you could look at on the island too." Out of the two, she knew which Maria was likely to be more partial to.

It was then that the blue-haired pinball came running through, causing Dani's narrowed gaze to follow her off to another table until the smaller girl started blabbering to another woman. "Death, to say this thing has grown is a fuckin' understatement."

The Regal Rper Sir Les Paul RedArmyShogun

 

[Shotgunpenguin]

Wes Kraven
OUTRIGGER Resort, Ka’anapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii
Interactions: Sir Les Paul EmperorsChosen Merciless Medic Mook-LandStrider​

If Wes was going to be honest, he hadn't even planned on attending the trip in the first place. While most people would be chomping at the bit for this kind of opportunity, an all-expenses paid trip to what was apparently one of the nicest resorts in the state, he was less than eager to attend. It wasn't that he didn’t appreciate being told that he was being given a vacation from training and mission, he really did. It was just that to Wes a vacation meant lounging around in his room all day and not having to leave it for anything. Something he could already do in the privacy of his own dorm without having to worry about getting on a plane and flying cross-country. But, after some not-so-subtle prodding by his therapist to attend, he soon found himself packing a single duffle-bag for the trip. After landing, checking in and tossing his bag onto a rather comfortable-looking bed, he quickly changed and made his way to the hotel lobby. Eschewing his usual outfit, he instead opted for a black tank-top, grey board shorts and a pair of lavender flip-flops, along with his signature headphones resting around his neck on his shoulders. Leaning against an ornate marble pillar, it was only a short wait until he spotted Annika approaching from across the lobby. Meeting her halfway, the two of them made their way towards the dining hall with Annika taking the lead.

Speaking of the ginger haired woman, the duo had been assigned partners only a few short months ago. Wes had heard countless souls during his life, and he liked to think that he was able to get a good read on a person from that. That was not the case with Annika. When they had first been introduced, Wes had been surprised when, unlike most people's sounds, Annika’s seemed to spread out and radiate all around her as if she were acting like a human speaker. The rhythm of her soul was calm and melodic, each part working together to form a rather pleasant harmony. He thought that he had found someone who may have been as laid back as he was, or at the very least was more on the reserved side of things. That opinion lasted for all of five seconds before her soul pulled a complete reversal, the calm and steady harmonies that had been present mere moments before seemingly colliding into each other, resulting in a cacophony of sound that had him flinching. And then, just as suddenly as they had crashed and fallen, the melodies returned, and her soul was once again calm.

Despite their personalities being polarly opposites of each other, Wes found that Annika made for a surprisingly easy to get along with partner. So long as she was properly distracted with some new goal or thing, Wes was pretty much free to stay back and watch her throw herself at it with an almost frightening dedication. Sure, sometimes the goal would involve the two of them training together, in which case there was very little he could do to worm his way out of it. He would begrudgingly agree, putting in the effort to try and achieve their goal as quickly as possible, and then slink off to his bed as soon as he could. Still, putting that aside, she was probably the second-best partner he ever had.

The entire dining hall was alive with noise as they entered, from small groups of people standing around laughing and chatting amongst themselves to larger groups that took up entire tables. With so many people crammed into a single room, it may have been a bit disorienting for the average person. For Wes, however, it was as if everyone had pulled out their phones and hit shuffle on their playlist. Rapid and upbeat melodies clashed with melancholic tunes, deep and passionate drumbeats struggled and fought against the high pitch screech of an electric guitar, people's very souls playing a concert of their beings for him to hear. The only thing he could do for right now was to stick as close to Annika as he could, the unique way that her sound emanated from all around her helping to drown out some of the excess noise. “Not sure about the new faces, but being around this many people is giving me a headache.” He shrugged his shoulders as Annika approached a group of her friends, following closely behind her.

As they approached the trio, he recognized Gauss as they approached, although the other two were complete mysteries. Giving the duo a quick once over, he offered a slight nod to the group, more than happy to let Annika handle the introductions and small talk. The first of the two, Noah, gave off a fast-paced beat that wouldn’t be out of place being blared in the background of a nightclub. Despite how fast the pace was, it was oddly soothing to listen to, like relaxing with your favorite song after a long day. The second one, Arky, was just as fast paced, although occasionally an odd beat would completely throw off the rhythm, as if it just couldn’t hold itself back. And of course, Wes felt the smooth and steady rhythm of Gauss’s soul hum with a tune that felt like it was trying to draw him in. Slotting himself into an open seat next to Annika, he leaned against the backrest, reaching into his shorts pocket and bringing out a peanut-butter flavored meal bar. The menu in front of him went untouched as he unwrapped the bar, taking a bite as his partner asked the group how their trip had been so far.

 

[Merciless Medic]

Sara & Eva​

Date: September 9, 2067
Location: OUTRIGGER Kāʻanapali Beach Resort, Hawaii
Collab with Mook-LandStrider
Interactions: Noah/Raphael (by message)
Mentions: Zosar, Gauss, Arkayis, Annika, Wes, Ark, Maria, Dani, Adrian, Nadia, Feng, Aki, Elly, Midori
Sir Les Paul Peckinou The Regal Rper EmperorsChosen RedArmyShogun Shotgunpenguin

For Sara, September always got warmer and warmer as the summer came to a close. For right now, that was okay. Because Hawaii was calling out to her! Nice beaches, the warm sun, cool breeze, massages, food-

She was going to get overwhelmed, surely.

And - what was even better - Zosar came back and she got to spend time with him!

August had turned up for her, especially as her and Eva got a breakthrough in their training earlier, and they were now able to resonate! How exciting!

However, the thought of using magic to get her body to be all-human would be preferable, but oh well. She hadn’t actually told Eva about that possibility, nor did she want to talk about it. It was essentially blood magic, something that was pretty forbidden or just really hard to do with really bad side effects if done wrong. She didn’t want to anger Apex or Starwulf if they ever found out. Actually, would that make her an enemy of the DWMA?

Let’s not think about that.

The plane ride there was rather uneventful, though Eva’s insistence on having more and more peanuts had Sara cracking up, just to see Eva stuff them in her bag. It was nice to see Eva act more and more like herself as the days went by, too. She even got to be on the same plane as Zosar! Which was just as thrilling! Aaaand she may have bugged Noah and Raphael about the fact she got to sit with Zosar until the plane ride started. She doubted they would have been able to read her inane ramblings and rants considering her sentences were rife with grammar and spelling errors when she was excited, as her excited thumb gave her no chance to proofread before pressing send.

Eva’s experience the last few months could be described as explorative and progressive. Having made great leaps and bounds in letting go and grieving. By this point while her soul remained distorted, her heart moved on. It was a beginning, definitely far from the end but a start and progress towards something better.

Her mind dwelled momentarily in the past before refocusing on a voice. “Yeah, I want more peanuts.” Eva spoke up, looking at the stewardess with a serious face. By this point she was beginning to run out of space in her purse. “The birds are going to love these.” Eva said, at last giving some sort of context to her odd hoarding. Sara couldn’t help but cackle silently.

Once they landed and found their rooms, Sara got dressed in her beach-wear - something she rarely got into so it felt a bit tight. A white top with maroon accents and straps that crossed on her back with white straps crossing down her belly, and black booty shorts with her hips peeking through the crossed strap sections. She also wore a pair of black crossed straps just above both ankles, black sandals, a red flower in her hair under her left wolf ear, and a few more piercings. Aside from the black and pink ribbon with the skull and cross-mug charm at the base of her right ear, her left ear had a couple loops at the top.

Now, she felt cute~. Especially with her belly showing~.

Eva had gone into her own room, casting her belongings out and across the bed in quick succession. It had been a very long time since she had been to a beach, in fact it was likely about five years. The pain of memories tried to force themselves to the surface only to be pushed down by Eva’s desire to get into the water. Changing into a swimsuit she sorted the rest of her stuff and made her way to the room next to hers. “SARA! IT'S TIME FOR WATER, SARA.” Eva yelled into the door. “ACTUALLY, I THINK WE HAVE TO GO EAT. I DON'T THINK WE SHOULD GO T-” She realized she was still yelling and stopped.

Sara jumped when she heard Eva yelling, and found herself laughing as she grabbed her bag and opened the door in a very comedic swing. “What’cha yellin’ f’r~? Got’a hot date?” She said with a funny accent before giggling and returning her voice to normal. “You’re gonna go hoarse doing that. I got good ears.” She tapped her ears and then tapped Eva’s nose. “Yes, we eat, and then we listen to someone yap, and then we jump in water~.” She sang near the end, unable to hide her excitement at getting to play in water.

Eva shrugged. “Maybe, not yet at least.” She responded. Eyes narrowing as Sara tapped her on the nose, she smiled and began to head to the lunch location. “I wonder how long the speech is going to be. They say you should wait an hour before going into the water after eating.” Eva spoke, as if recounting some textbook sentence. “Ooooooo I forgot.” Eva suddenly spoke up, turning around and running back up the hallway. Opening her door, she went into her bag and pulled out a folded up rubber object.

Unraveling the object it was clear it was a floaty circle, just deflated. “Alright. We good.” Eva nodded to Sara as she jogged back. Pinching the air hole, she began to breathe into it while walking.

Sara waited as they walked the brief amount that they did, recounting what she needed. She had her wallet in her bag, so she was able to get drinks. They probably should wait before going out into the water to sober up and let their bodies digest, that would be a good idea. But Sara didn’t really have that much of an issue with digesting quickly. And then-

Eva ran back to get something, so Sara stood there waiting until she returned. When she pulled it out, Sara cackled. “O. M. G.” She giggled, then looking amused yet worried as they walked. “Are you gonna blow it all up by yourself? Nuh-uh, give it here.” She tried to take it so she could help blow it up. “Don’t want you to give yourself a stroke or a hernia trying to blow it up.”

Seeing Sara going to reach for the floaty Eva jerked it away, eyes watching her as she continued breathing into it, not skipping a beat. No longer focused on walking she eyed Sara intently, waiting for the shorter girl to act next.

Sara let her mouth hang open in mock surprise, trying to keep the giggles down. “Eva, come oonnnnn, pleeaaaase?” She begged, this time zipping around to Eva’s other side to try and take it.

Watching Sara making a move, Eva rotated in sync with Sara as the werewolf tried to flank her. Quickly taking a step to the side in an attempt to trip up Sara, the white haired woman took the thing out of her mouth and tossed it into the air. Quickly reaching into her bag she quickly took a handful of peanut bags and tossed them at Sara. “Pocket Peanuts!” Eva shouted before grabbing the floatie out of the air and booking it.

Sara was not only unable to retrieve the floaty from the human-raccoon’s clutches, but Eva even dodged her next advance. It caused Sara to stumble before recovering. She was about to tackle Eva when she threw the floatie up, only to then get pelted with peanuts and stand there in shock as Eva booked it. Laughing hysterically, she had to hug herself as she died there laughing, her laughter turning into silent wheezing from how unexpected that was. After getting a moment to not be impeded with laughing so hard, she finally resumed the chase, finally reaching her right as they were about to enter the improv dining area for lunch. “I thought those were for the birds, not anti-werewolf defense!” She yelled out to her as she finally caught up, unable to contain her laughter anymore and got possessed by the giggle fairy.

Basking in her victory, Eva let her magnificent and victorious eyes descend to Sara. “Why yes, they prove to be quite the multi-tool.” She responded in a haughty and smug voice. Returning to her normal voice she looked out across the area. “Wow, alot of faces. Uhhhhh… you can probably sniff anyone we know out. So….. oooo pastry.” Eva cooed at the end and snagged one off a plate passing her with the dexterity and stealth of a master thief. Immediately she brought it to her lips and bit down. “That's pretty good, not dry.. pretty soft. All in all, 8.5 out of 10.” Eva spoke as she continued to eat it, half inflated floatie in her other hand.

Sara gave her a playful scowl that couldn’t contain the smile peering through anyway, so in the end she was just smiling like a doofus. When she realized now how many people there were, her eyes widened. “Best to keep my soul-sniffing off.” She mumbled to herself. She then noticed Eva took a pastry and she snorted. “Hey, look, a bar. Wanna get drinks? I wanna see their cocktails!” She said excitedly, jumping up a bit on her toes as she wagged her tail and looked at Eva expectantly.

Nodding, “It's been awhile since I had anything to drink. Not since the last time we had Zosar over. Yeah, why not.” Eva said in agreement. Walking with Sara over to the bar, she took a seat at it and began to look through the menu. “You know what.” Eva stared at the bartender for a moment. “Make a drink you think someone who wants a fruity aftertaste would want.” After a minute, she took a sip of her drink and nodded. “Oooo fruity. Thank you.”

With Sara seated next to her, her tail wagged excitedly as she looked over the menu. “Man, these sound so good…” She looked over what Eva found and she looked up at the bartender with a smile. “Let’s have some Blue Hawaii.” A sweet, tart drink with vodka and rum and an impaled pineapple slice and cherry dipped into a bright blue drink, it was one of Sara’s favorites. It even came with a little umbrella. She thanked the bartender and hummed in delight. “Ahhh, haven’t had this one in a long time. Oh, I know you’re not technically a server, but can I have the island sauce smash burger?”

With her order now in place, Sara looked over at all those around the area. She saw Nadia by herself, two new Fate agents she recalled being Feng and Aki, Dani and Adrian hanging around the three sorcerers, and Gauss and his weapons hanging with Annika and her new weapon, Wes. And then there were Elly and Midori being all cool and hanging out with each other. All that was missing was Zosar.

But he took the same plane as them, where was he?

Sighing, she went about sipping her drink, feeling the buzz already hit her. She leaned over and tried to blow on the floatie’s air hole without Eva noticing, her cheeks growing tight and burning from the strain from preventing a smile.

---

REALLY OLD SARA/EVA COLLAB​

Location: Sara and Eva's Apartment, Death City, Nevada
Date: April 5, 2067

FINALLY LMAOOO

Spoiler: Baring Hearts and Souls

The kitchen sink that had been reduced to a mess was cleaned, bathrooms were practically polished, and so were parts of the floor that were wooden. Sara had spent all her time making the apartment presentable so that when Eva came home, she had a clean place to step into after all the medical stuff she had. While she wore her normal cherry red shorts and black tank top with that incapacitator collar around her neck, she also had a new addition to her right ear. A sterling silver loop that could twist, with a smaller carrier ring that held a skull with coffee mugs behind it in place of cross bones. On top and tied around a soldered thin block to hide it was a black and deep red ribbon that was interlocked and the earring threaded through.

It was her new addition, and she was going to be wearing this every day, just like the wall that had her memories in photos had a new flurry of additions of a ginger, curly-haired young woman with bright green eyes.

Having spent several days in the hospital Eva looked forward to getting back into a more comfortable environment. The episode she experienced rattled her far more than she expected. Every night following that she experienced additional memories, but nothing as vivid as seeing through the corrupted soul’s eyes. Moving somewhat slowly Eva got to the apartment and opened the door. Stepping inside she closed and locked it before setting her eyes on Sara.

“Hey Sara, the place looks nice.” She said looking around. Smiling, she did her best to hide her exhaustion. The memories had left her in an interesting place. While she slept, she didn’t feel at all rested. “I like the new ear piece.” Eva knew Sara was severely impacted by the death of her friend. Eva wished she had a stronger connection to spirits. If that had been the case she would have let Sara speak with her friend at least one last time.

Sara beamed upon hearing the door open. She wanted to tackle her dear weapon partner in a hug, but thought against it. Instead, she rushed over to her and beamed up at her. “Thank you, a sorceress lives in the same apartment building as us and she made this for me.” She then saw how tired she was and pursed her lips in a pout. “You haven’t been sleeping well.” She sighed, saying it as more of a statement than a question. “If you don’t mind talking about it, maybe talking can help get it off your chest? That is, if you’re okay with it. Here, I got food for us.” She gave her an easy smile and lightly placed her hand on her back to help guide her to the kitchen. “Sorry I couldn’t make it in time to bring you back myself. I’ve been a bit busy with training.” Which was the truth.

She had been working on her Soul Force within the confines of the apartment. Was that a bad idea? Probably, but she only blew a small hole in a punching bag and subsequently knocked the hook it was on off the ceiling. There was new plaster and slightly whiter paint where it was. She had marginal progress, as most of her training was centered around getting a good control of her wavelength enough to not make it feel like her hand exploded with each use.

“It's alright, it wasn't a long trip here. As for sleeping… yeah it’s kinda obvious, isn’t it.” Eva said, a little exasperated. Eva didn’t answer wanting to talk about it, it was something deeper that she had to work through but knew that Sara could help. “Definitely hungry… like always.” Eva said with a slight smile. Grabbing some of the food Eva sat down, setting her plate on the table. Immediately she took a deep breath and buried her face in her hands. Relaxation washed through her, finally being out of the hospital was a massive relief. She wasn’t sure if the episodes were linked with the stress of something more.

“I keep remembering bits and pieces of people or things I knew in the past. It's all tied to Denni.” Eva said, her face still covered up by her hands while her white hair flowed down the front of her face and pooled on the table. “I… it.” She suddenly clarified. “-killed them. I witnessed it first hand for the first time. But the crazy thing is we killed it so long ago. I ate its soul yet it still exists in some capacity. Why? Why now of all times? Did the witch's soul screw up something inside me? It was like I was rejected by myself when I ate it. Yet it was also like I flew so close to the sun I could almost touch it. It was… exhilarating but painful at the same time. Then the voices… Sara, I met myself.” Eva suddenly said. “It was wild, I couldn’t remember until I woke up but seeing it from the other end was disorienting. I woke up not knowing if I was still trapped.” Eva continued before stopping.

She leaned back and let her hands rest on the table. “I think… I need to explore this more. But I don’t know if continuing down the rabbit hole is exactly good. It took me a bit to remember who I was when I woke up and each time after that I felt horribly split like part of me wasn’t going to come back from the other side." Finally she quickly began to eat some of the food on her plate.

Smiling at Eva’s want to eat, Sara began pulling out food for her she had saved today. This time, she had made something with the fried rice, having made quite a bit of teriyaki chicken and her own style of beijing beef strips. It sucked that she wasn’t sleeping well, but now she was home. As Eva explained, Sara realized that Starwulf was right. Trying to do anything about Soul Diving was going to be a horrendous idea, but it might be one of the only ways to help. Granted, she had to be patient.

As Eva ate, she sat next to her on the counter stool and faced her, resting her head on her hand as her arm propped up against the countertop. “Yesterday, I was training with Starwulf. I was learning how to use Soul Force and realized I may have issues with my biology in a greater manner than I realized. Starwulf is getting a referral for me to go see Apex and get trained by him, but Starwulf was also interested in seeing you, Eva. He’s seen distorted souls before and he might be able to help.” Taking a deep breath, she recalled what Starwulf said to her yesterday and tried to speak of it to the best of her ability.
“Starwulf told me that distorted souls tend to do that. He said you’ll need time and space to process it on your own and that you’d need more therapy to safely undergo the processes of soul healing. While therapy doesn’t directly help the soul, it can indirectly do so by helping the mind. He also said distorted souls aren’t accepting of consuming souls. When you absorb a soul, you may experience their experiences. Those moments become a part of you, like different patchworks on a quilt. On one side, you can see they are clearly not your experiences, but on the other side, you can’t tell which is which, just the outlines of patch’s seams. The witch soul likely dug up some rather nasty memories from all parties in an attempt to boost the witch part of the soul, which he’s assuming that witch part of your soul is the part being distorted. If you consume a witch’s soul, you’d need a couple more of those souls to have the same effect a regular weapon would if they only consumed one witch soul. It’s like taking gummy vitamins instead of the pill vitamins, as your body only really digests a small amount of the vitamin within the gummies as opposed to taking the pills. He advised not to absorb anymore souls, go to therapy, and to not attempt a Soul Dive without a three-star meister there to safely sever the connection as quickly as possible.” She then sighed, pouting as she looked away.

“I was hoping to do a Soul Dive with you, just a really small one that won’t even go anywhere past the surface of your more intact soul that’s undoubtedly you just so I don’t end up hurting you. But considering my own wavelength leaking out of my control and potentially making me lose power or making my wavelength too unbearable, I don’t think I can safely do this either without a spotter. Guess we’re both all kinds of colorfully fucked.” She sighed, sliding off the stool to get herself some food and returning to Eva’s side to eat. After a bite, she patted her shoulder. “I will say this is a hundred percent real and you are Eva, not some other thing.” She chuckled, rubbing her upper back. She did perk up a bit, as she suggested a compromise. “What we can do is test the boundaries of our souls. Figure out what’s going on, test the feel of each other’s wavelengths more, and get more accustomed to our own wavelengths, as well.”

Eva sat and listened to Sara as she spoke, taking in what her friend was saying. “Makes sense…” Eva agreed. Taking a deep breath she sighed. “I hope this is real. Last night was not fun. It kept repeating the same way in the beginning before shifting each time I woke up.” She wanted to scream, everything seemed to go crazy following the April Fool's incident. “I doubt you expected to deal with something like this when I became your partner.” Eva sighed, somewhat demeaning herself.

She truly felt awful, everything had turned upside down. They had been making good progress and suddenly it felt like they were back to square one and she was closer to going crazy than she had been before. She was truly beginning to be overwhelmed and quite frankly… very depressed.

In a way, Sara understood. After speaking with Starwulf, she realized just how far behind she was herself. There were things she should be able to do, but couldn't. As Eva looked to be breaking down, Sara slid off her chair and wrapped her friend and partner into a hug, pulling Eva's head into her shoulder.

"We make do with what we have. Even then, I'd never ask for a better partner. You're amazing, even if we can't resonate. Even if you had your soul not as distorted, my wavelength would be a lot for you to handle when we start doing wavelength amps and stuff. I want to be the best meister for you." Nuzzling the top of her white hair, she began petting it, fingers combing through her hair and absent-mindedly getting rid of any knots as painlessly as possible. "This is very much real, Eva. You're okay now." Unsure if it would help, she leaned her head to see Eva's face more.

"So… I found some pretty old movies from back then. Want to cringe by watching the Twilight series? I heard it's awful, so we can laugh and rip it apart for fun. OH OH, and there's an actually good series I found called the Thundercats! I can make popcooooorn~." With a sing-song tune, her body wagged with her tail and she giggled. "Once you calm down and stuff, want to do a-... Well, not Soul Dive, but more like Soul… Poke." She giggled again.

Taking a deep breath Eva nodded. “Yeah, it's weird Sara. I really don't like the mental gymnastics I have been doing these last few days. Normally I can tell reality from fiction very easily but for once I feel like everything is just a mess.” Eva explained, accepting the embrace and physically relaxing somewhat. “Uhhh, Twilight… why not. Never heard of thundercats, kinda like monster cats?” Eva asked, trying to figure out what the title could mean.

Breaking their embrace Eva stood up and stretched a bit. “I'm alright with watching a movie. I can't promise I won't fall asleep during it though.” She admitted with a small smile. “A soul poke could also work, I don’t think it'll be that catastrophic.” Eva said, trying to be upbeat. Her eyes flashed blue for a moment. “Okay, maybe I do have some reservations.” Eva admitted. “But, I also know we will probably need to do this.”

Sara hummed in understanding. Yeah, she’s been doing her own kind of mental gymnastics. Her reaction to Twilight had her laughing though. But as she said she’s never heard of Thunder Cats, she gasped, letting go as Eva stood up. Eyes fixated on her brimming with excitement and looking like she might explode from joy, she then rushed headlong into the kitchen and began making popcorn, her tail practically a smacking hazard. “You NEED to at least see the first episode of Thundercats!” It was an exaggeration, but her enthusiasm to watch it more than made up for it, as it was clear she was excited. Logically? She didn’t need to see it, but she got so excited it felt like that anyway.

She giggled at Eva’s apparent reservations for the soul poke, practically blitzing over to her side in a flash. “Ohhh, it’s gonna be okay. I won’t go any deeper than surface level, okay? Like uh… Looking through a window. I don’t wanna hurt you.” She fully believed that analogy would be like she said it would be. She pouted, then gave Eva a brief hug before going to the stovetop, poured corn kernels from a bottle, poured oil on the bottom, and set a lid on top while turning the heat on. She then skipped on over to the living area, getting blankets and pillows for the two of them all set up and setting up their coffee table so it had their drinks and remotes with little reach. Then, she turned on her console, hopped into one of their streaming services for the more antique shows back in the “modern age” of late 1900s and early 2000s, and found Thundercats.

Giggling once that was done, she zoomed back over to the kitchen, apparently getting the werewolf equivalent of zoomies. “Get yourself all comfy and I’ll get you a BIG bowl of popcorn.” Her tail was practically a blur now.

Heading into the living area Eva looked around at her sitting options. Walking out of the living room and into her room Eva came out a minute or two later with a ton of blankets and two pillows. She began to pile up the blankets on their couch before sitting down in the rats nest of fabric. Shifting and half burying herself Eva quickly disappeared from view for a few moments.

Poking her head up from the covers she seemed to finally rest and sit decently still. After moving around the way she did Eva felt her shoulder start to throb. Letting out a small grumble she finally let her limbs go about as limp as they could, her body wrapped up in the mass of blankets.

If observed from outside the only visible part of Eva’s body were her vibrant almost glowing red gold eyes. Having coiled herself up it was like a turtle sticking its head out to observe what was going on around its shell. Eyes moving back and forth she watched Sara zoom across their apartment getting things together. “Mpmhmmm Mppmhmmhmm.” Eva mumbled her mouth obscured by the blankets.

Jolting her head up she managed to get her mouth partially free. “I don't think I can eat popcorn right now.” Eva reflected on her situation. She felt far more comfortable than she ought to in the situation. The tight embrace of the cocoon helped her relax.

Hearing that she wasn’t able to eat popcorn, Sara sighed sadly. “Oh weelll… More for me~!” Back to her chipper attitude, she brought over a bowl of buttered popcorn and set it on the table. It was indeed a huge bowl. She then looked to see Eva’s cocoon and she laughed. “Oh my, how am I supposed to hop in without squishing you? Here.” She tried to find some blankets and pillows she set down for them both that weren’t pulled into Eva’s cocoon. Once she finally found a couple that were separate, she sat where Eva’s legs weren’t going to get sat on and covered herself in blankets. “There we go~.”

Then, Monstercats started playing. The only thing that was heard through the silence was the thumping of Sara’s tail wagging excitedly, and she continuously looked over at Eva to see her expression when they watched the first episode of Monstercats.

Of course, with every first episode, there was the one-sided worldbuilding that came from focusing on the protagonist their surroundings, showing the world as they saw it through their lenses, the protagonist’s obsession with technology the rest of the Monstercats saw as silly or a waste of time as there were no other technology left, only for betrayal to come in the form of an old friend of the king, sending the protagonist on a path of grief and adventure with a femme fatale, his brother who thought his obsession was wrong until it wasn’t and it ended up saving him, and a couple of thieving kids. With a sword gifted to him by his father, the protagonist went on a journey with this group (begrudgingly when it came to the kids) as his entire way of life was thrown upside down and his home was destroyed. Nothing to hold him back home, he’s forced to find revenge for his father’s death while neglecting his own mental health for the last part of this first episode.

For some reason, Sara realized that this first episode - as hard as it went - likely spoke to Eva in some way. She looked over at Eva, uncertainty in her gaze as she stared searchingly for any sign of change.

Maybe, in an odd sense, this show can help with Eva’s own grief about losing her former meister? Wouldn’t that be a tall order…

Eva watched, transfixed on the screen. “That was pretty good.” She spoke up as the episode ended. Swinging her head back and forth to try and get the blankets off her head she finally pulled an arm up and out of the bundle of blankets. Pulling the blankets off her head she looked over to Sara. “Alright, do you want to try that dive?” Eva asked, unsure about it but not wanting to back out of what they both agreed to.

"Ooh, yes, but it won't be a traditional dive. It'll be like me poking the surface of your soul with my finger, just enough to cause a small reaction to see how bad it is, but not enough to cause…Well, rejection." Sara got herself out of her bundle of blankets. For one, she was surprised Eva wasn't making parallels like she was. Maybe she just refused to think about it.

She grabbed a couple of yoga mats and set them on the floor several inches apart and grabbed a scented candle to light and set in the middle of them. She didn't have the traditional soul diving incense, but they weren't going to soul dive, she was truthful when she said that. Just a poke.

Once that was done, she sat criss-crossed on one mat with her tail wagging anxiously as she waited for Eva to sit apart from her. "Alrighty, all ready~."

Head disappearing, the mass of blankets began to shift and bulge as Eva tried to untangle herself. Rocking back and forth she tumbled from the couch but was luckily surrounded by fluffiness. Managing to unwrap herself she pushed the blanket mass back towards the couch. “Wow, that was rough.” She commented on her being trapped. Sara snickered.

Sitting down across from Sara she took a deep breath. “Alright, you lead on this and I will try to keep it from going south immediately. Though… no promises.” Eva wasn’t entirely sure what would happen, though she knew they had to at least try to delve into each other’s soul.

Sara smiled and rocked from side to side. "Don't worry, I won't go too far. Now, give me these haaaaands~." She held out her own to grab Eva's hands, and took a deep breath.

Holding her hands out Eva took Sara’s into her own. “Hands given,” her hands were a little cold as anxiety started to rise up. She managed to simmer it and steeled herself against whatever might happen. Opening herself up she allowed her wavelength to push out and against Sara, creating the beginning of a bridge.

Sara's own soul took Eva's wavelength graciously, then gave her own wavelength to Eva's in small chunks. Once the bridge was largely complete, Sara breathed in to calm herself, and guided herself to peer into Eva's soul. However, she kept herself from dipping further than a true dive, only metaphorically sticking her face through to see what it was like in there, and keeping a large portion of herself away from Eva's soul to avoid hurting her.

The connection was made and Sara began to get a view of Eva’s soul. From a distance it looked vague, a reddish tint consumed a third of the space while the other two thirds were visible. What looked to be structures and large juts covered much of it. It was too blurry for Sara to get a good grip of what all was there.

After a minute Sara would begin to feel anxiety clawing its way up her back towards the base of her neck. The soul space shuddered and an energetic, almost lightning sensation began to envelope the both of them. Distortion wracked Eva’s soul, the feeling of power rose before it began to sting as the distorted portion of her soul reacted to the presence.

Immediately, Sara pulled her wavelength away and opened her eyes, detaching herself from Eva. After seeing it, she realized just how bad it was. Even if it wasn’t much, it was enough for her to realize there was something wrong. The anxiety felt a lot like a trauma response, and her brow knitted in sympathy as she gazed at her partner to see if she was okay. “Okay, that’s enough. I won’t peer any further.” Indeed, she had stopped, instead soothingly rubbing her thumbs on Eva’s hands. “You okay?”

Opening her eyes as Sara let go, Eva shook her head. “That felt weird. I’m alright, it just felt like one part of my soul reacted violently while the other accepted it.” She tried to explain. “Yeah, I’m alright.” She repeated after a few moments of calm. “There has to be something we can do.” she felt particularly useless in that moment, unable to let her partner connect in any meaningful way.

Sara watched her partner closely, making sure there wasn’t an even worse reaction, which thankfully there wasn’t. At least Starwulf wouldn’t get mad at her.

Oh, right, Starwulf.

“Yesterday, I went to see Starwulf and I spoke of our souls. Half of my soul I can’t really use because it’s got the werewolf traits ‘cause I’m stuck between them, and I spoke of your soul being distorted. He’s got a lot of knowledge on the subject. We can go to him and figure out a game plan so we can resonate later. And then we can do more and do fun attacks~.” Of course, there were more benefits to being able to resonate, but that was one of the cooler things they could do, as Sara’s excitement radiated from her and her tail wagged quickly to show she was definitely looking forward to that day.

Nodding along, “Alright, I'll go with you to talk to Starwulf. It’ll probably help us get an idea of what's going on at the very least. Maybe he can figure it out.” She agreed with Sara, they could end up with some cool abilities if they figure out what's going on. Though, it would likely take awhile. Taking a deep breath Eva stood up. “Alright, I think we should wait until we talk with him to do anything else like this.” Eva spoke as she went and took a seat on the couch.

“Yup, I’ll call him so we can set up an appointment tomorrow.” Sara also got up, putting away the items she had set out for themselves. “Ohh, wanna play a game?”

 

[Merciless Medic]

Noah Wiley​

Date: September 9, 2067
Location: OUTRIGGER Kāʻanapali Beach Resort, Hawaii
Interactions: Gauss, Arkayis, Annika, Wes, Gav (message only)
Mentions: Sara, Eva, Ark, Maria, Raph, Dani, Adrian, Nadia, Feng, Aki, Elly, Midori, Zosar
Sir Les Paul Peckinou Mook-LandStrider Shotgunpenguin The Regal Rper EmperorsChosen RedArmyShogun

After furthering his relationship with Gav and actually making something of it official and training his ass off with Gauss and Arkayis, Noah was finally going to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

A really expensive getaway.

While he should really take the time to enjoy it, he really didn’t like it. Not only did Gav text him telling him he wasn’t going to be in Hawaii because he was going to be on a mission, but going to a place where the rich get richer and were safe from the MIBVI crisis left a sour taste in his mouth. While he didn’t mind the rich lifestyle, being as he grew up in one and had a rich meister, he much preferred the homely life that Sara had when he was still living with her. It made better people, whose flaws weren’t as grievous or annoying as those who lived in a more rich lifestyle. He guessed there was a silver lining that this lifestyle was taken away from him at a young age to prevent him from turning into Gauss before the lessons and therapy, but he became something else. He really didn’t want to support the endeavors over at the beach resort…

However, he was a fool to decline such niceties, so he went anyway.

Despite his reservations, he still tried to find some kind of happiness, sending a pic of himself in his sky blue hoodie and hugging his carry-on bag while staring out the plane window almost forlornly. Just as he sent Gav the picture with no words for context, he got assaulted with Sara messages and he groaned. There she went again, going off about how Zosar was on her plane sitting beside her. He barely got a chance to even decipher what she said before he had to turn it on airplane mode and sat there in relative silence.

Once the plane landed and Noah made sure both Gauss and Arkayis got their things, he staggered as he saw just how many Fate agents there were now. It just made him want to find his room quick, get food, and get this stupid speech over with. He found his room and threw his stuff on the bed. He stared at the pillowy comforter and the mattress he could probably just fall asleep on right away, but he decided against it and began to change to more summer wear.

Noah was rather simple in what he wore. For swimwear, he had on navy blue trunks. He didn’t think he needed a sweater, but he had it wrapped around his waist and tied by the sleeves just in case he got cold or needed it for something.

Once he was done and messaged Gav he landed, he met back up with Gauss and Arkayis and walked to the dining hall, which was very apparent that it was improved to become a dining hall. He sat beside Gauss, found something on the menu he liked, but then saw wings. Ohhh, he hadn’t had chicken wings in a long time. There were even beers he wanted to try. IPA caused his chest to feel tight, so he wasn’t going to be touching those. But he was going to get those alcoholic fruit slushies - strawberry to be precise. He ordered those rather immediately.

When Gauss teased Arkayis about Kusumi not being here, he snorted, an amused, sadistic grin on his face. That was when Gauss decided to ask about Sara and Noah raised an eyebrow. “She’s like a labrador when it comes to water. Ya won’t be able to separate her from it. As for whether it ruins her hair… I dunno. Her tail’s always rather soft ‘n’ felt more like a hybrid between werewolf ‘n’ human hair, so I’m sure it’ll get really tangled after a dip in the ocean.” He said it rather matter-of-fact. Gauss had a rather loose vibe to him and it was nice to feel that and not a so high-strung Gauss.

He took a moment to look around. A new Fate agent blew right past with drinks in hand to her partner on another table, he caught sight of Sara and Eva resting at the bar, Nadia sitting by herself, Elly and Midori sitting by themselves, Dani and Adrian standing with Maria as Ark and Raphael joined them… Not only couldn’t he find Zosar to help Sara, but he wasn’t able to find Gav either. That bummed him out a little bit.

Then Annika with her new partner showed up. He eyed the purple-haired man with interest before waving his hand. “Yo.” Was all he said, then he elbowed Gauss playfully with a smirk. When asked, he decided to go first, probably interrupting Gauss. “While I don’t much care for how much it feels like some rich-man breedin’ ground - no offense, Gauss - it’s nice here… The plane ride’s a snooze-fest.” He then waited for Gauss and Arkayis to speak up, going silent as this was Gauss’s girl.

Thoughts went to Gav again and he looked down at his phone to check if Gav ever messaged him back.

 

[Merciless Medic]

Raphael Valerias​

Date: September 9, 2067
Location: OUTRIGGER Kāʻanapali Beach Resort, Hawaii
Interactions: Ark, Maria, Dani, Adrian
Mentions: Feng, Aki, Sara, Eva, Noah, Gauss, Arkayis, Annika, Wes, Nadia, Elly, Midori, Zosar
The Regal Rper RedArmyShogun EmperorsChosen Sir Les Paul Peckinou Mook-LandStrider Shotgunpenguin

Oh, it was time for a nice relaxing vacation! Too bad his spider couldn’t come with him, but his father needed a helping hand anyway. But off to vacation!

He found it rather lonely considering he didn’t really hook up with anyone when he went on the plane to Hawaii, but that was fine. Looking out over the people on the plane as him, he noted a few familiar faces from those in the Fate program. In fact, quite a few of them were from the Fate program. That was a bit unnerving.

Thankfully, he had Sara’s funny, excited texts to read over. Even if he had no hope in understanding any of what she said, he was just glad she was able to sit with this “Zosar” she constantly talked about.

So when Raph landed, he realized just how many there were of them. It was a bit overwhelming. So, he thought about making himself rather comfortable, having made some clothes for himself with his father’s help and taking some inspiration from a few cultures. When he found his room, he set his stuff on a chair and hummed as he went about dressing himself.

While his normal piercings still dotted his ears (along with a recent addition being a skull and cross-mugs charm on his earlobe), he was now lacking the “punk” vibe with his leathers and chains. Instead, he wore soft silk. Both hands were covered in a fingerless black glove with a hole that allowed his thumb pad to be free, his gloves stopping short of his wrist. His left forearm wore a floral wrap, wine-red and light green with yellow floral designs. He wore a two-part robe - the under part being white and the top part being the same wine-red with yellow, faded concentric circles, leaves, and flowers. The sleeves hung loose, the robe also hanging loose around his shoulders, showing off a rather new tattoo addition of a rose with falling petals on his chest. Even new earrings dangled from his left ear, two golden pointy blades. Around his waist was a light green sash to keep the robe from falling open, black shorts, and he wore black sandals that wrapped up his calves with straps. He even got his nails done a few days ago so they were a bit glossy and neatly trimmed.

Honestly, the manicure was a bit more therapeutic than he cared to admit.

Once he was done getting dressed up and grabbed his trusty satchel, he walked to the dining area, and immediately spotted Ark. Of course, it was impossible to not see him. He walked on over, a skip in his step and there soon became a skip in his heart when he saw Dani and her new boyfriend there with Maria. Honestly, Sara with her knowledge of her friends made it easier not to step on any wrong toes, and this time he was going to be nice and friendly.

Yes, yes, nice and friendly.

He noticed a girl running around with drinks nearly hit Adrian, and he chuckled as he watched her run off to what he assumed was her partner. He spotted Sara with her weapon at the bar, that magnetic wavelength guy sitting with his weapons, purple haired guy, and a blonde chick he didn’t recognize, he spotted Nadia by herself, and he noted Midori was here. Of course, how could he not know Midori? Sara spoke of him plenty, still amazed at how awesome a greater trained Weapon felt when she wielded him during the tournament. Apparently he was with someone now.

But now wasn’t the time to get caught up. Ark and Maria were there, and they were the closest people he could consider friends that tolerated him. Even if Dani was there, he wasn’t about to let his fear anticipation of her actions keep him away.

He had caught some of the conversation. Maria was embarrassed - probably by the bikini she was wearing - and Ark was complimenting her by being a suave asshole nice friend, and Dani saying Ark wasn’t the asshole sorcerer.

So, he introduced himself as such, slapping Ark on the shoulders and smiling cheerily. “Ahh, nice to see friends converge, yes? I’m the asshole sorcerer, by the way, nice to meet you.” He said to Adrian, his smile and the dual-colored eyes strained as he glanced over at Dani with an almost pleading expression of please don’t beat me up while attempting to act unconcerned about her reactions. His strange admittance to being an asshole didn't cause a stir. Instead, it caused his pride to swell. He was the one who got those two to almost resonate, even if it was through terrible means. He helped them, so being considered an asshole was more like a compliment based on the actions he took to get them almost there and believe they could actually do it.

He then playfully ruffled Ark’s hair before sitting down beside him, his more Asian-style robes making him look like he got the wrong memo about their destination. “How’s everyone doing, hm? Yes, including you two. I try not to be that petty anymore.” He nodded over to Dani and Adrian, not wanting to leave them out of his question. He picked out something on the menu immediately - a fruity island beer and grilled chicken caesar wrap before sitting amongst his friends and… well, more like rival and possible enemy if he fucked up. But considering he was hoping not to do that, he won’t… Hopefully.

The air he gave off was rather relaxed and peaceful despite his madness anyway.

 

[The Regal Rper]

Gav | Outrigger Resort, Hawaii

"You know, Elly, actually not a huge fan of these beaches...But, I can't deny the style suits you..."​

Hair shook free as he pulled his shirt off. Out of sight and with so many souls in the area, without being totally focused it was unlikely she would pick up on his approach anyway. Exiting through a crowd of passing bodies. The words left his lips confidently as he followed up on where Midori had left off.

"I'll say." A salacious touch to the way he said it as he emerged rather suddenly, despite merely walking.

He walked past the duo's table, shooting Midori a nod. "Good seeing you again Bright Eyes." Gav snickered as he stopped by. And then his bright sea blue eyes shifted from Bright Eyes, to Elly.

"Nice meeting you too, Elly." He said it with a wink, but the sultriness was almost entirely gone in how he said it. "I'll catch you two later, I got somewhere to be" checking his cell, aware that Noah would be here soon enough. He still had his rounds to make. Placing his cell on the table under his hand, and giving Midori another nod, he glanced over at Elly and said, "Name's Gav by the way, and hey, whatever he tells you" made a gesture at Midori, "it's probably half true, we'll catch up later, I wanna see more of her, Bright Eyes, that includes you too" he pulled his cell up and glanced at it. Tapped the table with his fingers and rose straight again. "See you two, and hey, El, come looking for me if you and Midori wanna party later.."

He turned, signaled a wave with two fingers. The most notable thing as he did for Elly at least was the hint of magic that came off the Phoenix tattoo inked on his toned back.

Gav, did his rounds, catching up with one group of agents, then another. He wasn't there to chaperone but he was there to see how some had been doing. He only came because it was one of his duties as a manager for some of the FATE Agents to keep tabs on their progress and in events like this, where they were allowed to really cut loose, he was more there to ensure that they didn't get too carefree on a two-day expensive vacation. While Feng technically counted, he had caught sight of her and Aki a few seconds ago, and he wasn't about to intervene on that.

Spotting Noah checking his phone again, Gav split, separating from the group he was with a simple few words.

"You sure looking glum staring at that phone so much. Not gonna socialize with the rest over there?" He asked, more imposing his presence on the table as he addressed Noah.

Mentions: Sir Les Paul

Interactions:: Merciless Medic EmperorsChosen

 

[The Regal Rper]

Zosar | Outrigger Resort, Hawaii

It was by stroke of luck he’d found himself sitting with Sara and Eva on the flight over. Her excitement, since it had been a few weeks since their prior meeting on his return, had been amusing. The girl really was lively, he couldn’t help but think her and Aki would get along smashingly.

And Eva…it had been good to see her again. Of all the people that Zose or Jacob Straugg knew, he hadn’t expected her to be happy with him. Even with the assigned partners he’d been given on his Survey to EAT for a period, none of them had truly known what his case was.

They’d been told he wasn’t who he said he was and that he was in league with a Third Party connection, but no one had known he was in league with the Enlighteners. The Intelligence Branch hadn’t told any of his prospective partners. Primarily because mercenaries, even legally contracted ones, were not viewed highly in the DWMA, EAT especially.

And like he’d always done since he’d been caught, he’d dodged, evaded, or deflected every probing question that had tried to dig into his past life.

It had been why he also had been unable to maintain Soul Resonance for long with those partners also.

Adra, so far, had made bigger leaps in that field than any of his assigned partners since Markus and Becky were gone.

With Eva, given how she had been, he’d expected her to be furious with him, even when he still wasn’t telling her the full reason as to why he was there in FATE after they’d lost touch. Not like he had a reason to, not when he knew about her ability to see through deceit, and he’d figured out the way to avoid triggering her sixth sense.

It was clear from her reaction though, Sara hadn’t talked about him with her. Sara knew he was a spy, but she didn’t know for whom. Knew he was in FATE but from their interaction, it’d been as clear a surprise to her as it had been for him to meet her and find out she was also in the program. What he’d expected to be anger, hadn’t been forthcoming. That was where the rumors had picked up- the unknown as to whom he’d worked for, and why, or whom he and his companions- of which, there had been others aside from the teams he’d come with, that had also vanished, making the questioning worse.

Eva’s ever brightening mood since finding out she was in FATE not as an volunteer or mentor figure or some other sort of aid, or as had crossed his mind, reporter for Cyrus, had been good to hear of from her own lips though. It had detracted from talking about his life, and given him the opportunity to understand why someone like her was in a program like this if not a supporter or aide.

It was a shame with what had forced her to join the program in the first place, but seeing her in person, it was good to know she was doing better.

Being here, on this beach resort though…

He blew air out of his window while he looked over the beautiful layout of the island from his disposition.

He felt like saying something in Spanish right now, maybe something in French, but no words came to his tongue.

This aspect of him, likely would never fade. It was the thing he and his father had in common, a shared silliness that-- He shrugged that thought off. It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to think about his dead dad.

A silly thing he was doing right now, instead of heading to the designated meeting spot he was still in his room, thinking. Perhaps that was good though. It was good to get alone time when he needed it. Since his return from leaving the Hoshi Territory, he hadn’t had lots of time to really sit and think. The training, the processing for his potential partner and all the other work that would relate to it, everything else in between with catching up to others…

He exhaled and no scent of cigarette smoke or otherwise escaped his lips on the puff of air, but for some reason, feeling oddly dramatic and a desire to commit to the bit, after hanging up his things and doing the routine check in his room to check if it was bugged- he’d found the strange urge to pose dramatically against his window sill.


He imagined he looked like a complete jackass right now, at least that’s exactly the kind of thing Markus would have said to him.

Noah too likely, would have shared in that sentiment.

A fraction of a smile graced his lips. Those two would have gotten along with sarcastic quips towards one another for sure.

He sighed, dropping his hand to the sill.

He missed that guy. Though he’d met him, Becky and Eustice all at the same time at the age of ten or eleven, Markus had been the one he’d become friends with first, despite both of them having opposite personalities. While he had been more inquisitive and imposing, Markus had been more reticent and reluctant- not necessarily the shy kid, but definitely not the sort of person that liked to introduce himself first when meeting someone new.

Hearing the chirp of a bird brought Zosar back.

Back to the sound of a bird that had caught his attention outside the yellow tape crossed off room of a deceased mini-music idol. That had been his…their, second major mission. He was eleven then but could still recall it clearly. The room’s messy state had contrasted with the clean hallways, and peaceful atmosphere from afar. But the closer they had gotten to the scene of the incident, the more he could detect the emotional sensation of unease.

At that time he couldn’t blame them. No one wants to walk into a horror scene so early in the morning. And of all the places for the death of an idol to occur, Montego Bay was not one of those places. Only reason they’d been drawn to it was because of that idol’s death, and the police being stumped given the security that had been present were all taken out. By that time, they’d had connections. Though not part of DWMA anymore by then, his father and the others had played their part in stopping saboteurs from stealing vaccine deliveries at important locations across Jamaica. They’d earned respect with the multiple politicians because of that, even if they’d lost it from the DWMA after separating from the guilt of mowing down so many lives during the MIBVI.

He recalled walking into a room bigger than this with more furnishing, even a jacuzzi. But it’d all been minor details he picked up as he’d followed his father, Hiroshi, Markus, along with their Jotuun companion Mav, Shaman Weapon companion Reese, and another two pairs along with a young Witch, to observe the macabre scene.

Such an odd contrast really. The manager of the place had been jittery, had been sitting with a drained expression of exhaustion and the officers had looked at the scene with a sense of disturbed detachment.

The supernatural mingling with daily life was always disturbing to the average person. Some criminal activity passed off as normal till it got into DWMA’s books as being beside that. Other cases were just morbidly bizarre.

He couldn’t tell if it had been the scene, or the fact his father and Hiroshi had brought a bunch of preteens and teens with him to help in solving the case- or rather hunting that Corrupted Soul down responsible.

Not many in the law enforcement, he’d noticed, really agreed with the idea of allowing a bunch of teenagers, running around, doing the work of adults when they could be doing other things- but Lord Death had done it for eons now, that most didn’t vocally question it anymore.


He doubted they were going to pull a cliche Murder-Mystery game here at this resort, but having his mind spin the wheel of time backwards to that event, really made him wonder if it would be on the list of possibilities.

Or if shit might hit the fan, but cheers to hoping that didn’t happen.

The fact he hadn’t been able to bring Gale along was just another thing he wasn’t a fan of either. Not only would his feline companion be irate with him once more for ditching them yet again, he would need to think of something to bring back before returning. Even if Az was going to take care of Gale while he was away on this trip, it was the prospect that he’d be doing quite literally the same thing to her again, that had him slightly annoyed.

It was hard enough spending more than a week or two to get her to be in the same presence as him without being on her guard. Az had been a great fountain of knowledge when it came to research material on magical creatures.

Umbra, for all her talkativeness and jeering, had also provided a few tips and pointers on Gale’s mood shifting, when he himself hadn’t immediately noticed it.

His mother had been right. He should have dedicated some time into studying the heritage he’d never been born into for the sake of his own benefit. Even if she had made him an honorary member of the House, since she’d stepped down as Head around the time of the plague to play a role in active duty when the O.C.F had been formed, she still had been right. Especially with her predictions on MagiTech having been spot on.

He would need to look into that. Studying more on magic that is when he had time. There was little he could do, but it helped to know what he didn’t.

Checking the time on his wrist watch he shifted away from the window.

“Better get going before that speech starts.”

And he stepped in with a final crowd of people, eyeing the body count with reserved interest.

FATE, really had seen a boost since the Fool’s incident.

He’d been doing his research on all he’d missed. And now knew as much as anyone else that had been actively there. You weren’t really a good merc, if you didn’t know squat about what you’re walking into, Jose had always said.

No doubt some of the people here had family helping fund this program, and if the grapevine said anything, he wondered if the people handling all of this were related to anyone in the program itself or had a history prior to it in its previous iteration.

As always, he noticed the exits and their locations. In doing so he caught a glimpse of Midori and Elly, and if spotted by them, waved, noticed someone that fit the description as ‘Gav’, that Noah had mentioned to him briefly when they’d caught up weeks before and prior to his meeting with Sara and Eva. He caught a passing glimpse of Feng and Aki, noticed Noah with his partners, and a Weapon with a redhead who’s soul vibrated on the spot-- probably a unique wavelength too, like some of the people here seemed to have.

Then his eyes honed in on Eva’s distinct soul, picking Sara’s out right after. With the mass of bodies here, they wouldn’t notice him and if she hadn’t noticed him yet as he glimpsed at her spirit, it was fair to assume she’d switched her Soul senses off to avoid being overwhelmed. He’d gotten good at tuning other things out, focusing in on what he wanted, when he wanted, and part of that was due to Hoshi training he owed to. Now, the question was, to join them, or go wandering off and inspect some of the other tables.

In the end he decided to wander off, if only for a minute or two.

Not everyone was seated, despite there being tables and seats to take so many. People were moving around, socializing, asking for drinks, getting food, visiting the mini-snackbar to pick some stuff out. He didn’t engage with it. Not in full.

Seeing Eva here had him curious if he’d find others he knew here too. He had foolishly thought with his entry into FATE, he’d left most of everyone that knew Jacob Straugg behind until he completed the program and would have to face the masses again as Zosar Raith, but now…he wasn’t so sure.

Like a shark, submerged underwater, barely visible and mistaken for a dolphin, he kept his spirit suppressed at its normal, single soul looking state instead of the massive blaze it would normally be if he released his restraints. It made it easier to draw less attention, as he circled around, using other people to masquerade his presence, eyeballing a few people standing or moving between tables to interact with people in different groups. He’d step in to grab a drink, skim, then move on.

There were one or two people he recognized in the program, people he knew from his past life, and the moment he recognized them, he turned his back to them- satisfied.

He had no interest in really engaging. He only merely wanted to cut off the chance of surprises before they reared an ugly head before him again.

He thought of going up to Gauss, maybe saying hello- though he didn’t necessarily like the guy and a part of him wanted to sock him square in the jaw, dislodge a tooth or two for the shit he’d started day one because of Athena, rationally he couldn’t fault him.

He was in FATE after all. So he’d let that go. Following Nadia’s words of advice on some level at least.

It took five minutes, before he circled around, coming up on Eva’s blindspot by mingling in with a group ordering drinks at the bar not far from them, and then stepping around that group he switched up mentalities from the detached observation he’d taken as he walked around, allowing himself to mirror the excited atmosphere and joyful mood that he felt, but in the moment wasn’t truly what he was on about, to allow himself to relax enough with a truly sincere smile upon seeing how ecstatic the two were.

“Hey girls, sorry I’m late, thought I’d do some looking around before I hooked up with you guys.”

Which wasn’t a lie, knowing Eva would be able to tell. And in fact was as true as what he’d been doing could get.

“What are you two drinking, maybe I’ll order something.” He asked them with a brow as he stood in front of both. Swim trunks, a cliche tropical shirt that was open and displayed his chest and the barest glimpse of his abs- and for a brief moment, the light caught his necklace, as the Meister grinned at the two, waiting for a reply.

Mentions: Sir Les Paul EmperorsChosen RedArmyShogun Peckinou Shotgunpenguin

Interactions:: Merciless Medic Mook-LandStrider

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Kenneth Russo​

"Chimera"​

Species Human
Partner Sylas Kallis
Rank Fate Agent

Location OUTRIGGER Resort, Ka’anapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii
Mission A Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride
Status Interested

​

Tags: Merciless Medic Mook-LandStrider EmperorsChosen RedArmyShogun Peckinou

What beautiful site.

Kenny watched as the room filled up with Agents of all kinds. That was the thing he loved most about the DWMA. It was full of beautiful people. Even Demon Weapons had to train and be in shape to ascend those famous stairs, and it showed. So many toned bodies. Even the greatest Greek sculptors would envy the art that filled this room. And, just like a sculptor with his chisel, each and every agent here worked hard to achieve their status, their abilities, and of course, their physique. This was a room of well-earned beauty, not that fake, plastic look seen so often on television.

It was a remarkable thing.

His eyes didn't ever linger anywhere for any significant amount of time. He wasn't staring as much as he was soaking in every minute detail.

That was until a few people of note began to trickle in. A handful that he had wanted to encounter for some time, but hadn't the opportunity. He was much later into the program than they were and finding a proper way to introduce himself or catch them when they weren't absurdly busy proved difficult. But, now? Now was the perfect time.

Kenny approached, and it was easy to feel him before you even saw him. Not that he was hard on the eyes at all. His body itself was chiseled to near perfection, but lacked the obtrusive muscles that would grow had he pushed himself any harder. His soul was different and in ways he had no intention on hiding. To many, it might have been familiar, even. It resembled that of Zosar. Volatile in nature, but somehow, much larger than even his and far more stable. More so, it was not such a simple singular palette of color. His soul was a purple hue that was expanding like a beating heart, pouring out an intense and thick wavelength, but within it was golden veins of glimmering wavelength that seemed to constrain the rest of his soul, and more so, put off an air of delightful serenity. That part of his soul was also familiar. It wasn't too unlike that of Noah.

The only reason his soul was of such note was the raw power it exuded seemingly at all times. It was no secret that Zosar had a power like that as well, but it was restrained at nearly all times, and even then, it was half or better as intense as this one. In short, it put plenty of three-stars to shame. It was, in short, impossible to ignore.

He drew closer, fully intending on cutting in on the reintroduction of Zosar, Sara, and Eva. That is when the real effect of his soul sat it. For Sara, it had a particular aroma. Sweet, like honeysuckle, but more so, oddly tantalizing--the forbidden fruit. It was not just tempting, but addicting. Gauss had a similar trait in that he pulled others in, but this was different. This wasn't a pull, it there was no driving force like that. It was an urge. To Wes whom could hear souls, this one drowned out all the others with ease. It was pleasant, melodic sound in perfect harmony. Loud and powerful, sure, but pleasant to the ear, like a lead or solo in a old rock ballad. And, to Elly, who could have dissect his soul for hours, it was clear: this soul looked like two dancing together in perfect harmony, a tango between a beast of raw power and a angelic nymph keeping it in line.

"You're a hard man to keep up with, mister Straugg," Kenny said in a light, soothing tone. Even voice carried an odd allure, not unlike the calming feeling of a small jolt from Noah. It certainly wasn't natural, nor was it something Noah could have done by just speaking. But then, Kenny was a whole different animal from a Demon Weapon.

"Or, do you go by Zosar in full now?" he asked, revealing that he knew of the dual identities that Zosar had, though coming off as polite with his question. It could have just as easily passed as a true inquiry as to what name he wanted to go by, no different than abiding by someone's nickname or preferred gender.

He chuckled, then raised his brows, and scanned over to Sara and Eva. His eyes shared a trait with both Zosar and Midori: heterochromia. Rare, though it seemed less so in this program.

"I'm not sure who you are, miss," he said, turning his attention to Sara, "but I've never seen persistent canine features quite like yours. They're charming."

Then back over to Eva. His smile widened, and with it, a brightness that seemed like it could illuminate the sun. "For you, I'll introduce myself," he said, as if that was a privilege. "Kenneth Russo, though most call me Kenny. Unless it's a mission, then it's Chimera," he told her. He had a way of speaking that resembled someone all three of them knew well enough: none of other than their companion, mister Thales. However, unlike their arrogant teammate, the words that rolled off the tongue of this gentlemen were as smooth as silk, and the atmosphere his very soul created around him made it a state of ease.

"You might just be the most beautiful thing in this room, love. At least, if I were asked..." he told Eva, this time intentionally trying to be smooth with a direct compliment and flirtation hidden about as well as his Soul.

And, at no time, could Eva detect a single lie from the man.

 

[Peckinou]

Arkayis Misonuka - Hawaii Resort
Interaction: Gauss Sir Les Paul , Noah Merciless Medic ,Gav The Regal Rper , Annika Mook-LandStrider , Wes Shotgunpenguin
Mentions:
​

Hawaii was a place that Arkayis actually liked being at, The weather could be a bit hotter but it was actually decent enough to where he was a bit relaxed within it. The constant training had been a bit of a headache in the recent time frame, way different from how he usually trained back when he was truly motivated to train. While training hard wasn't all that new to him as his sister also loved training them hard, though his sister simply wanted speed and power and Arkayis was mostly trained by her to fit that philosophy. Gauss was a bit different and had a different sort of demand, though Arkayis wasn't really motivated to try all that hard for him, but for Kasumi and Noah to a degree, he was willing to put in some overall effort and that effort was enough to make it very tiring.

Though Arkayis never really expected to get any sorta of vacation, he was pretty content with the chosen location and the plane ride was also good. After a smooth flow of events, they were able to get their own rooms booked and Arkayis didn't waste much time in getting their things put away, and changing their clothes though unlike the others Arkayis had a standard pair of clothes on and a swimsuit underneath. Though instead of settling themselves in Arkayis opted to quickly join up with Noah, following them around as they went about the place, and they soon had Gauss join up with them as well. As they made their way down to the dining area, Gauss opted to make a bit of small talk with though, while Arkayis did answer questions he didn't really give much details at all, though they did note that the trip and place was pretty nice.

When it came to food selection Arkayis was more thirsty than hungry and had gotten himself a mug of apple juice, though Arkayis used his hands to heat it up to make sure it was nice and hot for them to drink, and he already knew that he was defiantly going to go back for refills. When Gauss said that Kasumi was likely not here Arkayis was a bit disappointed and simply went on to take another swig of their drink until Gauss brought up the idea of Kasumi in a swimsuit, causing Arkayis to nearly choke up on his drink. It took a moment before he was able to fully recover from that jab, though a hint of red could be seen on his face, but he was hoping it could be passed off from him nearly choking to death rather than from embarrassment.

Arkayis had to admit though that it sounded a bit cute on how Noah described how Sara was around water, but he soon pushed those thoughts out of his mind as Annika and what Arkayis figured was her new partner joined them. Though Annika soon introduced the man as Wes, Arkayis give a small wave that disappeared as quickly as it came to the both of them as they looked towards Wes, as if trying to make an analysis of them. He didn't say much and stuck close to Annika, Arkayis figured he was probably trying to either figure them out or was overall just reserved. As Annika asked about how their trip was Arkayis simply gave a nod as they said "It was alright."

After a moment Arakyis noticed that Noah seemed to be preoccupied with looking towards their phone, and it didn't take long after that before Gav butted in as well in order to greet Noah. Doing another scan of the area Arkayis noted down that there was a long list of people here, some of whom he knew and some whom they didn't, though it was quite clear that most of the people here had dived down into groups already and Arkayis couldn't help but mutter out loud "Ugh, so many people." as he then eyed Gav, as if trying to figure out just what his intentions were.

 

[RedArmyShogun]

Feng Long - Ka’anapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii - OUTRIGGER Kāʻanapali Beach Resort​

Barely in any time, she seen the blue haired blur moving in closer and quickly, ramming through or around multiple groups of people, she nearly lost all her drinks running into that spikey haired angry kid she seen in the apartment at times. That was a close one, though highly amusing, she would have to teach the girl some manners at least if she was going to run around like a raging bull. It was just like picking up a street rat or outrunning the lockdown patrols. Old times, good times. Well, maybe not always good. "Hiya little Sis! What have you got there?" It would be a good time to teach her one now, as the girl sat beside her.

"We'll be here several days Aki. Only order what you will drink. Think of it like our work, would you want to be sent out to do something only to not have it finished or to find it soured and gone to waste. I don't know all these drinks, but I can tell you I do the Long Island Tea and neither of us need that one now. It's got some tea yeah, but half the drink is a whole bunch of different liquors, anyone drinking that best be keeping out of the water."

In her normal accented speech, she looks at the drinks and takes in hand the screwdriver, Nadia might be partial to that. Though was that being insulting to her? "A screwdriver is Vodka and Orange juice, normally one in four parts. I think I know someone that might like this. The rest are juices and coffee. But you got enough drinks here for a few people, huh. I know how to solve this." With that, Feng laughed a bit and laid the drinks out on the table. "Hey! Anyone we've worked with, if you want a drink or some Company don't stay off in a corner! Got a bit of everything!" With that she tapped the Screwdriver, seeing if Nadia may be willing to come over to them, as she announced that loudly, she clearly had no problems just approaching anyone, well almost. She didn't want the tall fellow coming over here, something about him felt off.

Interactions: EmperorsChosen @any/general

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Flight Training and Whimsical Promises

April 18th, 2067​

The Wiccan Embassy was still in the process of being rebuilt. From the outside, it might have appeared as if nothing had ever happened. The black brickwork and massive columns supporting its entrance if anything looked better than before the attack given that these new structures lacked the decade-old weathering on them. Even the meticulously crafted spiral roof designed to resemble a Witch Hat was pieced together.

But, on the inside, it was still bustling with Witches and architects rebuilding the beautiful, albeit absurd installments the embassy was so well-known for. Given the location was primarily a symbol of status for the Witches more so than of any real function aside from minor housing and a portal, its presentation was part of its appeal.

Yara simply chose the location as it was on DWMA Grounds and it seemed fitting.

The laughing sun was no friend of theirs today, but the grounds of the Wiccan Embassy were always oddly cooler with a pleasant breeze passing through them. It was never clear if there was magic afoot, or if it was merely due to the giant shadow the building cast, the large, luscious trees that were grown around the area, or some other facet of the magnificent verdant landscaping that was constantly kept up by the groundskeepers.

Yara was in a less formal outfit than the one Maria had seen her in last. This time, she wore something more akin to a black with purple trim tank top and a miniskirt. She still had long lace gloves, some jewelry, and a matching set of lacey boots that all made her appear terribly out of place in Nevada, but it was considerably less than what she wore back in the Death Room.

She had picked a more open part of the garden that was behind the Embassy. All of the regular marble statues and benches here were black and glossy in appearance, not quite resembling obsidian, but still far from the standard marble one might expect from such an area. More importantly, it was fairly open still as the hedges were still damaged here in the back, and the fountain had not been rebuilt yet. It made for a decent open grounds with some privacy.

Arriving in due order and with her constant penchant for arriving just a little before it was required, Maria was dressed in her typical blue dress, white capelet, red hair band and boots. If anything it would be more odd to not see her in the same design of clothing. And of course she brought the teleporting broom. Taking her time to look over the Embassy she had not had cause to be here yet, in fact short of when Mirai summoned her for her trips back into the Witch Realm, she had not been here at all. Catching sight of Yara, Maria gave a curt nod, approaching her. ”Lady Yara, I must say, I am impressed with the quickness of the exterior craftsmanship. Thank you for taking time to do this. Have your other requests been eventful?”

”Are you asking out of genuine intrigue?” Yara asked, tilting her head and placing a fingertip on her cheek.

”Or, as polite conversation?” she asked again, providing Maria something of an either-or option.

”A bit of both. My Master imparted the teachings of discovery, and I have the pull of Creation. That and I also don’t trust one of them to behave.” Maria said in a simple reply, looking as neutral as she always did. ”I would rather not find out later that one was a disaster.”

Yara giggled at the comment Maria made about trust. She was sure she knew just which one she was talking about.

”Well, first, miss Maria, you may drop the formalities. I prefer conversation of substance. I may not look it, but I’m nearly four hundred years old; and, it feels like a century of that has been wasted on politics and shallow speeches,” Yara told her. She, as one might expect from a political figure, spoke with tact. Her request was fairly assertive, yet managed to toe the line of being polite.

”Second, to be blunt, no. Neither of those young men interest me in the slightest, and to be blunt, the only reason you do is how well you get along with my brother,” Yara told her, now answering her initial question quite directly.

At mention of Rand, Maria’s jaw seemed to shift as if she was looking for words to say to that, opening her mouth, she quickly closed it again and nodded, finally speaking. ”I owe Rand a great deal, he has been kind to me, as-” She paused at that, unsure if she should mention the Maba’s gifts, or those she helped out with. While Yara was one that likely had the equals to these or more, not every witch that could be listening in was to be easily trusted. Knowledge was a tool and a weapon. ”-I’ve been attempting to craft items for him, I care not for his bloodline as some may, but I wish to show my gratitude. I will agree to what you asked, but…” A slight shuffle would play out between her feet, even if her face did not betray any emotion, the rest of her body was not so still. ”...I would like to speak to you about Rand as we do this or after, I wish to know of gifts I could construct that he could use. If you don’t mind, and of you as well.”

Yara watched as Maria broke her composure. It was an oddity. She was standing in front of an equal in the Mabian line that was far more powerful and much his veteran, yet only when her brother was brought up did she falter. More so, it wasn’t in the way one might expect from the Witches in the Witch Realm. Had they been caught out on some plan, they would dance around it and provide some type of excuse, do anything they could really to redirect the conversation away from the topic. Maria only seemed to be more nervous, or perhaps less put together.

”Are you certain it is just gratitude?” Yara simply asked, her question short and pointed.

”I don’t know.” She said shortly and abruptly. ”I was taught to make gifts for people that you would like to be friends with. I do not wish to badmouth my Master, but from when I was four till the Vaccine was complete she short of the occasional inspection by doctors are all that I have to go on with interactions among humans and witches. What interactions I had in the Guild were others fearing me or purposefully destroying or debasing my creations and myself. So I hurt them for that.

I have watched the people of this realm, how they act bewilders me, and makes me wish for my workshop all the more… The Instructor, no, Rand, I am not sure where I would rank him among the most important people of my life, but he is one. I find myself thinking of him and wanting to make something I know he could use, rather than one of my normal plushie dolls. He has been most kind, it angers me at times that others try to get close to him because of his line and what he is. Rather than Who he is. The instructor, though our time has been brief, has both infuriated me and taught me a lot about the values of this world are and given me realization of adaptation. Through him and others in the Fate Program…eh-”

”I’m sorry, I’m just prattling, Yara.”

Yara listened closely. Clearly, Maria had a great deal of admiration for her brother. It wasn’t necessarily odd, but it was odd in relation to her brother. Furthermore, she spoke of him considerably differently than either of her two companions. Maria made it clear that social convention was not her strong suit, so even if she had some type of attraction or adulation, she may not even know it. Yara could swim even the most treacherous sea when it came to social navigation, but figuring out the direction someone else was going proved difficult when they no compass of their own.

”Do not apologize. You may call it prattling, but it is of interest,” Yara told her. She was speaking down to her or like a child; she carried a genuine compassion in her tone, even though it was likely to be lost on Maria.

”Allow me a moment to reframe this conversation in such a way that you might understand where my intrigue comes from,” Yara said, wanting to give Maria some ground to anchor herself on.

”Rand is a Witch. As you should know, male Witches are typically born with a pathetically low magical potential. Rand was born with a respectable one–if he came from a lower house. By comparison, mine was tenfold greater at birth. This is not to boast, but to give you an understanding of your mentor,” Yara told her, though she didn’t stop in her explanation, ”to me, Rand is but a baby still. As are you, honestly. For most of our kind, this is just how we would see you at your age and with your inexperience.”

Her eyes lifted up and looked to the left for a moment, lowering her hands behind her back and trying to word this next part of her perspective. ”Believe it or not, Rand is a bit of a rebel. That is why he is our grandmother’s favorite. He stole one of her eyes and had it implanted behind her back. Not only is he the youngest Witch to ever survive that implant, but the only male. More importantly, it has completely changed how he sees and learns magic,” Yara told her.

”You have no idea. I doubt your mother even told you. But, Rand is a wild card in our world. He wants to reinvent how we see and teach magic. He fled the Witch Realm to the Human Realm thinking he could make his own system and teach it here. Apparently, he is brilliant–even if still somewhat weak. Even I don’t know what to make of him. I don’t know if he’s just young and ignorant, thinking he can make a huge impact in the world; or, if he’s onto something and his unique circumstances are the reason behind it. The rest of our world sees him that way, too,” Yara told her, painting the picture of Rand in a way Maria had never been told. Or perhaps, that few people knew.

”I will admit that I find it cute, as his sister, to see someone might have penchant of adoration for him. But, more importantly, you are his student. You are a wellspring of knowledge insofar that you are the results of his experiment in an alternative teaching style. You three could pave the way for a magical reformation… or, you three could prove yet again that your mentor is just another Witch with lofty dreams,” Yara told her, boiling down her interest into a more easily understood objective.

There was a lot to break apart from this, Yara seemed nice, from conversations in the conclave what few times she was allowed to attend to her Master and Mirai’s own rants from time to time, this was not the norm. Was she misled? No, likely not. But there were a few parts of unfortunate history that Yara had stepped on. However, strangely and likely for the best, Maria did seem to understand the position of Rand, she did keep in touch with Mirai afterall.

”I’m well aware of that fact. Because of his lineage and the traditional uses of male witches, he very much is an outlier, though I see myself as normal for I can be only as I seem to I and others as they seem to me, though not like they… I am an oddity. Rand had to climb up from nothing, and even if the eye gave him all of this, Mirai thought highly of him, not because of his position, but because he risked death in pursuit of the Magnus. The truth and the path. It honestly frustrated me, while he is skilled with magic, far more than I, he lacks and appreciation of Aesthetics. I am ashamed of those Balloons I built, though it all was for the best, and if pushed again I would do it all the same, though still with complaints.”

”Ah… My… Actual mother was also a sorceress though she did not know it. She and my father were corrupted by the Virus, and taken care of by the DWMA. I was given to Mirai to be trained. I do think of her as my mother and I know I am very young, it pains me at times that I befriended…humans that I know that I will outlive, but their lives are all the more special because of it. Mirai refused my request to call her that, as she believes she did wrong by me… I mean to ask again, and I will not fail your expectations unless I die.You all seem to have some expectations of me that I must aim towards.”

”You select the wrong word–at least in my case,” Yara responded, cutting in quick. Not that she hadn’t listened to Maria and her more extended story, but that this seemed like a time to shift its direction, and perhaps offer some clarity.

”You see, Maria, expecting something to happen would require I have the audacity to think I can figure out the chances of anything here succeeding. Reality is, I don’t even know what success would look like for you and Rand. So, I don’t expect anything from you or him,” she explained, fixating on how Maria believed so many expected things from her.

”But, I do have hopes. I hope that whatever my brother does is useful, and proves all the Witches that called him a fool in our Realm wrong. I don’t know if I hope that he can somehow upheave thousands of years of our history and teaching; that’s a bit much,” Yara told her, clarifying what she did feel about the situation.

”Also, I think you’re viewing Ranran all wrong. Art is a lot more than just how something looks. Have you asked him about music?” Yara asked her bluntly.

”I see… So it is more of a curiosity than and expectation. That makes me feel somewhat better. She said truthfully, as she listened to the rest of what was said, it seemed the instructor had a nickname, one which she could not use, though it may be amusing to get a reaction out of him the next time he trampled upon her craftsmen sensibilities… No that was no way to be about this. Still his sister had brought up a good point.

”I’ve noticed he seemed to enjoy it, with his magic being rooted in sound among other things. And that he always had his earbuds with him. The last couple weeks have been hectic, it was traveling by ship, basic training, Dall Island, now the destruction we come back to here and to replace my lost children… Ah, creations. Though that is not a bad idea, I think next time I see him I will do that. Would be my first time crafting a musical instrument if I pick up on anything he likes. Though you would know more, yes?”

”I don’t know of him to play any instruments…” Yara said, lifting her finger back up to contemplate the question. She had recalled that Rand had a large assortment of weird items, including instruments, but most were for the sake of experimentation with their sound.

”That is an interesting proposal, though. He might pick up an instrument and try to learn it–if it were a gift,” Yara added, giving what little insight she could about the question. In truth, if she were tasked with gifting something to her brother, she might be equally lost.

”You might have missed the point about music in general, though,” Yara said, turning the conversation back onto the origin of this topic. ”You said he had no appreciation for aesthetics and I simply meant that he enjoys a different kind of art far more. He can see sound. I can’t even do that, so even I have no idea what types of beauty he sees in things that might be lost on you and I,” Yara explained, trying to emphasize the point.

”No, that actually makes sense, even to me. I guess from the Island doing all he did may not have pleased him either. Though yes, sound…ah. Of course.” She seemed last in thought, then suddenly pleased, she had an idea of what to make him, while her face did not betray it, her eyes did, a sparkle lit up in them.

”Thank you so very much for the new perspective. Though I may make him multiple items, his love for music and to test sound gives me a couple of ideas. Though it makes sense, some people like when I make them clothing, one friend of note has an expensive taste in furniture, another enjoyed a plushie. I should look at his own expressions from that sort of looking at the box. Or is it outside of the box?”

”I think you’re going in the right direction…” Yara replied, still mulling over options in her head. She was a fan of grand, large, pretty things. When she got a gift, even if it was something she would never use, so long as it was pleasant to look at or intricate in some other way, she knew she appreciated it. ”Maybe a piano… or an organ… I’m not an expert on making instruments in the slightest, but a massive instrument that doubles as furniture sounds like a safe bet,” she explained, if only trying to rationalize it to herself. Granted, a piano would likely take a lot longer to make, require more research, and more materials, but she didn’t know that.

”You have all the time in the world to figure out what to make him, and I won’t mind if you ask for more advice, but I believe I have a lesson for you about flight and brooms,” Yara told her, realizing now that while the conversation was on this positive note was a good time to get into the actual teaching portion of this date of sorts, given Maria was quite likely to find it fun.

”Ah yes! Haha! I had nearly forgotten, yes, we should do that, though, I worry a little with it, you see I got sea sick and I’m told teleportation magics are much the same, but I’ll just have to get used to it.” She said in reply, though she had nodded along with the idea of a grand item, though Maria was not so sure she could build a piano, or if she did it would take trial and error, a gift for much later… Was she getting too carried away? Maybe. But that was also a Maria thing.

”Teleportation magic? Oh, Maria, darling, no, you don’t teleport on it… it moves space around you. It’s far smoother than any ship you’ve ever sailed on…” Yara told her, chuckling at her misinterpretation of the broom. She could see how the confusion came to be, and likely why Maria might have been frustrated at it not working had she thought it would teleport her.

Quickly, though, those misconceptions were clarified with practical experience. Yara taught Maria a handful of proper ways to seat herself on the broom, including a standing position. As unsafe as it was due to requiring some balance, they all could be made safer with additional spells. More so, the broom was intuitive, but difficult. It most certainly was a skill that required development.

Activating the broom and its levitation was as simple as touching it and channeling mana into it. In fact, Maria could have held onto the broom with her hands dangling had she felt so inclined. It would work, providing flight, so long as she was in contact. That part was easy. The levitation was smooth and the height she remained off the ground for the first six feet was relative to the amount of mana she channeled, going no higher beyond that.

Making it move was the difficult part. It required concentration. Not only did Maria have to pour her mana into the broom, that same mana would then need to be focused into the direction she so desired to move. In essence, it was designed to constantly be at least six feet off the ground during flight. The quirk about this broom was that it worked not by any conventional law of aviation, but by shifting the space in the areas around the broom to a different one.

If Maria wanted to move one meter forward, she had to will the broom to move forward, and when it did, there was no momentum or sensation of speed. Even when she did pick up speed in later lessons, it was still incredibly smooth. There was no air resistance. No greater sensation of gravity. Not an abrupt jarring feeling found in most cars when she stopped. The magic behind it didn’t technically allow there to be. She wasn’t actually moving, she was just changing where she was just repositioning the space around her.

While quirky at first, it began to make sense. With this design, she couldn’t technically run into solid objects or crash as the broom couldn’t displace them. She could go pretty damn quick, too, and not feel a thing. Cars below her would seem to crawl by comparison. Even then, she didn’t have the magic capacity to push it to its fullest. It went slower when they went through clouds as they were more difficult to displace and selectively avoided hazards like small bugs or even birds by safely displacing them outside of the path, or if they weren’t in the path, not displacing them at all.

It was fairly draining, but only because she was unaccustomed to it.

And, once Maria had gained a considerable amount of confidence on the broom, Yara stopped the instruction to have a mid-flight chat. Eight hundred feet in the air above the DWMA, and these two could speak at their leisure due to this magic.
”See? Fun, isn’t it!” Yara said excitedly.

With the flight and training, Maria still didn’t quite understand how this works, or at a level she did, in a manner it was awe inspiring as it was paradoxical. Though it was true that she would hit nothing with it, not unless she tried to do so rather hard. Bit by bit as she got used to the broom, Maria stopped asking why, so much as how to use it, and thinking how much she could carry on it, if anything. Fortunately she got the standing bit down well because of her good footwork and balance upon the broom.

It was interesting. That was the best word for it, and not a bad one. As they reached into the clouds and up to heights far greater than the Academy itself. There was a time not so long ago that this very act would have been met with great hostility. The world was changing, but would it continue to do so, for what the two of them would see as for the better?

Hearing Yara’s question and the prompt to just hover, or at least take the flight more slowly, she asked her if it were fun. Or rather, she stated. Was it fun? It had a charm of its own she had to admit, but there was in her craftsmen minded mind the question of Logistics.

“Hmm, it will come in handy for sure but I may need to think of new ways to transport my next line of dolls, but that is months away. This broom will have a place in my workshop and on missions I hope. But I will need to practice much more to make use of it, and grow out my own mana pool. It will be some time till I am as fast as you I’m afraid. Though it is interesting watching the world from above.”

Yara pouted at Maria. She could take such a simple question and pour so much thought into it that it lost the joy of the moment. Yara had fond memories of learning to fly. Her mother, the shared source of blood she had with Rand, actually took out time to teach her. Maria had no idea, but their mother was a busy woman. She was part of the personal guard of Maba and one of the few to inherit time-space magic. Rand hadn’t been blessed with that affinity, but he did have her wind magic–to some degree.

Rand wasn’t key to this memory, though. Yara learned to fly long before her brother was even a twinkle in the eye of his father. Mara was their mother, and she was a demon in the air. Wind Magic in combination with Time-Space Magic made her incredibly mobile. It was part of her fighting style as a guard, but in the air, it made her a speed demon. The two spent days blazing through the air, performing various aerial maneuvers, even learning the basics of casting while on the broom–which wasn’t an easy feat given it required constant concentration.

But still, they were joyous moments. Before the advent of planes, the skies were a domain only the Witches knew. No human could reach that high. No human could breathe the same air as them. It wasn’t just a perch to look down on them, either. It was a whole perspective of the world they couldn’t possibly know. This era of satellites, GPS imagery, and airplanes had ruined the magic of… well, magic. At least, when it came to brooms and flight.

”Maria, dear, this is your lineage,” Yara told her, allowing herself to get wrapped up in her nostalgia.

”Centuries ago, we were the only ones aside from a few winged Fae or intelligent beasts that could see the world this way,” Yara told her. ”We were the only ones that could go this fast, traverse the skies, see the beautiful verdant fields or the giant chasms of the Earth for what they really were…” Yara went on, ranting about the site below them and the history of their people.

”Just, try for a moment… let your mind slip out of that workshop for a moment and really see what’s in front of you,” Yara suggested. ”It’s like we talked about with Ranran seeing sound. This is a whole new perspective that once used to be exclusive to our kind… just think of the thousands of Witches that came before you, seeing sights just like this,” Yara added, zooming over to Maria to plant her gentle hand on the back of the sorceress.

Listening to the lecture, Maria was lost in thought but still kept her mind focused on the talk. It seemed her impassive face and logical manner of speaking, had left the wrong Impression upon Yara. It was a grand view, but as with the other spells she had learned up to now, it seemed much was lost in translation. The question now was how to explain that her flat manner of tone did not mean she was displeased or bored. Well, there was one way at least.

”No, it is a grand sight. In some ways it is, Liberating as some would say. I now no longer need to deal with traffic or driving the mobile workshop unless I wish to do so. I can simply fly over to whatever it is I wish to say, depending on the range I can provide… I run into this situation with your brother often. If I do not like something I will just accept it and then ignore it.

I mostly look at things from a utilitarian standpoint. If it serves no function and the form is displeasing, then I discard it, or I take it upon myself to improve it. This broom and what it gives me means a great deal. To the extent I mean to actively utilize it where I can, rather than leaving it to collect dust. I just have no idea on its capabilities.” With the touch on her back, she did not seem to dislike it at least. ”It is truly a grand thing, I now have a measure of freedom that even with planes and helicopters, none of my friends can just take on a whim.”

A grand sight. It most certainly was. Yet, somehow, Yara couldn’t help but feel that what she meant for Maria to see or for her to understand in this lesson was somehow lost in translation. She had fond memories with her mother when she learned to fly, just like Maria now. Witches were so different, really. At her level of nobility, her raising was mostly communal or at the least done by others lower in the hierarchy. Her mother was often too busy for her. From the moment Yara was born, her mother was back in the fray of the Witch Realm.

Birthdays didn’t matter in the Witch Realm. Milestones came at decades and centuries, not by the year. It was the norm. There was no meal in the dining room, warm and fresh waiting for them every night. She saw her mother, at best, on a yearly basis, most of the time at formal events where their appearances were expected–and that was the only reason she saw her.

Yara didn’t hate her for it. Instead, it only made those few moments when she felt connected to the soul that gave her life that much more important. The fact alone her mother took off several days to teach her something as trivial as flight was proof she cared. Most in her position would have considered such a waste. There were few times in her life as joyous or even close to human than when she first soared the skies.

Perhaps that is why she felt the disconnect here. She was not the mother of Maria, nor did she ever fool herself into thinking such. Perhaps, as she admitted to Maria earlier, there was a hope here. A hope she could catch a spark of the joy she had then. A moment where a nostalgic memory was alive again. She wondered, honestly, if that was what she wanted most from this.

And, she felt guilty. For one, that was too much to hope for from a girl she hardly knew. For two, she couldn’t even decide if she wanted to relive that memory as her mother or herself. It was a selfish desire, really, as she pondered it.

”Do promise me one simple thing, if you would, Maria,” Yara said, though really proposing this promise as more of a request that she had yet to elaborate upon.

Had she done something wrong? It seemed she had not given Yara the response she wanted, but it was one true to Maria herself. It all made her feel two sizes smaller. She though she had gotten better with people, but no, she hadn’t and she likely never would. She truly appreciated this. This was why making a gift was better, and she may make something grand for her, she seemed the type. The question was what. Still, it seemed Yara had one request of her. Maria was not given to just making promises for no reason, because she would carry them out. Could she trust Yara? Rand seemed to trust her…

”If it is within my power, till then I cannot say, but for this experience alone I would say yes.”

”Just this, and I’m sure it’s within your power,” Yara said, her tone soft, just trying to make this as simple as possible. ”Every now and then, just… fly up and see the world. Watch a sunrise or a sunset, catch some clear air on a short break. Enjoy the gift of flight–it can be a lot more than just another tool, if you let it be.”

In was in that brief instant that Yara may have captured some of what she wanted to see, as the Doll faced girl closed her eyes and smiled. ”This I will do.”

RedArmyShogun

​

 

[EmperorsChosen]

Eloise Keegan - Hawaii Resort
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Elly let out an amused huff at Midori's presumption, her eyes slowly turning to look his way. "You could certainly say that. There were a few ostentatious types to begin with. Now there's even more," She commented, referring to souls, letting another beguiled chuckle escape after his latter comments. She straightened her posture and subtly turned her body, no so much revealing more than accentuating what was already visible. "Oh~? Does it?"

As if on cue, a new body appeared affirming Midori's comments. Elly turned her gaze over to Gav who provided a greeting to her partner and bidding the both of them adieu. Elly, with her elbow propping the rest of her forearm up, gave him a little wave of her fingertips with a coy smile as he departed. "Perhaps we'll take you up on your offer, dear~" She said, leaving the option open.

After he left, Elly snickered a bit as she set her menu down and picked up the glass. No alcohol, but it could pass for an incredibly vibrant mixed drink of some kind. "On that note, I was wagering with myself whether you'd tag along. Though I wonder if that was for a show of support, a vacation, or would you miss me too much~."

Taking a sip from her glass, Elly's attention was drawn from Midori for a moment and it showed on her face. Dipping from the coquettish smile to one of more neutral focus, her head turned towards the group consisting of Sara, Eva, Zosar, and a new redhead that she didn't recognize. However, more interesting was the beat of his soul and wavelength. Like perfect harmony of yin and yang, it was odd. Pristine and coarse, reserved and volatile. It was a contradiction, damn near. Elly pieced apart the soul how she could from where she sat, head now sitting in her propped up palm. Eventually, she turned her gaze to take another sip from her drink, not wanting to be too obvious with her analysis.

"...Speaking of ostentatious..." She mused.

Sir Les Paul The Regal Rper

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Midori☆Hoshi​

"Dark Star"​

Species Death Golem
Partner Eloise Keegan
Rank Two-Star

Location OUTRIGGER Resort, Ka’anapali Beach, Maui, Hawaii
Mission A Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride
Status Annoyed, on edge

​

Tags: EmperorsChosen

Midori should have been delighted. Elly was more engaging than ever. This luxurious lifestyle really did bring out the best in her. While they might have had a rocky start, time had proven they were quite good for the other. Reliable, even. Midori had proven quite protective over his partner. Arguments might have popped up over their misaligned opinions on certain topics, but they never escalated. A mutual understanding was always within grasp. It made for a sturdy foundation for the two despite the fact it almost didn't occur.

The continued prodding from Ulysses also helped. He seemed always find new ways to pull a few strings to pamper Elly to even greater extents despite never visiting once. The exchange between them, as lascivious as it could be, became quite clearly very transactional. Ulysses wanted his information and he hadn't a concern in the world for what dalliances Elly had--with her partner, or otherwise. His influence stretched a lot further than one would realize as well. Convincing Fredrick was one huge task, but there were also times on missions where he was able to pull through with some surprising favors.

He was the puppeteer that brought the two together as partners, so of course he had a continued influence long after. That likely played more than a small role in their development.

Development that unbeknownst to Midori had brought him plenty of delight. Exactly what he should have had now, admiring that curvaceous form he might have preferred to explore back in either of their rooms--or both.

There little delight now.

Gav was a pleasant face. He didn't join the Program in the same capacity as Midori, but he was there to assist and provide support. He could have been a mentor, had he cleaned up that lifestyle of his. Alas, he chose not to. Regardless, Gav and he had a friendly rivalry that had been put on pause when they went their separate ways and even to this day still was given Midori was now a full-time weapon with a single dedicated partner. Gav intruding didn't upset him at all.

But, Kenny? Chimera? The Demon Chimera? He was a different story.

Midori didn't even know the man made it into the program. He had a breakdown when the Paean Program fell apart due to the events on Dall Island. He wasn't just unstable, he was a danger. Midori doubted even he could do anything about him if he became a problem again. Midori was a high-two star at best, most of these agents were in the range of high-one stars or low-twos. Kenny was firmly in the realm of three-stars, and when on a rampage, dangerous for even them. Active theory was that the only reason he didn't go mad is that Healing Wavelength of his, as bastardized as it was.

Midori glared. Kenny seemed like a different person now. Back when he knew him from the Paean Program, not once did he ever see him act like this. He was a tyrant. Not for lack of a better word, either, but because that one so well fit. A perfectionist to no end that had no qualms punishing imperfections, no matter how slight. Midori didn't have access to the databases here to check up on him. He recalled rumors that the Meister at one point was amicable and friendly, only turning vile later in his career. It was hard to believe he could change so drastically to what he saw now.

Complimenting a face instead of ramming into the ground.

"They used to call him the Demon Chimera..." Midori said lowly, mostly so that only Elly would hear.

"I thought he would be in a prison, or asylum at least," he added, "I don't know what you see, but I would urge caution. He's hurt more agents than I have, and worse, he's far stronger than I am."

 

[Sir Les Paul]

Testing the Fire

April 14th, 2067​

The Magitech Laboratory was always a site to behold. Not of beauty, architecture, or any singular breath-taking site. Instead, its ground level and first story were packed with hundreds of different individuals, some in specialized cubicles, some working specialized machines foreign to even most factory workers, and those above that could look down on the ground floor were in larger conference room-style areas, sometimes grouped with others, all huddled around a singular holographic projection or even prototype of some half-disassembled object.

These would be the floors Maria and Annika would know well. Each would have their own private cubicle to work in. Wonderous in that they were somehow soundproof to the outside ongoings despite their seemingly thin walls, and fairly secure given that same odd limitation. Access to all of these devices. 3D printers, massive information repositories, simulation labs, microrune transcribers, and communications to other equally brilliant minds to assist should they ever request it.

While these experiments were interesting, they weren’t the pinnacles of creation that the lab had to offer. Those weren’t even found on the higher levels. Instead, the real fruits of the lab were found down deep, sheltered within the well-hidden and highly-secured roots of the facility. That is where Davis and only a few select cohorts were allowed to pass. Well, them and the DWMA officials of course.

Even Starwulf was rarely allowed to pass through these halls or this deep with the elevator. Granted, he rarely needed to. The same could be said for Yara, but her magical insight was often more useful to their cause, if only slightly.

Nadia and Dani would have been led through the busier part of the lab, a place likely often described in some limited fashion by their friend Maria, to a place she had never set foot. Floor B6. This entire floor was responsible for some of the largest medical advancements in the Magitech Industry. In fact, it was also responsible for the very collar around the necks of many Fate Agents. This floor might not have been the origin of the MIBVI vaccine, but it nonetheless was responsible for advancements that had saved countless human lives.
In truth, there was little science could do to assess spiritual energy. The microrunes that recreated it always required a source and were incredibly inefficient in practice. It was in their nature; they were constructions of magic at core. Magic, science, and the spiritual mixed about as well as oil and water. That said, it didn’t mean that it was impossible. Merely that it was incredibly impractical and required no small amount of speculation.

The elevator itself was fairly bland. Secure, sure. Its steel frame and smooth glide offered plenty of reassurance. It used biometric security alongside a required keycard. If the system could, it would have registered Soul Signatures as a security system, but such technology was out of reach. That said, the technology wasn’t needed. Floor B6 had a set of two guards at a desk both capable of Soul Perception and having memorized the Soul Signatures of Professor Davis, Yara, and Starwulf already. Nadia and Dani were next.

The hallways? A warm light, not a pure white, so not terribly harsh on the eyes, but still well lit. It was immaculate. Sterile-looking. The hallways the five walked down were long and passed by multiple doors until they reached the room Professor Davis had intended. The inside of it was quite large with several control panels, monitors, and stations to work at, including computer terminals much like the commstations upstairs. This room however had a large, second chamber beyond the first, separated by two steel doors, with a glass panel lined with microrunes on it. The inside of this second room was actually larger than the first and at various places had additional doors and latches.

The most important part was a large sensor at the top of the room. A spherical, off-white design of some kind with what appeared to be hundreds of small arms extending off of it. It appeared benign, but it most certainly was the centerpiece of the entire room. If there was anything intimidating, aside from the fact they were underground in this forbidden section of the labs to begin with, it would be that construct.

”This is one of the secret projects the DWMA keeps in its back pocket,” Professor Davis told them once they had all entered the room.

”It is the closest thing to Soul Perception that any device of science has ever achieved,” he went on, ”but, does it in a different way than any Demon Tool that recreates base-level Soul Perception can achieve.”

His eyes looked over to Nadia and Dani. The two didn’t know it, but Professor Davis as an individual believed heavily in informed consent. The DWMA did many terrible things, especially during MIBVI, but those things were not his ideas, his decisions, or even passed by him. So long as he ran these labs, he had no intention of subjecting anyone to tests they did not consent to.

”We cannot create a sensor, like an eye, that sees a wavelength and assesses it. What we can create is a sensor that reacts to a specific type of Spiritual Energy. We can tune it to unique wavelengths, certain intensities, frequencies, so on and so forth; but, it can only ever measure that one type. We can similarly do the same with mana, but that’s a whole different room,” he explained to the two, his voice far from as cold or chilling as Cyrus. Professor Davis was often seen as the eccentric Nikola Tesla of his time, but in this moment, he hardly came off as harsh as the stories made him out to be.

”Our solution? Put every conceivable sensor in the same location. That’s all this room is. There are some golems for mild combat and targets, but that is all. We have a sensor that can react to every known Unique Wavelength we could tune it to, and if yours matches any of them even remotely close, we’ll have some idea of what’s going on,” he told them, getting to the root of the actual test being done.

Starwulf was visibly taken aback by this. Yara could have cared less. The ramifications for a Meister like Starwulf were clear. The DWMA might not have had a catalog of every Soul Signature out there, but he had no idea that they could confirm this many unique wavelengths. He was a specialist at this very thing. Deducting frequencies, the nuances of unique wavelengths, how to make them work effectively, what they actually meant for someone. This device may not do that, but if the device truly could give someone the exact parameters of their wavelength down to how its frequency might look on a piece of paper, that circumvented… decades of work for a Meister.

”How… would it measure mine?” Starwulf asked first, his curiosity getting the better of him. Nadia and Dani had trained with Starwulf plenty, but neither of them would have ever seen him in this humbled state before. Asking questions like that, a lack of that assurance he seemed to always carry around.

”You mean a simple delay?” Davis asked, though clearly rhetoric. He didn’t mean it, but his tone carried a certain level of condescension, as if such would be a simple task. To him, it was. To Starwulf, it was a whole chapter of his life.

”Delayed Wavelengths are rare, but in testing, they typically follow only a few set trends of delay; one that their owner can’t control. All we have to do is see the trend of data for the initial spark of a wavelength at one intensity, then it should have an expected spike a set duration later. These spikes occur at predictable intervals with a predictable intensity relative to the original spark. A talented Meister could recreate it, but unless they were intentionally attempting to fool someone into believing they had a Delayed Wavelength and knew the exact predictable behavior of it, we could verify it within just a few uses,” Davis explained, answering Starwulf directly and bluntly. The professor here had an obvious air of nonchalance about him, as if this description were some simple textbook answer. This might have been where those eccentricities came into existence.

Starwulf furrowed his brow and crossed his arms, his body language closing off quickly. He had no idea this was possible, but he couldn’t deny that the method the Professor explained would in fact if possible be an effective way of determining a Delayed Wavelength. If anything, he felt an odd rush of rage pour over him as the knowledge that Davis spewed now would have been a godsend decades ago when he was first starting out. Davis could have accelerated his training by years, if not more. Yet, here it was tucked away underground in some lab.

”I can see you’re quite conflicted about this,” Davis said, cutting in before Starwulf had a real opportunity to answer. Not that he needed to, the man wore his heart on his sleeve. He was trained by Black☆Star, not the Hoshi, after all. ”That’s in part why this is kept secret. I’m sure you can respect the applications this type of technology could have for the future of training Agents. That type of advantage when the DWMA is already leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world would only further widen the gap, and thus potentially increase the animosity aimed at the DWMA,” Davis told them all openly, having no qualms about sharing this information with even the two Fate Agents present. He was surprisingly transparent.

Starwulf sighed. He couldn’t deny the logic. He wasn’t even sure if he agreed with the implications this device could have for the future of the DWMA. However, he did know there was a time and place for everything, and now wasn’t suitable for any argument.

”It’s… certainly impressive, I’ll give it that,” Starwulf said, clearly begrudgingly. He had the sense to throw out some type of positive comment given the murky situation.

”If this is all it takes to get humans riled up, I see why we were at war for so long,” Yara chimed in, this time lacking that peppy attitude she typically had. Without Cyrus present, the Witch took on a different demeanor. ”I recall a time in your history when a man trying to take over your world had his armies tattoo numbers on an entire group of your own species. You all perceive that as evil, all I see is an inefficient use of ink,” Yara went on, her rigid tone only hammering down further on the difference in perspective the three seemed to have.

At that time, Davis and Starwulf both gave her a somewhat bewildered look. It was as if in unison, they both shared the same thought: ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’

”Let’s, uh… move on,” Davis said, clearing his throat and trying to redirect from the off-the-wall comment Yara elected to make. Perhaps the social ineptitude of Rand ran in the family.

”If you’re willing, all we want to do here is see what registers before and after you use that new ability, Miss Ethalyn,” Davis said, though it wasn’t a question, it most certainly did leave room for out. Whether they felt like they had the option or not, Davis would have allowed them to decline and leave had they insisted. He simply was poor at communicating that.

Whether Dani was listening to the entire exchange or not was hard to tell given her posture. Arms folded underneath her chest, head tilted slightly, gaze centered toward the floor with a few exceptions to briefly note the environment and items within it. Dressed in a hoodie with a camisole underneath, some shorts, and sneakers, clearly she hadn’t put much thought into her outfit, instead choosing what was comfortable and most readily available.

In truth, she didn’t want to be here. However, the fact was she didn’t feel as though she had a choice, or if there was one it was a mock. They get back and they’re greeted by Cyrus and witches wanting to prod into what happened. Dani did want to know more about this. It was inevitable that she had to discover what she could. Still, some time to mourn before being bombarded would have been preferable.

“...Not much of a choice… Let’s just get on with it,” She replied half-heartedly.

Nadia in the days the team had off had tried her best to cheer up Dani, but it, well no, it was told it was her brother and the situation that Dani had ran across in those brief instances. Would it be worth mentioning how they even knew to go after it? To do what they had to reach it? While the scientist in the room would likely humor the tale, the rest likely would not. Nadia at times wasn’t sure she believed it herself, then there was the knife given to Maria. As they walked the halls, Dani was clearly not any better and Nadia herself was not remotely qualified to understand what they were seeing or what they were told. She was just a grunt, even if an inmate with more trust than the rest.

As she wrestled with just how much if anything to tell that she had not already told Cyrus, she did not exactly understand what was so special about this machine. Though Starwulf seemed shocked, being able to read and identify powers, or wavelengths could carry grave ramifications, but the technology could only reach those in the DWMA as it stood, there was unlikely to be some sort of general reading of the greater population. Still, before she got to say or do much of anything Davis went into an explanation to ask, what asking their truly was for them in the situation, to showcase what they had gained.

Nadia having trust in herself more than some machine doubted it would reveal anything her eyes had not… Still, she laid her hand upon Dani’s right shoulder as she was given to do, offering a gentle squeeze. ”Da. Lets get this over with, though you may want to stand a little back, the fire does not harm me but I cannot say the same of you.” Waiting for Dani to transform, the Russian meister was not about to rush her.

Pausing a bit at the squeeze, Dani stepped forward and made her way to the center of the machine. Stripping off her hoodie so as to not burn it from the ensuing transformation, she sighed as she held the jacket in her arms in front of her. With a bit of focus, the scorpion tail materialized beginning from the base of her spine and trailing outward in a sputter of flame like a lit fuse until the full shape of the stinger was produced.

A small, but clear PA speaker perked up once Dani had immediately transformed into the Scorpion tail. While Yara and Starwulf watched with intrigue, Davis was the one administering the test and it was his voice over the speaker. This test had a series of steps, and starting out in this new form wasn’t the first one. ”Please revert back to your normal form, Miss Ethalyn. We first want to get a baseline. We will do an individual test after, but for now, we simply want Nadia to demonstrate how she would normally fight with you. If necessary, we can activate one of the targets,” Davis told her, providing clear instructions for how to proceed.

“Oh…” Dani murmured lightly as she glanced back at the appendage. After a few moments, the flames began to shudder and dissipate until the tail as a whole disappeared.

”One thing at a time Dani, the Eggheads are going to want to be thorough. Though that is interesting, did not know you could do a partial with it.” With that she motions for Dani to put the jacket back on. ”When we reach the stage for a partial on your own I’ll take the jacket. You can trust me, Da?” The fact Nadia was even humoring all of this, this weakness, was enough to show how much she valued Dani at least. Waiting for her to transform into a blade and with her hand extended, Nadia would now carry out the command. Given Dani’s wavelength they normally started out with Nadia’s wavelength then at times switching to Dani’s.

”No target needed for now unless you want me to showcase flashier things. Showing our union with switching between wavelengths is enough. I just need to stand in the machine with her? Or do you want to activate a target for that show?”

”Practice routines. Sword swings, general attacks. Afterwards, Wavelength Amplification without Regulation from Miss Ethalyn, then after with. Soul Force, then Resonance,” Davis instructed them over the PA, further clarifying the requests. Simple enough, fairly straightforward. Factually, there was no real target required so long as the two could emulate using the techniques, which Nadia most certainly could.

Much like Nadia, there in fact was some information gained by learning Dani could materialize the Scorpion tail outside of her weapon form, but that was a side note at the moment.

This first round of testing hardly required ten minutes. Yara and Starwulf observed the two closely. Soul Perception for one, the other using various reinforcement spells on herself to see if she could pick up anything magical–or really, any type of known energy at all. Davis was more keen on observing the various readouts from the sensors at any given time, rarely looking up to actually see what the two were doing.

Once Resonance had been completed and a simple strike performed, a brief pause filled the air. Then finally, the PA rang around again. ”On the left side of the room will be a large wall divided into three sections, a dark brown in material marked by white lines. I want you to strike the first section with your Resonance technique. The second wall will be for a slash with Dani while her scorpion tail is after. The third will be for her stinger. The material the wall will create an imprint of the damage done we can further study later,” Davis informed them, and keeping his word, the left wall did in fact unlatch to reveal three large sections spanning roughly ten feet in height and six feet wide.

The first round of testing was easy and simple enough, a few slashes here, a few jabs, Soul Force one handed into the open air, enhancement, Resonance, so on and so forth. Then was the second part of the test, true to his words a wall stood before them with different sections painted, no, coated in various materials.

What are they? ”Da. Let’s do it Dani.” With that said the first strike was nothing too special, a resonance fueled stab. The Second part likewise was equally as simple as Nadia swung at the wall as she did in Russia with the Leshy, but far enough back so that Dani would have to use the “tail” extension to strike out with flame and fury. That left the third bit. Using the Stinger, much again, like in Russia.

The material she struck was relatively soft, assuming one was expecting a type of steel composite. More interesting was that it was almost exhausting to strike, as if a sponge for their wavelength. The browns of the material darkened around the edges where Nadia slashed, and she most definitely did damage to the slab, carving through it with relative ease. Her initial strike left a large cut in the material, but with Resonance, it was a profoundly larger gouge.

"Eugh… the fuck is this shit…" Dani murmured. Hitting things with the tail was tiresome, especially without the adrenaline of battle. Hitting these sponges just made that feeling worse. "Is that good enough?"

The material had a considerably different reaction to Dani than it did to Nadia. The initial impact carried much more force, but as the tail didn’t necessarily have to follow through once it made contact, the indention it made was much smaller in size. Directly after it made its initial contact, the venom from the stinger tail ignited the material around the zone of impact, beginning to break it down into chunks of black, ashen debris that only further incinerated when they fell to the ground. The venom continued eating into the material for quite some depth, easily hitting the edges of the six foot panel, and creating what appeared like a crater down into it.

”Yes. All that is left now is for Nadia to return behind the glass. Then, we would like to see you spike your wavelength and activate your new ability. Once that has been completed, this test will conclude,” Davis announced over the speaker. Again, simple, clear instructions.

Meanwhile, Yara observed the destructive capability of the tail with a type of morbid intrigue, wondering precisely what force that was. She saw no signs of magic at play. This girl had no elemental affinity, apparently. Even if she had, that type of strike could only be compared to a higher tier of Resonance. Starwulf had similar observations, though, he saw no signs of wavelength coursing through Dani or whatever force was continuing to consume the material. What Dani could do didn’t utilize her wavelength nor was it recognizable as the Resonance Nadia demonstrated with her earlier.

Both were equally interested and perplexed by these direct observations.

With the parts they were meant to play finished, Nadia waits for Dani to transform, or assumed she would, much like before. ”I can take your coat if you like. I don’t know if you want to be stuck as a sword or do what you did before…” With that she internalized, speaking within their soul space. ’I know what Davis said, but I already know that machine of his won’t find shit, maybe I will be wrong, but still, do not push yourself too hard, just a dip in and out.’ While the damage and other changes to the wall was interesting, Nadia who made a habit of breaking things when she fought was not nearly as concerned with that as she was the wellbeing of Dani. She had something that likely could not be quantified and while Davis did not seem the type, countless men and women in the pursuit of knowledge had been all too eager to open up a new line of study.

Transforming, Dani’s person materialized next to Nadia. Shrugging off her jacket, she looked at Nadia and handed it to her. “Sooner we do this, sooner it’s done… Maybe…” There wasn’t a guarantee of that, now that Dani thought. They mentioned something about going to the Witch Realm potentially, so she supposed if they wanted more testing or exercises, then that’s what would probably happen.

Inhaling a bit, Dani focused and once again the scorpion tail materialized from the base of her spine.Then, she began to flare her wavelength at the same time as her tail curved slightly around her right side, the fire skittering with slightly more excitement.

There was a brief pause after her scorpion tail had manifested. How it took form was certainly interesting. The only time something even remotely similar might have occurred is from a Death Scythe, but even then, the fact this lacked any traits of her weapon form was a deviation from even that.

Starwulf couldn’t take the curiosity anymore. The metallic door that Nadia exited through, he now entered, wanting the clearest possible view of Dani in her new form and to examine every little thing he could. Should she have tried with even her own limited Soul Perception, she could have seen the massive flare of wavelength traveling to his eyes. He wasn’t being subtle about how close he was observing in the slightest. He didn’t want to miss a detail.

”This makes no sense…” Starwulf muttered, though audible to Dani. ”There’s not a trace of wavelength in anything you make with that fire. Yara says there’s no mana,” Starwulf told her, his voice becoming louder but still filled with questions. Or more, a yearning to understand. In all his years, he had never seen something that he couldn’t even begin to explain.

”What is it like?” Starwulf asked her.

Meanwhile, back in the control room, Davis simply told Nadia, ”No point in trying to stop him. We weren’t supposed to enter. Now my readings are all off.”

As Starwulf entered, Dani’s gaze glanced toward him, the tail swaying slightly to curve along her other side as if to showcase that it was maneuverable for the most part. “It doesn’t burn. It does feel sort of like a warmth trailing from my back to it and I can control it like any of my arms or legs, sort of. I assume it feels kind of like how Sara feels with her tail, short of the obvious differences… That more or less answer your question?”

”Only slightly,” Starwulf admitted. For all the times Nadia and Dani had trained with him, this almost childlike side full of curiosity and wonder was something just out of character for the rigid, strict sensei they knew. Yet, here he was, absorbed by what he was seeing.

”Wavelength and mana are both energy. For a Witch, mana is made by their soul and their bodies react to it even more than a Meister does with their wavelength. You already know what a wavelength feels like,” Starwulf said, going on a tangent about the sources of power that agents drew from.

”Is there any energy here? Do you feel something burned or consumed when you use your ability? When you manifest it, what’s it like? The fire just seems to radiate, it’s not actually burning anything until it comes into contact with something, and it clearly doesn’t burn you… but it has to be made of something…” Starwulf continued on, throwing out a barrage of questions–all valid–at a pace that only further demonstrated how the gears of his mind were churning at this new discovery.

From behind the glass, next to Davis and the Witch seemingly distracted. Nadia did not want to see more of these tests done to Dani, holding the girl’s coat, if she recalled the last remaining trace of her brother was now in her hands and having these thoughts being dug up, it was more than enough. Nadia had made that mistake till those mysterious events in Paris.

”Tell me Comrade Davis… Ah, Davis. Do you believe in the wills of powers and beings that do not reside in this world or by its rules alone?” Waiting for his answer and at the same time not, she continues. ”We were told to seek out that portal, from where to go from that fungus consumed tree, but a man that many do not believe exists, a man with a long coat, and I dare say a handsome face. They just call him “The Guy.” I personally think from when he brought this news and a lot of Pizza he shouldn’t have for a party…” She says, leaving out the part about Maria’s knife of destiny, she continues. ”We did as he instructed and found all of this at a Fae Gate, a black swirl that didn’t seem right.

This is not the first time such “divine providence” has visited us. And what I have to say, I will forget as well, as I have forgotten. But something happened to me and her on a mission in Paris, I recall three voices, speaking in the dark, but a dark that makes me believe there was once light… The exact details of what was there, I cannot say. But me and Dani, among these interlopers came closer together than ever before and it has caused a change in me that I would have otherwise never happened. If magic cannot answer this, nor the power of souls. I would start with the ancient faiths of the world, with even how the forest became that way and the Fae sealed.

For this may all be the work of a Divine Providence and we have no idea who’s side it’s on. For now it seems to be us, or these are just the deranged rants of Russian with too many drinks. There will be more of these things to come, mark my words on it. Dani also spoke to her dead brother’s spirit inside of wherever that was.”

“It’s different from my wavelength,” Dani answered simply. “It is draining, in a weird sort of way when I use it. More so if I hit something with it. Sort of feels like using a muscle that’s atrophied. It was called Adolla, or black flames of Adolla–None of it was really explained right,” She murmured the answers one by one. “All I know is that it comes from this place called Adolla, like a mirror of our world with mirrors of us, but based on how they’re perceived by society as a whole. You’re a piece of shit here but people think otherwise, you’re a hero there, and if people think you’re a fucking monster… Well…” Trailing off, Dani felt she didn’t need to finish that sentence. She was one of the monsters over there, with a fiery husk of a body and a damned scorpion tail.

”To answer your actual question, Nadia,” Davis said in a calm response, ”it is known fact that two worlds are connected to ours and ancient myth claims even a third. I believe it would be abhorrently ignorant to reject the notion there are not others, nor that within those others that there exists no sentient life with an agenda of its own. Even then, it’s not as if we have all of the mysteries of our very own world figured out.” Davis was one of the most well-respected men in the entire DWMA, often cited for his intelligence and insight. Yet, here, he had the humility to admit how little he and truly all of humanity knew. His words echoed that belief.

”Nadia, is it?” Yara chimed in. ”I would have forgotten your name had Davis not said it, I admit. Take that not as an affront to your person; I rarely memorize the names of most humans.”

”Regardless, I do have some insight for your question. In our archives date back stories of countless other worlds from Witches that were considered crazed or unhinged at the time. Maba is the foremost master of Time-Space Magic. She can create prisons in the open space of other worlds, and has done so in the past. If she can do that, even if she has never found life, it is not unreasonable to believe that through magic or other means, there may be nigh-infinites worlds out there. Her working theory, which is no secret to the Council, is that some worlds are bound together for some reason or another, such as ours and yours, but that there are truly countless unbound worlds out there that we simply have means to traverse,” Yara told her, her tone dry and her words a little cryptic, but nonetheless dropping a fairly large piece of knowledge, even if just mere theory.

”The DWMA is aware of her theory. Scientists have long theorized there exist infinite universes and even parallel ones. Magic often reaches the same outcome as science, albeit far faster and with less precision. If Maba is correct or at least on the right track, then it only lends to the answer I provided. We do not and perhaps cannot know all of the forces that govern our universe. There are rules out there we can’t even begin to test, and probably even ones we cannot understand,” Davis replied, taking what Yara said and integrating it back into his answer.

”Once you return, I would like to have an extended audio-interview with you–while recorded–and a more thorough written statement about your experiences. All of them, not just the ones in Russia. If we can get a better idea of what has happened to you, we perhaps can find similarities in older stories or some myths–be them magical or even the Fae–to see if we can find something even remotely similar to what you describe,” he told her, shooting out another suggestion, but at the very least taking her words with a fair amount of weight. When others might have considered her absurd or at least discredited her, he took all she said quite seriously, and did so without being demeaning or using his station.

”As it stands, we have no real lead to go on. If Lord Kidd had the time to research all of the Shinigami information in his vaults, then perhaps we would have some trail, but from what I gather, those old tomes and tablets take centuries to read, many of them requiring deciphering dead languages,” Davis told her, again, following the trend of admitting how little both he and even the DWMA knew.

Starwulf had many questions following what Dani had said. His brain felt like it was being torn apart as she explained how this world of Adolla worked. Yet, more than that, he was intrigued by how her ability worked. He could believe a lot of things, but he couldn’t believe that something came from nothing. She said it felt like her muscles atrophied. In his brain, that made it sound like her ability was literally eating her alive. If that was the case, its use could prove lethal. Furthermore, it meant they might get better results with a different line of testing.

”I have an idea based on what you said, but it would mean an entirely different kind of test,” Starwulf said, though he hesitated. In part because he felt it cruel to ask more tests of Dani, but also in part not knowing how to put these thoughts together. ”The energy must come from somewhere. If it feels like it’s coming from your body, then maybe your body is the source of the energy. If that’s the case, we should monitor your body, not your soul. Maybe it’s stupid, but I think a more standard assessment would give us some more accurate results, like what you would use for top tier athletes. Check your vital signs, your BMI, blood tests–that kind’a thing,” he explained, still unsure as he wasn’t exactly the idea guy, especially when Davis was present, but he felt it had some connection.

As the two went on about worlds and spaces, or the possibilities of them, Nadia largely stayed silent as the conversation played out, overhearing the conversation between Starwulf and Dani from the external speakers, it seemed Dani’s own tale unknowingly supported the Witch’s Theory. ”All of this is interesting, but one of me is enough for this world. If we could, I would just slam the door shut. Dani may have gained power, but nothing in this world is free. Nevermind her being a monster in the other, she’s told me this story before. But da, I will do so. Though it may be better to see if there is any way to help recall what happened in Paris. Though who knows what problems that may bring. Though Dani may recall things I don’t, I’ll ask her when we are done here, likely after she's feeling better.

At that, Dani let out a soft exhale, glancing back at him before averting her gaze. She didn’t think such tests would come up with anything, but she wasn’t the expert in this either. Nonetheless, the prospect of more tests, while expected, caused her to deflate, the tail drooping slightly at her side. She didn’t want to deal with these tests now, let alone more. “...Why not…” She said a slight tinge of disappointment. “Like I said, not like I have a choice.”

Starwulf guided Dani back into the control room, arriving just as Nadia made her final comment to Davis. The professor would have responded to Nadia, but there was something he cared far more about coming from the lips of Dani. His attention turned on her.

”While I do concur that your mentor may be onto something, you do seem to be mistaken by the nature of these tests,” Davis asserted, being quite firm in his claim and shifting from the more neutral tone he used with Nadia. Not that he was aggressive or demanding, but that he was serious about this particular topic.

”I do not conduct involuntary testing. If you do not want these evaluations, you may leave; in fact, you never needed to placate us with your compliance. There will be no coercion in these labs so long as I am the Administrator here, he told her, being quite blunt and honest about that statement. ”And, if you fear retaliation, there will be none of that, either. My primary concern is your reports of exhaustion after using this new ability and us not understanding why. Without knowing your limits, we do not know what constitutes overuse and what consequences of such could be. Should you decline, my only suggestion is not to use your new ability at all–as I cannot in good conscience condone the use of something I do not understand,” he explained to her, trying to reassure her of his claims while also remaining true to his roots in medicine.

While content to leave him say all that he had, in regards to the power and testing, Nadia had taken a liking to her sister, her partner, and she knew one thing about Dani, having lost everything, Adrian, at least for now seemed to fill in for some of what Nadia could not and would not do, but this was something she could and would do. “Do what you want Dani, I’ll come along even if they ask me not to. I have your back, be it yes or no.”

At Davis’ response, Dani’s gaze looked up and centered on him. “Really? New fucking world and a power no one’s heard of and the DWMA would just lay off if I say so?” She said with a clear hint of distrust. “Maybe you won’t, but can you speak for everyone? I had to say goodbye to my brother again and I get back with people only caring about answers I don’t fucking have, so excuse me for not feeling fucking motivated or thinking any choice I have is as shallow as a pond.”

Her voice raised slightly, but not to an extent to qualify as a yell or shout, just enough to show frustration. Apart of her knew the frustration was misplaced. Witch aside, she didn’t know Davis and Starwulf had always been one of the good mentors who seemed to care.

At Nadia’s words, Dani inhaled again as a hand reached up to rub her eyes with her index finger and thumb. “I.. I’m not in a good headspace right now. If you think you can figure something out with doing these things, fine, but I don’t wanna be yanked in a bunch of different directions. Not so soon after…”

”Do you know why I am on the Council of Death? Starwulf isn’t and he is far more powerful,” Davis asked her, though rhetorical. ”It is because Magitech–an invention that revolutionized the world–is one I spearheaded and still do. The DWMA would not have the funds to do half of what it does if these very labs had not created the devices that are in the hands of half the population. MIBVI was a new threat to the world, too, and I solved it,” Davis told her, ”and I am not so arrogant to claim I did every bit of research or that it was my lone accomplishment.”

”But I am so bold to tell you that if I say you may leave these labs safely, then you will. You are right, I cannot speak for the rest of the DWMA, but I can tell you that it will be a cold day in Hell before I authorize involuntary testing–especially on a patient so sound of mind. And, if a soul dares to go against my wishes, I threaten both the finances and public image of this very institution. Rest assured, no one is going to incur my wrath over one Fate Agent,” Davis informed her, again, doubling down on how serious he was about this. It seemed trivial, given she had already accepted more testing, but to Davis, it wasn’t. To him, this came across as a decision made under duress.

”If you want, miss Ethalyn, say the word and we will escort you out. If you want time, therapy, a few hard drinks–then I have no reason to stop you. If after that time, you also wish to undergo these evaluations, I will do it. If not, then you have until I’m dethroned from my labs and my name carries no more weight,” he told her, offering her a third solution. To take time to decompress. To do this later.

“I… Ugh,” Grumbling a bit at that, it was less so at him than just a general show of frustration. She didn’t want to do these tests, that was a fact. It was like she was in mourning all over again, albeit this time she had a support circle to soften the blow. Still, part of her wanted to crawl into her bed and hide there, but that didn’t work well the first time.

On the other hand, she did have this gnawing feeling that she needed to learn more about this power sooner rather than later. She couldn’t very well ask Mikey again and the last time she was invited to Adolla it was by a damn monster. Even if she didn’t want to, part of Dani felt she needed to.

“...I appreciate it… but no. I don’t want to do this right now, or anything else for that matter, but I’d rather you have what you need to look into it… Let’s do it.”

With her confirmation sealed, the two were escorted to an entirely different room on the floor. No need for the elevator here. No need for Nadia, either. The room itself resembled something from a high end sports center. It was less outright magitech and more genuine medical equipment. The tests were more straightforward, too. Dani was given time to change into a plain white set of relatively tight fitting clothing, though the tight fit was only to ensure the placement of the various sensors that were on her. A single pin prick from her fingertip was taken beforehand. With every feasible vital sign any hospital could have asked for short of loading her up with IV’s and a heart catheter was present.

The test this time was simple, short, and fruitful. A single strike from Dani in the test chamber showed off the wall results. A huge spike in heart rate, decrease in blood oxygen levels, moderate increase to blood pressure, and so on. Once she exited, another pin prick for her finger was taken and the blood compared to the first. Drastic changes in certain hormone levels, an odd shift in her blood sugar levels, and more incomprehensible test results to anyone without some medical background.

”Fuckin’ Flynn…” Davis muttered, seeing just how right the Meister was. If anything, he was only frustrated that the jarhead came up with the idea before him.

”It looks like that ability of yours drains your physical body, most notably of oxygen. We could run a battery of other tests to check your blood sugar, glycogen levels, hydration… but these results are pretty clear as they are,” Davis explained, though much less sure about this than he was with his direct expertise with Magitech.

”I’m not a medical doctor, but activating the ability alone dropped your O2 levels and using it consumed even more… this ability really is like fire; it feeds off the air. That air just happens to be from inside of you,” Davis went on, giving his professional opinion about the findings that were demonstrated.

Dani was slightly less mopey for the remainder of the tests, using the checkbox-like instructions as a way of focusing her mind away from things she’d otherwise be dwelling on. As the tests finished and Davis explained the findings, it was clear the girl didn’t really understand. She understood, but she didn’t. “So… what could happen if I overuse it? I suffocate or pass out or…?”

”Possibly. Without extended testing or more data, I can’t extrapolate what may occur, and even then I would prefer to share that data with more medically-inclined colleagues to reach a consensus,” Davis told her, answering to the best of his ability and quite honestly. He was the specialist for magitech, not a medical doctor. This seemed to most closely resemble a medical issue.

”What I would like to do… is upgrade your Magitech watch to include some basic monitors for heart rate and your oxygen levels to be worn either during training or consistently. It wouldn’t be much different from a smart watch in that regard, just more accurate than the ones found commercially,” Davis told her, ”and, if you were willing, perform more tests like this one at a later date once I have had time to confer with actual specialists in this field.”

He seemed done, but he wasn’t. His tone hastened and this suggestion, if anything, seemed like a quick attempt to at least make the request less imposing, ”Those tests wouldn’t require you come here. There are a handful of places in Death City with the correct equipment to perform them and do bloodwork.

“I felt like I wanted to drop like a rock in Russia… I thought it was from everything in total, but maybe it was just using the damn tail for a few minutes…” Dani mused upon hearing his suggestion. She especially didn’t want to end up passing out on Nadia or anyone else when they needed her. “...That makes sense. I can’t drag anyone else down by knocking myself out mid-fight.”

Hearing the way he proposed the other tests, Dani folded her arms somewhat meekly. She did feel a bit bad for snapping at him. Setting aside some of the more suspect incidents of the program aside, the man hadn’t done anything to her. He even fought with them during the Fools Festival incident.

“That’s fine… I don’t mind. And… erm… Thanks, Davis…”

”I was an agent once, too. I know its costs all too well,” Davis said, lifting up his metallic, magitech prosthetic arm. It was an immediate example of what he meant. Though his time as an agent was relatively short and he was far more widely known as a Professor or researcher, he was just as a comrade in arms. Or, arm, in this case.

”You are welcome, and I assure you, I’ll do all I can to avoid more tragedies,” he added, firmly reinforcing the point he was making.

Yara wasn’t exactly disinterested at this point. She still felt there was something more to this ability. A flame that consumed the oxygen inside a person? With such profound effects? It couldn’t just be that. There had to be more.

Starwulf meanwhile was concerned about the ramifications of this. A new type of ability not connected to Magic to the Soul? Something physical? His mind immediately went to the possibilities of if this wasn’t exclusive to humans. Or, if it was, why? Were there long term effects? The Spiritual Arts changed the body over time. Would this as well?

Those weren’t questions for the moment, and he knew better than to interrupt this time of closure for Dani. As much as he wanted to delve deeper into this, he was well aware the girl had been through a lot. She needed rest. A therapist. Several good meals, and several nights of sleep. If the confirmed this ability wasn’t some hazard, at the least, then she could now get all those things with more peace of mind.

Having been a silent observer for most of this, Nadia was content with watching the tests, keeping her eyes on the rest and Dani as well. The readouts were not foreign to herself, afterall she spent a lot of time doing physical training aside from spiritual as well. It also reminded her of one other thing that happened, she was happy to leave it to her mentors, but they were no longer here, or if they were, no longer working with them. ”Physical exertion? Then nothing to worry about, we won’t use that minus when and where it is needed for sure then, till we can train you up more or learn what the hell is going on here. Just continue using me as your fist. Though, I think you may want records from Paris. Some of the enemies from within seemed to develop flame much the same way, though I thought it was magic at the time, now I am not so sure, at least not alone. There was also how the wildlife was altered in those woods on the Island. I won’t pretend to know any of this, but if all of this is related, then knowing how to douse the flames so to speak might be useful if more of this happens. But for now I rather get out of here and try to make the little fire starter smile for a change these few days.”

Turning her attention to Davis and his loss, she gave a nod of approval. “I hope what took the arm lost its fucking head. But still, you continue to serve when others may call it quits. The Grenade Launcher was one thing, but with this and how you have been. You are pretty swell for an egghead, I see why Maria speaks highly of the lab, what little she is able to tell at least.”

Dani gave him a subtle smile of appreciation as she made her way over to Nadia. What she had said caused Dani to think back on Paris. “Those skeletons were, now that you mention it…” She mused. “Did we even learn anything about that after? Maybe it was magic but…” It was too coincidental. She felt that there was something else in Paris, something on the tip of her tongue, but that she couldn’t quite place. This caused her to growl and rub her own forehead. “This shit’s all too confusing…”

”I cannot disclose any of the findings or research, but I can assure you, there is active research from both the DWMA and Wiccan Council. If you have anything to add that can further detail out the reports provided by your former mentors, Emmett and Zelda, then do submit them directly to Cyrus. I’ll inform him he may be receiving them on my request,” Davis told them, seeing how Nadia had brought up these facts many times and even Dani had something to say.

”He won’t complain if the request is from me,” Davis added, not only as reassurance, but flexing that authority on even their Project Administrator.

RedArmyShogun EmperorsChosen

​

 

[Sir Les Paul]

A Discourse on Leadership

April 18th, 2067​

Class Crescent Moon was a site most DWMA students knew well. There were other classrooms, but few were as historic or well-known as this one. It is where generations of DWMA students were taught before it became best known as the classroom of the top percentile of the EAT students.

Before Nadia and Gauss were legendary agents like Starwulf and Cyrus. Before them, Black☆Star and Maka Albarn. Before even them, Spirit Albarn and Franken Stein. The history didn’t stop there as it was the place where now-forgotten legends like Akari Hoshino–the mentor of Franken Stein, whose legend still lived on–learned their craft. Even before her, countless Agents from different generations and centuries trained there after the founding of the DWMA.

It was nearly a historical landmark. The classes Gauss and Nadia were in, despite their status as Fate Agents, put them among the ranks of other Two-Stars, Three-Stars, upcoming coming stars of the DWMA in general learning the fundamentals of leadership in the field. Truth was, what might have seemed like a remedial demand or punishment for their behavior truly put them above multiple Agents within the DWMA that would have killed to be in their very seats during these lectures.

It was a three-hour long lecture, too. One of many designed to be modular, as DWMA Agents couldn’t always attend consistent classes. It had online content as well, additional study materials, and one could even attend a virtual classroom for it, but being in person was part of the requirement on their end. Nonetheless, it was educational and informative. This first section of it going over proper communication within the team, and how such communication was the backbone for everything they would teach later, such as team dynamics, group structure, and applications of unique traits within a group.

Decision making and critical thinking came later. Not that they weren’t important, but that the class was designed to teach the basics, then introduce the change to those basics that occurred when the four-step decision making process the DWMA had created for general use was put into play. This class was designed as modular, so the different parts could be picked up over time and retaught, so long as an Agent could attend one in the order they were learning. Nadia only needed to attend classes 1 , 5, 6, and 11, with the eleventh being the final installment. That could easily be done in a month. Gauss, however, required all of them.

The class adjourned and the agents were released. Gauss took what he could from the class, but given the nature of this first installment, there wasn’t a lot of information he could soak in. Communication itself wasn’t necessarily something he had issues with. The alternate modes of communication addressed, such as hand signals or code words, had some merit. Most of it was aimed at speaking with authority and being assertive without insulting or being rude to others. The standard claims that the attitude of a mission leader had an effect on morale and that even the best instructions could prove useless if delivered in a poor or overly aggressive way. It could have been summed up as “try and play nice”, but obviously that summary lacked the detail and explanation of rationale a whole formal class did.

”Didn’t expect to see you here,” Gauss commented in a fairly light-hearted tone. He noticed Nadia some time ago and while the two didn’t sit together, he at least thought it polite to acknowledge her.

”Not that I’d ever complain about the chance to see you, just that I heard your mission was a resounding success,” Gauss added, doing his best to be complimentary without coming across as outright hitting on Nadia. He chose his words and his tone carefully, trying not to give off the wrong impression.

Being somewhat pleased that she did not need the whole course, Nadia didn’t understand fully why she was here, but up till now she largely went along with what the DWMA decided, even if she thought it foolish. This class however did hold some merit, even Nadia was not blind to her own faults in this regard, for better or worse she decided on this, when she made a place for others in her own soul space, and when she had on that damn mask and took charge in the disaster not so long ago, With Gauss being one of the other principle heroes of the night, drug habit aside. Snorting a laugh back at the though, it was as if she summed the devil, he was in here, but she did not know if they would talk, and her mind also dwelled on what was going on with Dani.

That may or may not have had a bit to do with her not answering him in a hostile manner. ”Gauss. And where else would I be? Though I won’t have to be here for the whole thing.” Thinking back to the mission, it was a success, but her partner got touched by an unknowing force, the whole area was a disaster sight and now she only hoped the DWMA or Russian Armed Forces took her warnings and report seriously. A contaminated wasteland, imprisoned and worse yet missing souls, disruption to the native Hierarchy, and the fact the Totems were greatly reduced in number and yet were defending the gate in all likelihood, did not sit well with her.

“The Mission was a Success, but not to my liking. That area will likely be the source of future trouble. I heard your mission more or less was a success as well. I would not worry about Baroness Calinescu too much. She’s been slippery for years. I almost had her head, you know. It would have meant me getting a little burned but the little lass would have been missing a head. As to The Colonel, who I heard told that he debriefed you all, he is a hard man to please, but I find him to be a good man.” It seemed as if either she had talked to others on his team, the same people that told Gauss about her own had loose tongues, or she just had good contacts within the Eastern European/Russian branch office.

”The way I see it, the Romanians were the real problem with that mission. We went in having no idea it was a Bloodsucker, let alone one with the rare ability to make enthrall the living. She had ample time to set the field. Not to mention, the few allies we had were as incompetent as we were ignorant,” Gauss replied, giving his insight on the matter. He wasn’t hyperfocused on the Baroness. He didn’t quite care for her head–not like Nadia. Instead, his frustrations were with walking in blind to find an adversary that there did exist specialists for. An agent may need to be ready for anything, but the Bloodsucker infestation was obvious. Had it not been for the political red tape, a group of skilled Bloodhunters would have had her head before nightfall.

”That said, the objective was in essence just to investigate what was going on, and we did figure that much out,” he told her, shifting the subject matter around. ”I’ll be taking the full course–probably in no small fault due to a certain irate Hoshi we both know. He tried being a backseat leader after a while, and I’m sure that played into all this,” Gauss explained, giving no small amount of blame to Midori for the circumstance he found himself in.

”I’m not exactly upset, though. These classes are generally hard to get in and if you can pass the test at the end, you get an accreditation that looks good for our reviews. Normally, people want it for a Three-Star, but I can’t imagine it would hurt our evaluation in the Program,” Gauss added, shifting away from the more negative aspects of the situation.

”Besides, in a room full of unfamiliar faces, yours is a blessing,” he said, though he lacked any amount of motivation or energy to make that sound like flirtation. Instead, it came across as a sardonic remark about how out of place they both were here. Alone, in a sense. He was sure Nadia could at least relate to that.

”Oh when the Romanians ask for help, you should always be skeptical, there are some other areas of Eastern Europe that have complicated ties with such things. The greatest hunters of bloodsuckers in the region often aren’t from it. A shame they did not send me on that mission, I have a score to settle with her, but you learned the lesson with all others alive, that is worth something. And I never knew she had a body double, makes me wonder what I ultimately chased was the original or not…” Unusually kind words from her, but still there was much more he said that needed addressing.

With an air of superiority she stared at him and chuckled. “A surprise? Oh, I knew I would end up here, alas, its only natural… Though some things about me changed.” She said in a less condescending tone. “I only have to attend half the classes, or was it less? Hmm… One, Five, Six and Eleven. And me a blessing for you to see? You must have hit your head on something rather hard in Romania or on the flight back.” With a snort and a bemused expression on her face, the woman did decide to say one more thing to him.

“So you are aware, we may share responsibilities and duties now to our fellows, but one should not fully or partially try and take on the traits of the other in leadership unless it is deemed of use. These sorts of classes can only teach so much. There is always a matter of ego and personality in this. Zhukov and Konev were giants among men in Russia for very different reasons.”

”I see all this as a tool, Nadia,” Gauss replied to her, following the immediate end of her last statement. ”as with any tool, how I use it once it’s given to me is my choice,” Gauss explained, ”and, more so, how I think I can best use it. Knowledge is power, but even power is pointless if applied poorly.”

”Now, I’m trying to behave here, Nadia,” Gauss shifted, going off on an entirely different tangent. ”You know full well that you’re attractive by any standard–even if a bit tall,” Gauss told her, though this was more matter-of-fact than an emboldened proclamation.

”And… while I typically have no problems pointing out something so obvious, I know it’s not to your liking for me to do so–so I don’t. That is my attempt at being… how would the instructor word it… civil, or considerate,” Gauss admitted, trying to already incorporate some of the information from class into his demeanor.

”Regardless, that’s not even how I meant it. In a sea of strangers, even I find comfort in a known face. The devil you know is better than the one you don’t, yeah?” Gauss said, adding clarity to what he meant by his comment from earlier.

While at first it struck her to state him having a habit of stating the obvious, she decided not to for a change, there was no point in making extra friction between them. Though she was somewhat amused by the fact that another of their number may end up here soon at this rate. Though at the end, he was just begging to be poked a little. ”Oh, so now I’m the Devil am I?”

Snickering at that she turned her head to pay attention to the lecturer's podium. And in typical Nadia fashion she seemed to have a little more to say in regards to that. “I’ve heard it said familiarity breeds contempt. Though in some ways there is a comfort to it. Still, it will be interesting to see what other faces enter here. They may be Comrades in Arms at some point.”

”I imagine what they’ll actually do is make a dedicated program similar to this for training Fate Agents promoted to leadership… if you think about it, all this is still fairly new. I’m pretty sure they’re winging it as they go–or at least some of it,” Gauss replied, offering her his two cents on the whole leadership thing. Given his mind for business, it would only make sense to come up with a long term solution for this issue instead of these band-aid solutions.

”I’m sure you’ve called me worse,” Gauss then added on with a chuckle.

”As for familiarity, you and I don’t actually know that much about each other. I imagine you think I’m just another pretty-boy rich kid buying his way through life, partying and fucking in all my free time,” Gauss proclaimed. He gently tapped his knuckles onto the desk Nadia was at during the lecture, as if some odd gesture of confirmation. ”And, if I’m wrong, please do correct me,” he tacked on at the end, though he was pretty certain of his claim.

Listening to his words, Nadi gave a roll of her shoulders, stretching her neck just a bit. There were two things he said that stood out, one was the confirmation of how he was and the previous was his comments on the leadership program. Her reply to both was brisk and to the point.

”Likely. That would make sense. Though the fate program should be looking to get people out of its doors rather than keeping the Penal Battalion from Moscov to Berlin.” And the other part she gave him a cold stare. She may have changed some but not that much.

”If I recall correctly it is those reasons you are here. You stated them yourself.” With that her eye contact broke off as she added in a few more words.

”There were things you did that I would call questionable and I am sure you would not like my way of leading. Adrian for example did not seem to, though he did listen. You seem to think there is some reason for me to understand you, but there is nothing wrong with detente. I cannot pretend to understand your life, and you sure as hell is hot, would not understand mine. From what little I’ve talked to your family, it is clear you all do not value one another as you should and your father is an odd man. In another timeline, it's a miracle at all we can speak like this when I would have been swinging an ax to take away all that you had.

So, Gauss what is it that you want of these talks that I do not understand about you and that you seem to understand about me?

”Is this really the type of talk you want to have in a classroom?” Gauss asked her, realizing just how serious the subject matter had shifted. ”Class is over, next one is in.. twelve minutes. If you want to chat, a change of venue might be nice,” he added, pointing out the exposure of the air and the time limit it put on the two.

Pursing her lips at that, they did have twelve minutes and he seemed to want some sort of privacy, only a couple weeks ago she would have barely agreed to do so, and beyond that she would have told him to eat shit in Russian before going about her way. In place she lets out a sigh and motions with her left hand, rising to her feet. “Sure. Why not?”

With that, Gauss decided to transition the conversation to a place just informal enough it didn’t seem imposing. Death Backs Café was nearly on the border of the Historical District and the DWMA. Its sheer convenience made it a logical pick, it was hardly what anyone could misconstrue as a ‘date spot’, and the fact it had plenty of young agents there left it pretty connected to the DWMA. Unless Nadia had something much closer in mind or was incredibly pressed for the few minutes it would take them to get there, it seemed like a non-offensive location.

”I doubt the Fate Program wants us in it any longer than we have to be,” Gauss told her, responding to their first point of discussion after having ordered a simple coffee. ”That said, there’s still plenty of scrutiny around it. And, us in general. I assume they’re gonna do their damnedest to make sure it’s first round of graduates don’t go and fuck it up for the rest of the Program,” Gauss explained, giving her his opinion on why the process was so lengthy.

”It looks like they want this program to be a permanent part of the DWMA. We may graduate, but there will probably always be a few that could benefit from it,” he added, taking a sip of his coffee once it arrived. He tried to keep the conversation more light.

”To be fair about your other comment, I believe things would work better if understood a bit about other–since have no real common ground,” he told her, ”but I don’t believe we’re obligated to. Believe it or not, I don’t just forcibly impart myself onto others.”

”And,” he followed up quickly, ”my family wasn’t always like this.”

Following along, she said very little in transit, minus one semi smart quip, ”And here I thought we would go to the Balcony. A pity, now I can’t hold you over the edge by one foot if you upset me.” Oddly her words sounded more sarcastic than serious. With the Cafe near, she didn’t seem to dispute the location at least. ”Not much of a Coffee person, but this will do. And yes, I know it will be around. I just would like it if the MIBVI virus would vanish, but even then it’s not like either of us are here for that.”

Responding to what he had said in regards to his family not being this way or not forcibly imparting himself to others. She paused for a bit. ”Maybe you don’t, or maybe not anymore, I cannot say, but your soul essence does it either way. I think I will always be guarded with that. As to your family, so I’ve heard. And it may have not been as such, but now it is. While some people have come to me for advice for whatever reason, fixing a broken family is a bit out of my experience.”

”MIBVI is… complicated,” Gauss said, thinking it over. In his opinion, the disease isn’t even the reason a good majority of Fate Agents were in the program. Yet, tracing back all of its silent impacts on the world and denying its more prominent ones was impossible. Ignorant, even. In past pandemics, there were always naysayers. People that denied its existence or said world governments were over-inflating its danger. MIBVI was something no one could deny.

He stared down at his coffee, wondering just how to express that sentiment in word form, but found it difficult.

”Even if we eradicated it, like we did Smallpox, I think there would just end up being another reason the word would spiral… we fight evil, and so long as it is exists, programs like this will have a place–real question is if the DWMA can maintain it,” Gauss said, deciding not to address the internal conflict he had about the impact of MIBVI and more so that he felt there would always be a place for people like them.

”If you get called a monster long enough, you become one,” Gauss told her, quite plainly, shifting back to the other half of their ongoing conversation. ”I’m not going to deny I’ve done some shitty things. I’m working on it. Trying to make amends. I hired the sister of someone I hurt some time ago to help train Noah and Arkayis… and with that bridge, I spent a long time apologizing. First to her sister, then to her,” Gauss admitted, telling Nadia something he hadn’t yet even shared with his partners. Not that it mattered. Aside from Arkayis with his crush, the relationship there was purely transactional.

”I can’t fix everything I did. I can’t fix my family issues, either. But, to the people I hurt, I can at least give them some closure. Do a little better, reach out to those that will listen and broadcast my apologies and active effort to change. To some, it matters. To others, it doesn’t do a damn thing,” Gauss told her. His face didn’t light up like it usually did. That pull he had around him at all times was at its weakest. This was the closest thing he could do to communicate his sorrow.

”You may question a lot of what I do, but be aware, I do try hard. Not just with making amends. I don’t go out as much, I don’t indulge in my old habits much–if at all. What I do–day in and day out–is train. I have two weapons, both elemental affinities, that don’t even physically work well together. If you think I’m out there doing lines of coke, well, it would only be to get an extra hour in of labor,” he explained to her, trying to clarify as a misconception he felt existed between them since they met.

”I have always trained like that. It’s how I got away from my problems. I delved headfirst and never looked back. When I needed a break, I went just as hard. No moderation, no slowing down. I went until I couldn’t go anymore,” he admitted, ”and my therapist figured that one out. What I did in both training and my lascivious lifestyle was just a coping mechanism for feeling like I tore my family apart. When it made things worse, I guess I doubled down. It’s as simple as that.”

”Hmm. True enough on the DWMA and the MIBVI. I joined because of the Black Star Dojo you know?” She said of the first bit. As Gauss’s conversation shifted to what he’s done, or rather the steps to correct it, with some of it not being correct at all. Or forgiven, or being unable to fix his Family, she glared at him for a reason that none could comprehend, aside from Cyrus and Dani, and her mentors to one extent or another that bothered to read the file.

”No. Your Family cannot fix itself unless they all want to do it, or at least try, from what I’ve heard and seen, everyone in your family is at fault, but none of them wish to admit it. Till that is done and you all can attempt to sit at a table, then that all is over. I’ve lost everything once before. Once it is gone there is no getting it back. I fear that your family will have the same fate. But such is life.

Now on to your other problems. Forgiveness is no easy thing, in fact I am unable to do it at times, and at others when I have had a little revenge, I have. Like that Bastard from the Magic class, Raph he called himself, me and Dani caught him around the apartment one day, he said sorry, blamed his madness. Was some truth to that, so I kicked him once across an alley, then Dani got in her hits. Now we are even. I’m not saying you should let people beat you, but oftentimes “sorry” is not good enough and those people will never understand.” With that Nadia took over one of the small tables with two chairs, seating herself down upon it as she motioned for him to do the same.

”Though even then I do not understand you. Even though I’ve begun to compensate for the weakness of others and begrudgingly took on a role I once had, I am not in the least bit sorry for anything I’ve done. If Klaus ran his mouth to me again, ah that's my old partner, you know why I’m here, but if he did so again, I would break him. Though Starwulf wishes for me to be more humble, and I’ve humored that some, I am a proud and noble Warrior. Or so I like to think.”

”What I’m getting at is we are very different people in more than a few regards. If there was ever anything I’ve been sorry or regretful for, it is not being stronger, mostly in my youth. Though I’ve long come to terms with those demons. It is good that those people are willing to help with your weapons however, personally I don’t think I would ever want a second, though who knows maybe I’ll get a magitek shield and wear that costume to be a real Valkyrie.” Nadia said with a snort.

”I don’t know what my family wants,” Gauss told her, his tone wistful yet touched by defeat. ”My father wanted an heir. V wanted to stay in the DWMA. I have no idea what Thea wanted,” he told her, ”now my father has an heir, and we three siblings are in the DWMA. Technically, everyone got what they wanted…”

Gauss just that lang in the air. At its simplest, his family story seemed centered around the pursuit of selfish desires. The reality was that it was far more complex.

”A proud and noble warrior, is it?” Gauss recited, reusing the words Nadia had selected.

”Noble doesn’t make much sense. Nobility comes from rank or title, neither of which you would have. One could argue that I’m the noble one, in that sense,” Gauss said, toying with her word choice.

”Of course, noble doesn’t just mean of some rank, but that’s where it originates. The only reason it historically has a positive connotation is its association with the upper class, but…”

”...I’m the upper class, and quite frankly, I don’t think you want to be anything like me.”

Gauss stared at her for a moment.

”Maybe there is something noble about you. Only a noble would think they have nothing in this world to apologize for,” he stated, ”let’s think about it.”

”You have this extremely linear view of the world where strength is what matters most. The path of the warrior that you’re on,” he said, ”but, not everyone follows that path or even cares about it. You may not think that’s a problem, but I didn’t think having a few different girls in my room every day was, either. Yet, here I am in the same program as you. I was told, quite abruptly, that I had plenty to apologize for.”

Gauss then shrugged slightly, calmly thinking this through. ”I don’t know much about your life, but I can’t imagine you haven’t upset plenty of people and made plenty of mistakes–even if you don’t see them that way,” he went on, ”in that regard, you and I aren’t terribly different. Noble in that we truly believe we did no wrong.”


”Except I now know I did, and I’m working on being better,” he told her.

”It’s impossible to be around you for more than ten minutes without some story about how you had to fight to survive, or how much harder you had it,” Gauss inserted, knowing full-well where that train would go, ”and just like you don’t understand why I’m apologizing, I don’t understand why you believe your past justifies how you behave now. Circumstances aren’t the same, and even if they were, I’m quite certain strength alone wouldn’t change everything. Even the strongest agents still make mistakes.”

”Fine. Gallant. Unless you have a better word, or Proud Warrior it is. Though…”

The next bit however poured cold water on their discussion. ”Mistakes happen. But they are nothing to be sorry for if they were outside of your control or knowledge. The die had been cast.”

”And I’m going to ignore what you just did for the sake of the other Customers. But I do not think I am perfect, and, maybe there are others that had it worse, no, likely are, at least I can face my problems on equal ground. But what would you know about it? Huh? What do you know about surviving a city being churned up by monsters and artillery fire? Or of having to fight and steal in the refugee camps so others could eat? The camps that time to time had men with flamethrowers burning clumps of tents and people when the slightest sign of madness was on hand? Of your family vanishing one by one with no goodbye, of being locked in a box crammed with others, landing in a new land and finding a culture and language you knew next to nothing about? About nights you wake up in a cold sweat and must make sure of where you are?”

With that out of the way she seemed clearly agitated; ”You are like Starwulf, saying how lucky I am. Maybe I am in some regard, but my Strength is the only reason I am being given a chance now and the only reason I was given a chance then. To put it plainly, it really grinds my teeth, when you people just dismiss all of this by going “Well someone else had it worse!”. That is a small comfort when there is not a family I can see and when only two physical items, not even a picture, is all I have to remember them by.” Slapping her hands down upon the table, there was a hint of danger behind those eyes, till bit by bit they went away. While the same sayings were being repeated, not so long ago she would have likely went in to punch him.

”I am not so foolish as to ignore the suffering of others or to get into a degree of suffering contest with them. Dani lost all that was precious to her, all that's left. Maria is a piece of work if you get talking to her. But even so, all three of us still walk forward. Maybe Strength is not all there is, but it is what I have. Just count yourself fortunate that I use that strength, or am trying to use it to help others walk forward too.”

”But, you are so foolish to let yourself get worked up over one small remark,” Gauss responded, though he lacked any sign of condescension. His eyes were not dangerous, but they did show clear intent. What he said was meant to get an effect like this, and it most certainly did. If it were a game of chess, she would have just lost her knight.

”My battles were fought just like this. Not with fangs or swords–not in the snowy Russian winters–but at tables with words like razors,” Gauss told her. ”Do you know how many times my sister has goaded me? It didn’t matter whether I stayed silent or gave in, I always lost–and it always hurt,” he explained.

”I’m not denying any of your tragedies, but I lost my family in an entirely different way. Maybe, someday, we’ll be fine again, maybe we won’t. Like the sword of Damocles, that fate lingers over my head every minute of every day,” Gauss said, hastening his speech, ”and, don’t you dare think for a moment that I can just stop caring. I love my sister. My brother, too. We used to be close. We’re the closest in age. We used to play together and after V went to the DWMA, I was the one being groomed to be the heir; and, the only semblance of a normal childhood I had in life was when Thea came to steal me away from studying or some stupid ass meeting to make connections that wouldn’t matter for decades–and that certainly don’t matter now.”

”I’m not saying I had it worse. I’m saying it was bad and it was different–and that’s the way it is for a lot of people. Sometimes strength isn’t winning a fight– sometimes, it’s keeping your mouth shut when you wanna scream,” Gauss told her.

”Sometimes strength is watching someone you used to love insult every little thing about you–wishing you were dead, even–and not falling prey to that same hate,” he went on.

”Sometimes strength is apologizing for something that doesn’t mean a damn thing to you but does to someone else.”

”Sometimes strength isn’t just admitting you’re wrong, it’s realizing why and letting that shatter your world so that maybe–just fucking maybe–you can rebuild it a little better.”

”Strength isn’t just about surviving,” Gauss told her, finally coming around in full during his passionate display of emotions. ”Besides, all you’re talk about your strength and you’ve yet to prove once you’re any stronger than I am,” he added, taking a direct shot and this time directly meaning her definition of strength.

Glaring at him, she listened to his words at least and let out a huff. ”For all your talk on riling me up, I’ve yet to hit you or to be goaded into anything. There was a time I would have tried using Soul Force against you for that, there were times those words would bring me nothing but fury and rage. Have brought me fury and rage. But Zelda and Emmet till they went elsewhere put me and Dani through a lot of training on that. There however will never be a day where these can be used as insults and I’ll just laugh it off. As to your family, you can at least get them back maybe.

I on the other hand cannot and truth be told, if I were offered it by some other power, I would not. That is the difference in how you see me and how I am. I do not think of my decisions as infallible but they were the decisions I made at the time. Though I wonder, would you stay so collected if I made light of your history, or spread insults on that family of yours?”

With the rest of what he said, she gave a chuckle. ”Strength is more than in Martial Might. Did you think I was that much of a Barbarian? It is in Will, it is in Duty, it is in Conviction, It is the Physical, the Mental, the Spiritual. Nor is that of battle all I admire. Maria, a Mage friend of mine, also in the program is physically weaker, always seeking to improve upon something, she appreciates my taste in culture and crafts great furniture among other things. She has Worth. Or Adrian, you know him, bastard he can be aside, he is tenacious and followed orders that he perceived I gave, and at cost to himself he carried them out. Dani, I value because of her ability to carry on, she has determination. However I keep her in close regard because of her weaknesses.”

”When the event of the first happened, I did not voice it out loud because I had a role to play, but in my spirit talks with Dani, I wanted to ensure no more people like us were made. I followed what plan there was and I improvised when that turned against me. Do you think me some Spartan that would throw babies into the woods and only acknowledge who lived for three days? But still, even now you try and test me. We have little time, would you like an Arm Wrestling match?”

Did she listen to herself speak? Did she have any kind of filter? Gauss wondered. At his core, he couldn’t grasp how she could make some of her complaints or the mental gymnastics she had to go through to make half of what she said sensical. It’s as if she had some type of victim complex, as he saw it. She twisted everything around without any regard to what it actually meant. It was frustrating as she always put herself on the receiving end of some non-existent slight, and it avoided the main point he was making.

”Do you not see the hypocrisy in what you say? You complain about how the all-too overused comment, ‘Someone always has it worse,’ when they’re talking to you, but then you have the audacity to tell me, ‘well, at least you can get your family back.’ If you paid attention, I already acknowledged that. That was redundant; it only served to do the very thing you complain about: minimize what someone else has gone through,” he told her, as if this should have been an obvious conflict in logic.

”And, then, you just go off on these weird-ass tangents about how you think I perceive you,” he told her, ”I never shit about you being a barbarian or a Spartan. I said you focused on strength as if it were just one thing: combat ability. You took that to mean so many other things instead of actually getting the point.”

”And, it seems that you didn’t understand the point. I told you all the different forms of strength and when you went off listing positive qualities about your friends, you described a half dozen things that were completely contrary to what you have described as strength,” he went on, pointing out just how inconsistent she was.
”Nadia, you’re all over the place,” he told her, ”you’re not consistent. Predictable, sure, but not consistent. Probably because you never look back on anything you say or do because it would be just be too agonizing to think about.”

Gauss rolled his eyes at the end of his critique of the woman, entirely ignoring her offer of an arm wrestling contest. ”Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me,” he said, ”all the understanding I’ve gained here amounts to the fact you can’t seem to look back on yourself at all because of some diluted belief that’s not what a real leader does–which, by the way, is wrong. A proper leader should always re-evaluate their decisions and mistakes to learn from them.”

”There are different types of leadership.” She said flatly. Gauss scoffed. A cold simmering anger was upon her, but she remained seated. ”Scoff all you want. Look at the annals of History and the great leaders of men. You will find many types. Or do you mean to suggest in the case of your West, that Montgomery and Patton were remotely alike? The two hated one another and were very different in the school of leadership.”

As to the rest of what he said. ”It is very easy to get lost in the ghosts of the past, and for all of your claims on me being contradicting, being unable or unwilling to face the past. Yes, I wear reminders of my Family because I’ve forgotten them. And don’t get Coy with me, you purposefully brought them up, my remarking on them again is because you lack the convictions to do whatever is needed to bring them all into a room together again, or to tell your father he is wrong… As to how you don’t know me. Well, that is the truth. For all of your claims, what if I were to tell you I am currently looking for my old gang and have arranged to meet some of them next month with Dani? To face that past. If I am contradictory and so obsessed with strength, then what are you in your Hubris? Do you need a committee to debate that for your decision?”

”Again, the hypocrisy. I talk about different kinds of strength and it’s dejected. You talk about different kinds of leadership, and suddenly that justifies what you’re doing? Gauss responded, making a parallel between the topics brought up.

”What are you even on about? I said there were different factors in strength. And I offered to challenge you. According to you I’ve refuted nothing you have said, and you in my eyes have nothing I said. We might as well say we’ve found our Patton and Montgomery setting. I do not feel this is as we don’t understand one another, but that simply we cannot.”

Gauss then actively mocked her with his next comment, ”You can’t understand me!” He chuckled. ”As if that’s not the same line hundreds of thousands of kids tell their parents every day–most of the time over shit those very parents went through themselves,” Gauss added, explaining how little he respected that comment.

”It’s just another excuse to stay blindly on a path,” he commented.

”And, saying there are different factors to strength isn’t exactly the same as admitting there are entirely different kinds,” he told her, quickly clarifying the point she questioned.

”If you wanna know what I was at the peak of my hubris, it apparently was a drug-fueled sex fiend with a body count I had long forgotten once it broke the triple digits,” he told her, ”and a trail of broken hearts and emotional trauma that had me considered a liability to keep on campus.”

”But, what are you in your hubris? Seems to me, a mountain of a woman that can’t acknowledge any damage she’s done or does, refuses to look back on any of it, and when she’s questioned, simply wipes her hand of the situation by claiming other people don’t understand,” he said, keeping his point to the straight and narrow.

”You certainly are noble, though. You’ve got real high horse you sit on, comparing our squabbles to those of great men as if we’re so special,” he added, ”in fact, I think you might even be more noble than my blue blood.”

”And what pray tell have I not taken responsibility for? And what Damage have I done or do? Minus to enemies and fools who don’t know when to get in line and to shut up. Anyone I’ve harmed has always deserved it. Or do you suggest I apologize to that one fool? When I know the DWMA had him assigned to me as a leash. It's not even paranoia. And why, there is one area of nobility you fail at in spades, so I’m not sure if that makes me a noble or if that means your opinions on it are shit. Chastity is a virtue afterall. Why, with your triple digit count, I wonder just how bad you are at holding bonds of loyalty. Afterall, it seems none of them could stand you more than I do.” With a smug grin on her face, it seemed Nadia had enough of the knife being twisted in her and was doing it in kind with interest, seeing how his reaction would be.

”If you think chastity was truly a virtue of the noble, then there’s a serious gap in that otherwise impressive knowledge you have on history,” Gauss responded, finally backing off and leaning back in his seat as he offered a chuckle.

”And, for your information, there are in fact a handful of old sparks in my life that have stuck around,” he told her, though now he was twirling his now-chilled coffee in his hand. ”I’ve been tame and behaved since the program started… but in all honesty, my nerves were a wreck the night before, and I called up one of them to distract me the night before we all met in Lot C,” he told her, ”her name’s Natasha. Respiratory therapist at MAD Hospital. Her birthday is… January 18th–I think. Nice girl, wants to become a PA. Met her after I took a few hard blows in a karate tournament.”

”You are asking the right questions, though,” he mused.

”What haven’t you taken responsibility for? What damage have you done?” he continued, still musing. ”It’s just that I’m not the person to ask. Why would I know? All you’ve ever really done wrong to me is offer that upsettingly cold shoulder,” he admitted.

”One other thing,” he chimed, deciding to add on another fact from something she said. ”I have, once, confronted my father about V and Thea. V isn’t so bad, but Thea and her bullying… it was a real problem for a while,” Gauss told her, ”eventually, she was remanded, but I wanted dear ole dad to try and do something to lessen the animosity.”

”All he did… was give me even more bank accounts and tell me to use their funds to take care of my siblings,” he told her. ”I don’t mean put a hit out on them. You see, he cut them both off financially when they decided to stay in the DWMA. They spent years being as dirt poor as any young agent. His idea of making amends was to throw money at them. No small sum, either. The amount he offered was enough to make you question your chastity.”

”V knows about it, but doesn’t want the money. Doesn’t need it. He made it on his own,” Gauss informed her, ”and, we both know Thea would have exploded had she thought I was trying to buy her out. V tried to get her to contact our father, but she refused, and made it clear to V she didn’t want anything from him. No point in me beating a dead horse.”

This man was incomprehensible as she saw it. They both saw the other like that, and honestly it was wrong to try and correct it. Still, his words deserved a reply and less Venom. ”And that is exactly why I say, he needs a talking to, as does your family. We are very different people, with different upbringings. And I guess it is good some of them care to remember you, though I care not to know what you got up to.”

It was a small concession, but she held up a hand to call the server. ”Take that Coffee away, bring a fresh one and a hot tea for me. Dark tea of some sort.”

With that it was not too long till the server brought the order and took the old coffee away, as Nadia held her tea cup in true European fashion by the handle.. ”Mister Thaddeus, no, Gauss. We all have our demons, and there are things I may need to ask those questions to, though I will never doubt my commands and choices, for better or worse.

I do not envy your family, as with how it is, it may not be till someone dies that you all will sit in the same room. Simply put I do not like you, and I doubt you much like me outside of looks. So let us have a Toast in Comradery. To your health and mine, so that the enemies of mankind shall fall. For that is the only thing we may agree upon.”

”I doubt even the death of our father would mend things as they are,” Gauss replied, having mused over that very thought himself plenty of times. With three different mothers amongst all his siblings, a maternal loss would mean even less. Unless it were V or Thea, he doubted anyone would bring them all together even if briefly.

”I can toast to that, Nadia,” Gauss said with a smirk.

”But what makes you so sure I don’t like you?” he asked, now being coy.

”Then you would be a fool. While we may not be enemies, I think as I said much earlier detente best sums us up.” She said flatly.

”Oh, you sweet, gallant, warrior… so blunt and forthright,” Gauss commented, picking up the coffee that was ordered for him and tipping it forward in notion of the toast Nadia proclaimed. ”In your world, words like those might indicate disdain. But, in mine, that’s just another Monday,” he told her.

”You have this terribly bad habit of putting words in my mouth and coming up with strange, far-fetched ideas–for example, that I dislike you for some reason,” he told her, his tone now half jovial.

”Sure, you infuriate me, and we obviously aren’t intimate by any means, but neither of those are sufficient reason for me to find you unlikable,” he admitted, explaining just how one-sided her distaste was.

”For one who said I do not listen, you are doing much the same, though with your lot in life and all the partners you’ve angered, it seems you like to punish yourself.” Taking a drink of her tea the ice giant would not budge. ”Spending time among those which infuriates you will only give you a heart attack one day.”

”Well, such is to be expected,” Gauss responded, ”do keep in mind that some of the harshest words and bitter heartache I’ve experienced came from my sister. Punishment and affection, the lines blurs.”

”Granted, if your method of murder was going to be cardiac arrest, there are far better ways to go about it than a long-term commitment to frustrating me,” he said, swooning over the thought.

”I retract that, actually,” he chuckled, ”I’m not sure you could keep up. I’d wager I’m the more fit between us, given my better wavelength control…”

Sticking up her left middle finger as she had her tea, her words didn’t really need a translation, as the sign alone was universal. ”Za cyun v shopu. Otlez’ gnida.” Well maybe the last bit did, it had been awhile since Nadia took up the role of hero that she had swore in her native tongue, simply saying, stick it up your ass, fuck off you flea child.


He decided to finally drink some of the coffee, mulling over the Russian, trying to pick at his brain to see if there was any of it he knew, but alas, it was too corrupted from the clean bits he had learned to garner anything from.

”Oh, don’t be like that…” Gauss told her, ”besides, it’s not like you aren’t at least a little curious.”

With those words said, Nadia held her tea and her jaw locked for a brief instance. ”I would sooner drink cyanide than to give you that. Call it my Russian sensibilities or pride. And with that, I think we should head back, after all you need the leadership course more than I.”

”H-Hold on, you do realize in full there are other ways to test our fitness and strength than a bedroom or a meager contest?” he asked, rhetorically, seeing that the Russian very clearly wasn’t interpreting what he meant as he meant it. Double entendres weren’t quite her thing.

”Besides, the next class isn’t even the one I need,” he added, remarking about how they needed to be in order.

”Ah, Pardon me for not making the correct assumption from the Man whore.” With that said, she didn’t seem to skip a beat at his next provocation. ”If you mean a test of strength, then I would say arm wrestling. Or we go off of our mission performance. Or what do you suggest?”

”You know, in the courts of Europe, the balls and dances they hosted–they were designed not just demonstrate the intricate footwork the nobles houses were taught, but the compatibility of suitors…” he replied, ”we already know that dancing is a bit of a struggle–but we’ve never tried dancing inside of an actual ring, have we?”

”As if I don’t recall that one girl you fought with when we all first met. Maybe one day in an official capacity we shall face off, but I think not till then. With that Nadia finished her tea. ”I’m sure Starwulf or the like would not mind a sanctioned brawl.”

”If you insist… I’ll just have to tote the bold claim that Nadia the Gallant Warrior declined a duel on this day,” Gauss said, teasing and in jest, although somewhat surprised Nadia didn’t take up the offer. She surely had her reasons, though he couldn’t figure them out. A sanctioned fight or even a ranked fight at any Dojo would have been fine in his eyes.

”And to think I’ve come so far to not blindly accept a fight. Some other time maybe, but not on a whim.” scoffing at that, she got up from the table.

RedArmyShogun EmperorsChosen

​

 

[The Regal Rper]

Zosar & Nadai | Run In | Western District Streets
July 1, 2023

Parkour was not a conventional form of exercise. The number of crazy stunts however that had been video recorded or done on livestream by content creators, had made it still relevantly popular.

The difference was he could use wavelength to empower his body to clear further distances. Its just that in this moment, he wasn't. It was all natural physical might. It was routine. One of the many routines he’d grown up with. This wasn't like using weights or going on a jog, this was a full body workout as he pulled himself up to another roof, and for him, it gave him time to think.

Climbing a building in the early days, leaping from place to place it reminded him of the outdoor training drills he’d go through with Hiroshi leading them sometimes with other students after the company was official. Training their bodies first, then training their bodies even more with wavelength to improve on what was being built.

He landed on the ledge of a window, leaped up to grab the jutting bricks above, then pulled himself up to the roof and out of the dim alley that hung below him.

With a moment he took off on a run. Reaching the edge, he empowered his body, stunts like this, where he could feel the wind on his skin, the current playing with his hair as he came hurtling towards the ground after a leap, had been near impossible when he was starting. Now, it was easy. He didn’t even need to think about channeling it anymore. It had become instinctive.

Jumping up to grab the lip of a rooftop like an all-star NBA player like Jordan was easy where it would have been amazing to see. Even without wavelength his jump was already high, but with it he soared. Leaping across rooftops like a grasshopper, piece of cake where it’d required focus in his earlier years. And it was as he was breaking through the roll and hopping up onto his feet that Zosar slowed as he reached the edge of the antique store roof, and let himself cool down.

The sun snored, a dopey smile on its face. Which he could not blame it for. It was only 8 a.m. on a Saturday. Most people were inside, at home, relaxing.

But he couldn’t really relax. Spending time with Hoshi had reminded him to never be lax again.

“Maybe it would have been better to stick it out there longer.” He muttered to himself. “They were teaching me a bit of Japanese after all.” Though that was just one of the things they’d been teaching him. The Japanese had been at his own interest.

Though his pronunciation still needed work, according to Midori.

He had tried telling him in Japanese he really appreciated everything he was doing for him, letting him come here, checking up on him even with updates. The guy was like one of his Enlightener seniors, reminding him of KOJoe actually to a degree.

It was too bad he’d never likely see his Nigerian friend ever again or any of the others for that matter–

Stop, he looked to the side, as if to banish the thoughts in his head.

All it did was bring him a degree of sadness and still, that bitter sense of guilt. In talking to his therapist, he’d learned it was likely he’d never let go of that guilt.

That was honestly just fine with him. He couldn’t imagine what his peers were saying about him now.

Likely wasn’t anything good, just the same as EAT. The whole reason he’d decided to stay at the end.

Midori said there was a plan to set him up with a partner in progress. It likely would be soon he’d be hearing from him. It was too bad about Adra. If only she’d come along…

But no, he thought. No, I can’t be mad at her. She did what she thought was right and I can’t say if things were reversed I’d appreciate bitter feelings over it.

Still though, to start from scratch after they’d been making progress. It sucked. How far had all the others come in the months he’d been away? He had been locked up in March then sequestered for protection before the trip in April. What sorts of things had the others been through?

A hand went through his hair. Thinking like this would get him nowhere. He’d find out soon enough. It was only a matter of time when he had catching up to do after all the events that had transpired in his absence.

While much less eventful, Nadia had her own unique challenges in avoiding the general public, with her actions on April the 1st, if she even walked around City there would be at least a handful of people wanting a photograph, thanking her or offering her some gifts, or calling her the Valkyrie. She couldn’t run everywhere, as the media pukes would just eat that up, but at the same time she didn’t want to be stopped constantly. So in between sprints, going to DWMA areas, sticking to the old city, she did as she was now, taking a walk down back streets and alleyways, stretching out with her soul perception from time to time as part of her early morning workouts.

Zosar hummed in thought. Going over all he knew in his mind. He hadn’t moved yet from his spot, rather he was pondering who to go to first in the days ahead. Adrian, had to be one of the first on his list, as short lived as it had been they had been part of a team. Sara too, and Midori’s partner as well, Noah also.

But the others…he rubbed his clean shaved chin thoughtfully. He honestly had no idea how to approach them. He barely really knew any of them.

His eyes glanced down a couple dozen feet, observing the stray bystander going about their day.

“Sorta missed all my opportunities by getting locked up anyway.” He sighed again. Then shrugged the feeling off. He’d have to deal with it later.

That was at least till he paused, spotting the back of someone, he couldn’t shake and looked familiar.

With a glimpse of soul perception his brows rose.

He leaped across to another roof instead of bypassing the street like he had been about to, following from above.

It was only a minute or two before he was right above her in the path she was making that he called her name.

“Hey, is that the famous Valkyrie I see?” Though with how he had hollered it from above, it was less likely she’d look up, and possibly likely she’d look around.

Slightly annoyed at hearing that title, more so when the sound was coming up from above, she was a bit surprised at seeing who it was. Mostly as she assumed him to been dead or gotten rid of. Great, what was his name? Zoner, Soser? Zosar, that was it..

”That's Illegal you know. Better watch yourself, might fall into someone doing things not meant for public eyes. Though a man that's been disappeared, reappearing I’ll give you some points for.”

The Egyptian offered her a smile. For a moment he’d been prepared to dial it back at seeing annoyance, it was a mental note at least not to push his luck too far, given what he could recall of Nadia on day one.

“ I do like a good entry.” Was his reply. “ You also out for a run…” his eyes glanced down to where he stood, “ unlike me” he added. “ I hear they made you a team lead.” And after saying this he leaped off the edge, twisted and landed a distance away before moving towards her on even ground. “ How does it feel?”

Snorting at his remark of dropping in, she shrugged. “It’s a good thing Americans aren’t known to be armed to the teeth…though Death City is an international city, so maybe you wouldn’t get shot. A pity.”

He snickered at that.

With a sinister smile that turned unamused, she scoffed lightly. ”It is like my old days. I cannot admit they were wrong, but now I am working up the nerve and waiting on call backs as I search for the last remnants of that life. I was a gang leader once, you know? Head of the fellow Russian Orphans that called those hellish camps home, but I digress. It is a position I have no choice but to take, and expectations I must reach. When I decided to help those civilians and kept helping them, plus the witch we killed… A hero must lead from the front. So do I like it? No. But I must do it… Must do many things.”

The sudden jab to her shoulder came out of nowhere. He was grinning at her, teeth flashing in that amused smile that countered her earlier. “ Ah my hunch was right about you then” a finger wagged at her. “ Since you told Cyrus off that first day I had the hunch you had a strong sense of duty.” The amused grin, traded for a softer smile. “ I’m glad I was right.” He’d only guessed between that, or a sense of egotism he’d seen in others before.

Then he made a show of looking her up and down. “ Gang leader huh?” His tone was thick with disbelief, but there was that same playful edge to it also. Less than before yet still present. “ Coulda fooled me Valkyrie Queen.”

Then he added on, hoping to cut off a rebuttal to that particular line, “ If you’re out for a run, mind if I tag along then? Been going alone since I got back. Be nice to have company to go with for once.”

Her eyes narrowed at bit at the Valkyrie Queen remark. As if considering a venomous response she tilted her head. Ignoring the Jab for now, though her temperament seemed to have gone cold. ”Hmm… What makes you think you could keep up with me, or that I would join you on a roof? Though unfortunately for you, I don’t run all that much, because then it would look as if I am running from the people and cannot handle what I have done or have been given.”

That said a lot. For one thing she had an image now. He’d been looking into the Fool’s event. Aside from what had been reported, he wasn’t aware of the fame boost it’d given any of the others. Midori hadn’t mentioned it. So if what she was saying said anything, popularity had certainly risen for FATE Agents.

It also told him she was being more mindful than he recalled her being, at least from what he had recalled in those brief interactions. She couldn’t see it, but he was impressed with how far she’d grown.

It was just too bad he’d missed seeing all of it.

He shrugged his shoulders calmly, “ No rooftops then, wasn’t my suggestion since I planned on staying grounded anyway. I wouldn’t worry about that kind of media attention also.” He advised, from his personal experience as an Enlightener at least, there was always a way for others who saw something to spin it differently. Whether it was media headlines or general public interpretation.

“ As for keeping up, I like to think I could.” He’d never sparred with Mav much. But he knew a Jotuun hybrid could hit hard from experience on the times they’d been able to when they had been together. “ But, if running isn’t in your interests Nadia, then I’ll gladly keep in-line beside you, and we can simply talk. If, of course, you don’t mind.” A brow quirking upward in question even if the line hadn’t ended that way. “ I know this city pretty well” even if two years had been kept restricted to certain places, “ in a pinch, I could point you through a few shortcuts if some photographers want to bug you if that’s what you’ve been dealing with lately.”

”Hmm… Oh I’m sure as time goes people will forget, though maybe I should just wear that costume mask. Heh. And I don’t take the same route in full if I can avoid it, so let's not plan on making this a routine. That being said, you are free to come and go as you wish now that you found me. Though what is it you wish to speak about?”

“Would you believe me if I said I just wanted to talk? Catch up, really. After all, it has been more than five months since I’ve seen any of you.” At the end, he said it with a bit of a smile.

“I think I just needed to see how you, Dani, all the others are doing while I’ve been away.” He stated in a neutral yet warm tone.

”Most of my talks take place with a bit of vodka, or a bit of tea, with my record player running, or as I am giving orders. Though yes I would believe you to do such, waste of time that it is.” Nadia said in short before sighing. ”The short story is I have been training and dealing with things in regards to Dani. Dani has a boyfriend in that ganger looking boy, Adrian, hmph… There have been a few missions, as to the rest, I only keep up with a Sorceress that may very well be on team with one of us next time, or whoever comes up to my room to speak with me. Everyone has been working hard… Or so I think, what's left of FATE. The rest you may be better off asking or reading the briefings of. Though I can say I train under two of the Mentors now.”

She summed it up quickly, and he hasn't even gotten to ask her how her training was going. Straight forward, to the point. He couldn't help but whimsically smile as she finished.

He didn't bother to comment about Dani's new boyfriend.

There was a touch of mild surprise that the two were now an item.

Good for them, was the thought that followed. He did it with a nod. Yet all the same he couldn't help but feel a pang of ambivalence. While he had been rotting in a secure location dealing with the brief nightmare, anger at the whole situation, or less than welcoming treatment, they had attended a brief party hosted by Gauss' brother, grown through missions and connected with their peers.

While he tore up his old ties, they'd been forming new ones. While they had grown as partners and a team from what Nadia had said, he was losing his oldest team and connections and starting afresh. Now, he was resetting.

He didn't fault Adra for her choice, just like he didn't actually regret returning. The training the Hoshi had given him had been exceptional. What he didn't like was being put back at phase one all over again, even though he knew it was unavoidable.

There was nothing he could do about the past however. So instead of dwelling on it, he asked her, "Well what about you then? Can't tell me no one's caught interest in you, I take it?"

Watching him closely, as what few interactions played across his face in those brief instances, Nadia decided it was best to neither mock him, not to reply. Then there was his own question, if anyone had caught an interest in her. The reply was as swift as it was brutal and centered on herself, some things didn’t change.

”T’is matters not who is interested in me, for I’m sure many are. What matters is if I have an interest in them. The larger sum of the former can curse or pray up to the heavens, but I am not one to give for the asking. More so of myself.”

Well said. That reply was just what he’d expected. “So what I’m hearing is, no one’s earned your interest yet?” He shook his head with an amused smile, amused at how that line reminded him so much of someone else. “Guess I’ll count myself lucky if I make it into your good graces”, he unabashedly stated, same line he’d used back then too “but given my history I guess that’s a long shot. Whoever does earn it no doubt is to be lucky.” Taking steps down the sidewalk they were on he nodded his head.

“Walk and talk chica.” It was more a suggestion in how he said it than a statement he expected them to keep moving.

”You could say that yes.” She said stepping off, her steps carrying them forward as she listened to him.

“Earlier you seemed a bit surprised to see me. I take it Midori didn’t say anything about where I was then?” It was to be expected if he hadn’t but he knew already he had. The guy had told him himself.

”From what I know your old team was told and we heard you were off with something else. I personally thought you were liquidated and that was a story to keep others from off your trail. Still, I am sure some of those would wish to speak with you, however the whole team structure is no longer what it once was.”

It made sense then as to why Sara was the only one to bother showing up then. Given her nature she likely was the only one to really ask Midori, if most had thought DWMA had gotten rid of him, it's unlikely they’d give it a second thought.

The small smile that graced his lips was hard to suppress. Morbid that some thought that had been his fate. “I heard about that. Something about the mentor figures playing a less heavy role in things outside of guidance, I think correct?

”Da, something akin to resources now, we still speak with them for advice or training, we still have classes time to time and those more or less stayed the same, minus the teams that needed a reshuffle, most of that is the same, so you should see at least one person you know.”

Staring at him briefly she scoffed slightly with a tch of the tongue. ”You should not worry about such things, I hear your old class group has a few transfers. And do not take me as a key example to worry or ask for the fates of others.” Rightly guessing the subject of his thoughts, even if unknowingly she adds, ”Sara is the only one among us I see being willing to worry and beat the doors down of everyone in the program should they be missing or gone.”

At that line regarding Sara he couldn’t help but laugh. “Hahaha, yeah” he chuckled as he said it, “she definitely seems like that type. Then again, I get the sense given you used to be a gang leader and all, you likely would make a Nadia sized outline through a wall if someone personally offended one of yours.” He quipped. Then tacked on, “Well, Adrian is the next person I intend on visiting anyway so I guess catching up with him would be the right move there. Thanks.” He glanced at her in appreciation.

They walked a bit, a short distance, and Zosar didn’t continue striking up a new topic of conversation. It was clear he was thinking, it was obvious to Nadia, but where his mind was at the moment was hard to discern.

“About where I was” he started, “I think I can tell you a little of what happened that had me take a back seat while you guys were out n’ bout.” Though in reality, it was better he didn’t. He knew that it was better not to.

But he couldn’t shake the idea in his head, that if it happened once it could happen again. His mother had always warned him to never do something without preparation ahead. And after the Fool’s Event he could feel it. With Tsubaki’s ensuing death and in his research, the reported attacks on other renown DWMA individuals, the likelihood that something like this might happen again, sooner than later was a matter of time.

There was the incident at Paean he heard about that was clearly covered up. There was this incident with Dani, then the associated incident with the Enlighteners and the threats that had been after him.

There was a reason as to why he’d just been flat blunt when they’d done their introductions. At the end he’d be deceiving them all over again, and in all honesty he didn’t mind doing that. Jacob Straugg wasn’t his first falsified ID. He’d been to schools in the Carribean where the job had been getting into contact with the son or daughter of a wealthy individual who had ties to drug cartels or criminal dealings. But every false ID was still a piece of him. It was just that at that moment, on those training grounds, it hadn’t been in his interests to repeat what had got him in this program in the first place even if it ultimately was logical for him to do so.

Sometimes logic needed to take a backseat, for chaos to make a gamble.

“There was a target on my head.” He said it casually but did it with some emphasis. Like, it was an experience he was used to or had experience with. Didn’t sound shaken as he had been the day Midori had told him. On that day he’d been dealing with multiple things.

Stress of how things would go with Adra, stress of meeting Eustice again, stress of seeing the Enlighteners, the idea that there could have been assassins tailing all of them on their meeting point and it would be putting Midori in harm’s way also along with Adra and Eustice. There had been so much to deal with on that day--

--now it seemed like it’d been years ago. It wasn’t the hit that worried him that much as the way it impacted those around him.

They’d carried hits out on missions before, DWMA had agents outside of Hoshi that did it too. If whoever had sent them after him had done what the Enlighteners liked to do when targeting particular dirtbags of quality scum, they’d make that hit memorable to prevent a fool’s errand on payback.

“Had to back pedal a bit when we found out. Was told they were either trying to kill me or kidnap me, not sure which. There’d been several attempts at the Tournament. Both after I had been called away, and after they told me the truth. Don’t know who, don’t know what, don’t know why.” He summarized in simplicity. And saying it to someone who didn’t know, let the lead weight he’d been feeling on his shoulders ease up a little. “Chances are whoever had a hit set out on me, also was linked to the Fool’s incident.” He shrugged. “I’m guessing.”

Because there were too many variables to narrow down.

“No reason for me to really tell you this, could be your charm easing my nerves or the blunt forwardness I find attractive,” he tittered with a grin here, that playfulness slipping back in, but it vanished even as the smile persisted “but this has been something I’ve been wanting to share since I got back.”

“I’ll tell the others when I’m ready. If I disappear again, at least one person outside of Midori and all the mentors attached to FATE will know. And if I do die” he snickered at her, there was no fear or anxiety, no trepidation from his soul in that statement, “do me a favor yeah? Figure out who did it and kick their ass for me.”

He didn’t say it like a question, because he already got the sense she likely would anyway.

Listening to his words, she mostly kept silent as they went on, laughing as she muttered something another in Russian, barely audible. She then stopped and held out a hand. ”Not laughing at you, exactly, but the fact you say and worry about all of this. But in order of events. Yes, that is why I am here. Some other Refugees from Central America beat up and put some of mine in bed rest, medical care. I personally went and broke them all, gave them pain they likely will not forget. Didn’t kill any, but the judge put me in the Dojo, and the Dojo put me in here… DWMA that is.

I survive, Zosar. I fight, I claw, I kill. Now as to why I laugh, you have a target on your head and wish to not just tell them all, us all, out of some fear of involving us. We are DWMA. We all have a price on our head or people that want us dead. Be it in history or for existing, from terrorists to rogue witches. As to your History, your new class, and I know this as I had the displeasure of meeting one, but there are two in the program now, one is a Mercenary with the manners of a monkey, and her Meister is a former triad. Then there is a couple others with questionable histories.

You do not approach your friends as you carry a guilt and a fear of safety for them, when they are already in danger.”

She said before continuing the walk, adding in. “As to your request, there are others who may be willing or able to “beat them up” as you say. I destroy threats.”

He watched her go a few steps, silent. She made a good point there.

They were already in danger with the kind of job they did. He knew that- but it was unlikely he’d shake that sense of guilt he’d feel if the danger came from someone targeting him. His therapist had told him he’d need to learn to let that go.

It just wasn’t likely he could any time soon.

Watching Nadia continue her walk Zosar lingered on the last thing she said. And then hollered out with a growing grin. “I was hoping you’d say that!”

Muttering in spanish, ‘Why is it always the hard ones’, before he picked up in a jog, following after her.

“You gotta teach me some Russian by the way. I’m serious, I wanna learn.” Once caught up. Kinda like he picked up some Japanese…granted that would need work.

But if learning Russian gave him a chance to get to know Nadia better, like learning more about Sara’s culture would get him to understand her more, he wouldn’t pass up the chance.

It was hard to pass up a chance that could work in his favor.

”I’m not a teacher. I’ll consider sending you some things, or to inquire about, or to teach you some small things… I do not know, time will see. Also Zosar…”

While this time she had stopped, she once again began to walk away. ”If anyone has ever told you to let go, or forget what troubles you, you do not have to do that. But you do have to decide if it keeps your feet in place, or if you walk. Remember, but move.”

“...Thanks…” He said, to his own surprise, in a softer voice than he’d intended. Then clearing his throat, said, “...and who knows, maybe you might like teaching me enough to give me some advanced lessons.”

At that line, he maintained some distance, brows wagging in innuendo glee with a silly little ‘hue’.

Letting out a scoff, Nadia quickly picked up pace and took a corner. ”Keep thinking that Dreamer.” She said, taking up some of her persona’s less kind aspects.

He laughed, pure amusement at her reaction. “Aw c’mon hahaha, I’m just messing around.” Shortly following after.

Collabers: RedArmyShogun

 

[The Regal Rper]

Ark | Outrigger Resort, Hawaii | Rings: 1/1

It certainly was an understatement to say this program had seen an increase. Learning Maria's endeavor to go looking for crafts materials though did sound like a Maria thing to do. The surfing endeavor Dani and Adrian would be going on sounded fun also.

He had been considering going off on his own to see what sort of fun he could find around here. Thoughts however were derailed from the slap he got on his shoulders. It jolted him out of his pondering and made his eyes glance up to find Raph's smile.

Hearing his introduction though had Ark's shoulders tensing. That hadn't been the smartest way to start, especially in front of Dani's boyfriend. She however seemed not to be taking it as badly as he might have initially thought. Then again it had been a couple months, and judging from Raphael's mannerisms here it was good to see at least, he had gotten a better hold of his Madness' influence on him and the correlating effect it had on his Pull.

Having his hair ruffled though was not something he entirely appreciated, merely rolling his eyes, and tossing his auburn red hair back with a shake, fingers coming through them. "I've missed you too buddy" he interjected at the end of his statement in lieu to Dani and Adrian. "You're looking quite well," and he said it with a smile, "wasn't expecting the Asian motif but its fetching on you. I'm doing alright," a simple transition, "finally got my project completed and I've got stuff I'm working on for you and Maria also for future missions. I was hoping to have your projects already completed so once we got back I could drag you both to my workplace to show you...but my project took a bit of testing to ensure it would be suitably functional out on missions. Yours should be done in a month or couple weeks, unless we get sent on missions again like when we came back from Dall Island." The latter more a comment than anything.

Seeing Maria fidget with the coat as she began removing it though created a minor degree of amusement, one he kept hidden by the small smile. Choosing not to immediately comment instead going off what Maria was saying. "I'm going to go looking around, see what sort of fun I can have. Might try that surfing activity Dani and Adrian were talking about later though, that certainly sounds like it could be fun. Specially since I've never done it either. If you want to tag along Raph, Maria, Dani, Adrian, when you've finished with your own stuff, I'll shoot a text."

To which is where he pulled out the phone in his pocket interior seams of his shirt pocket. "We can trade numbers in case you two want to hang out later or if I seem something I think you'll like I'll message you." He said in offering his phone to Adrian or Dani, unlocked and keypad waiting for input.

Then his eyes went back to Maria, and he grinned at the furtive glances she made around. "And Maria," since it seemed his earlier compliment might have completely flown over her head, he needed to remember things like that just flew over her, akin to Aki really now that it dawned on him, "despite not being as used to this sort of stuff, try to let your walk for materials ease you into it a bit. You look good, try not to overthink what you're wearing and focus more about the activities you'll get to do around here, yeah?" Hoping at the very least she wouldn't be so quick to find some materials and lock herself back up in her room.

She was a total hermit crab.

And he had to admit, he was a bit surprised with himself at how this particular hermit had sparked his attention.

He didn't let his eyes linger anymore though after he'd said his piece, instead using the moment the waiter returned to take up his own drink as they brought it along with Raph's.

He took only a sip before there was a shift up ahead closer to the bar that caught his narrowed eye gaze.

Putting his drink down, he leaned slightly to look past Maria. Eyes furrowed.

"Is that Zosar?" He squinted, people were moving around, there were a select few individuals who, upon seeing the redhead heterochromia-eyed individual pass, glanced more closely at him as if slightly surprised or caught off guard.

Was he familiar? Was he important? A mentor perhaps? What-- then he felt it.

It was like a tingle hitting his neck and sending a strange wave through his body that had him shift in his seat entirely, rise out of it even to get a better look at the guy as he made it closer to the group and specifically seemed to be addressing someone.

From where he was going though, even with all the chatter and noise drowning out most of what the taller man had said, it was clear he was talking to the meister as he already had his gaze set on the tall young man as he closed in.

Magic users like them didn't really pick up on the feeling of spiritual energy it wasn't something they had on their radar so to speak, but there was something about how either magic or spiritual energy could affect the atmosphere or did something, when it was strong enough, if it was intense enough, that made it somewhat noticeable even to people who had never done a shred of study in Soul Arts or Soul Perception. It was what allowed some individuals to pick up on a strange place that brought them discomfort even if they didn't have the spiritual or magical senses to detect something was wrong in the area just a few blocks away. Victims of a haunting always felt off about a place for one reason or another and in the same way, that's exactly what he felt in the moment.

What made it more obvious was how the redhead's passing caught the eye of a select few people who would pause in their conversations to look at him or eyeball him with so much renewed interest that it got the attention of their peers. Not everyone locked in, but those that did, especially around where he and the others were gathered, picked up on it quickly.

It wasn't an atmosphere of tension but something had shifted, changed. And Ark could feel it from the tingle that had travelled like a wave through his body.

For some odd reason, he regretted leaving his gloves behind in his room. He wore them often, sometimes even when he was asleep or if not that kept his grimoire on him, but after feeling that odd sensation, he sort of wished he'd kept it in his shirt pocket now, instead of leaving it all behind.

Either way he doubted anything bad would truly happen here, it would look poorly on the program when they hadn't even been cleared to begin festivities yet. His interactions with Zosar over the last several weeks helping him with Az to train his pet and build up her magical capability had shown him the younger man had a decent head on his shoulders and wouldn't escalate if things did turn sour out of nowhere. For now, he elected to watch and shift his seat around to get a better look.

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[Sir Les Paul]

Changing Direction while Staying on Course

April 20th, 2067​

The DWMA shooting range was an astonishingly large field at the back–or northernmost, on a map–of the upper DWMA grounds. While it lacked the refinement of the sports fields, it in no way lacked their size. The grass was nowhere near manicured. In fact, most of the area was dry dirt. The air wasn’t exactly settled in the area, either. The largest stretch of the outside firing range was as dust-covered as a stereotypical western movie, and the ambiance there only matched it.

Of course, there was a larger building off to the West for indoor target practice with all of those fancy amenities the soft city folk preferred, like automated targets, ammunition stocks, ear protection. The outside range, on the other hand, was row after row of thick wooden benches and a fenceline, some covered with shaded lean-to structures, some not. It’s not as if there was some type of juxtaposition between the two buildings, either. The building itself was as antiqued with its older, wooden construction as the outside field.

It was much nicer on the inside, but that’s not where Jose was.

Jose was right at the edge of the firing range, sitting on one of the unshaded seats taking aim down the three-hundred yard field. He was currently taking shots at a target down the range with an M1903 Springfield, though it looked like it had some mods. No scope, but an elegantly-engraved, dark-stained wooden stock and oddly enough, firing it left handed. Not that he needed to, he just wanted the practice.

One shot, one loud bang, some dist stirring, and the target paper punctured a millisecond later. It was a bolt action, and given how he was firing it, to reload it, he had to shift his right hand up the stock, then pull his left hand back to the bolt to eject the shell.

”New rifling isn’t playing well with the .30-06 round… it’ll never pass the ring test like this,” he muttered to himself.

Not that he lacked any other options. Beside him were two massive cases larger than one would even expect from a guitar player. One closed and laying flat on the nearest seat, the other open, revealing two other rifles, two handguns, and what looked like the hardware for a scope. Near his foot was a large green ammunition box that oddly enough opened up in a unique manner to show cascading trays of ammunition laid out in meticulous order.

He reached down to grab another round, but only then noticed Aki. His eyebrows raised as she approached, and he simply observed.

”Volatile Soul,” he commented, pausing in his reach for another round.

”You must be the Weapon,” he went on, ”I’m shit with names, so what’s yours.”

Surprisingly, Aki had stayed quiet, staring down the yard in a crouched position. There were few instances where the girl knew better than to interrupt someone with her usual antics. Shooting or target practice was one such circumstance.

However, when he turned to face her, the girl perked up, bouncing to her feet energetically. “Aki Kiyoko! Three letters, so it should be easy!” She replied with enthusiasm. “You’re the sniper guy that’s supposed to help Feng and I so I don’t break her hand, right?” Clearly, she wasn’t very good with names either.

Ace listened. She most certainly had some energy. Not a lot of control, but plenty of energy.

”Name’s Ace–not sniper guy,” he corrected her, though it wasn’t as gruff as it could have been. His tone was relaxed, his annunciation clear. He withdrew his hand from the ammo box and instead returned it to the bolt of his gun, shutting it without reloading.

”Three letters, too; but, just one syllable. Easy,” he added, remaining relaxed and fluid, keeping the topic about their names. An odd fixation at best, but he had a point. Ace was easier than Aki.

The meister picked up his gun and gingerly returned it back to the cutout in the hard foam of his case, continuing to talk as he did so. ”And, no, I won’t be the one teaching you how to control that wavelength of yours,” he explained, ”not my cup of tea.”

With his gun now back in its rightful place, he turned to her. He had bright red eyes. Impossibly red, even. Even in the harsh light of the Nevada sun, they seemed to glow. Not that they actually did, but the sheer brilliance of them could have fooled most. Orange, almost amber hues, were painted inside his irises, and while they didn’t do much to dampen the red nature of his eyes, they did add an overall brightness.

”Just for the record, Aki, I’m more than a sniper,” he told her, finally correcting this last misunderstanding that so frequently came from his reputation. ”Any gun, any range. Whether it’s a mile out or a pistol whip, burst fire or bayonet, spray’n’pray or execution shot… just because I use a gun doesn’t mean I’m locked into one fighting style,” he explained, trying to hit home with this highly annoying facet of the image he had carved out for himself.

"Oh…" Aki said, the wind in her sails merely dampened rather than knocked out. "Ace it is then!" She said regarding the first misunderstanding before moving onto the second. "I know. I've heard stories about you, though mostly about sniping. Plus, your name is pretty sniper-y too," She admitted plainly with a smile. "So, whatcha gonna teach us?"

”Before I teach you anything, I need to figure out exactly what you can do,” Ace answered. He wasn’t particularly thrilled about her focus on his reputation as a sniper, but he had heard it long enough that it didn’t get under his skin enough to derail him from the task. The actual frustration here came from just how much more he did than just sniping. Long-range combat was a keystone of fighting style, but he wouldn’t have made it half as far if he was a one-trick pony like the majority of other Gun Meisters.

”I can use any Gun Weapon, even you. It’s called being a Type Specialist,” he told her, ”think of it as a more limited version of Utility Meister.”

”So, while we wait for your partner, let’s see what you can do. Transform into my hand,” he instructed her, though he lifted his hand up real quick and let slip a cocky smirk. ”Don’t fall in love, y’know. Weapons I wield tend to do just that. It’s real annoying and the program doesn’t need another scandal,” he instructed, his tone letting some of his natural ego shine through but carried more as matter of fact. Aki hadn’t met many members of the program yet, but Ace most certainly might remind her of one if she had.

At the prospect of a test run so to speak, Aki seemed more excited. "Sure thing! Promise I won't break your hand!" If that was a joke, Aki didn't seem to be kidding, rather actually making the commitment of not hurting him.

However, at his warning, Aki seemed to look at him somewhat blankly, as if computing that odd phrase. "Huh," She mused aloud before her body turned to light and zipped into his open hand. "Mama said you were a job-stealing jerk, but if you helped your partners find love, then you gotta be a pretty nice guy after all!" Just as before, the woman seemed to be dead serious with her statements. "You're like a… sniper-matchmaker! Wait, is that a thing? Probably shouldn't be setting up people that create scandals though. That's a bit weird."

Ace had a handful of responses that went through his head. Half of which were aimed at just how off the mark Aki was. The other half were about the comment her mother made. He was divided in what to say long enough that he elected not to comment on either. Complicating the situation was of no benefit to him, and it was unlikely that Aki would pick up on anything he had to add regardless.

”My favorite matches are a bullet to a target,” he responded, trying to push that whole awkward response along as cleanly as possible. He continued to speak aloud despite the telepathic link they now shared.

Aki would be in for an incredibly different experience once Ace held her. Like Feng, Ace was able to hold her easily; while she was a true Utility Meister, his ability with firearms was equally suitable for her form. That is where the comparisons ended. In addition to being a Gun Specialist, Ace was a three-star Meister with a world of difference in skill and wavelength adjustment.

Under all prior conditions, Aki would have had to restrain herself to even just be held. This was true for Feng to some extent, even as a Utility Meister. It’s a skill the pistol would have been familiar with by this point in her life almost passively, but it was one that was currently in much less demand. Ace wasn’t just able to wield her, his wavelength poured through every millimeter of her cold steel.

Ace was able to regulate her Volatile Wavelength, taming it to even greater extents than Aki could on her own. ”Just relax,” he instructed calmly, ”I can manage your wavelength at first.” That much held true. Ace was able to stabilize her wavelength, a skill somewhere between the realms of Wavelength Adjust and Wavelength Regulation. In doing so, it would have been the first time ever Aki could have actually felt relaxed without the spikes of her own soul dancing on her own over-energized nerves.

Then Ace began to actually provide her with his own wavelength as fuel for projectiles. Aside from the fact he was able to split his attention between managing her wavelength and providing his own, this feat was impressive due to the sheer quality of his wavelength. Something about it made it perfectly malleable for projectiles. As if switching from carving marble to shaving clay, the difficulty dramatically decreased. If anything, it was a joy to work with it.

Not only that, there existed a natural spark in their souls. It was something that existed between him and any gun. Or any specialist and their respective weapon. It was empowering. Not in the way of providing more charge to her batteries, but in the way of lifting the restraints that were subconsciously on her soul. In his hands, there was a sense of unprecedented freedom and security.

”I want you to fire two shots. One at half power, the other at full power,” he instructed her, nonchalantly ignoring what likely was a thrilling experience for the young weapon.

“Ooh, is that your catch phrase?” Aki said with a surprising amount of sincerity to that question.

Relaxing into her position internally, it was a bit different from Feng, but ultimately more “spacious” in a way. It was almost like when her mom wielded her, albeit that was a different feeling entirely, almost like a cradle whereas this was just an open field.

When he gave the go ahead, the girl noticeably paused, in terms of speech and even her soul hitched slightly in anticipation. “Full power?! For real?! Wait, won’t that blow off your hand or something?”

”You really weren’t taught too well, were you?” Ace commented about her question. If she had a formal education at the DWMA, she would know that when creating projectiles, she could in fact control which wavelengths were used in what ratio if any. He somewhat doubted she even knew the basics of what Complex Resonance really was. This girl needed some basic Soul Studies books.

”You should only be using my wavelength to create projectiles. None of your own. Your Wavelength, even in small amounts, is much harder to control and far more unstable,” he told her, giving her some clear instructions and clearer reasoning for this decision. ”Same goes for when you train with your partner. If you try putting in any of your own, your partner will need to focus on regulating your wavelength like I am. Otherwise, yes, you might just blow off a limb,” he said, continuing to reinforce this point.

”So, what I mean for you to do is to use make a projectile first with half the power you can, then a second one twice as strong–both only made from my wavelength,” he instructed, reiterating what he said before with more detail and at a slightly slower rate.

“Oh,” She said, slightly disappointed. Still, she was quick to perk back up, seemingly not taking offense at his question. It was true that she could only learn a limited amount from her mom, and other resources were limited. “Okay!”

Following his instruction, Aki focused on the feeling of his wavelength, harnessing and melding to create the basis of the projectile. She had little issue controlling this amount, signifying that while some of her education was questionable and the woman was rather dense, she did have some talent and skill. Then for the second, she took more of his wavelength, molding it into another bullet with relative ease and efficiency.

Ace could at least confirm that Aki could make the projectiles. She did possess the skill. And, she did it without mixing her own into it. That meant she could operate safely as a Weapon for another. Now it was just time to see what he could do with these projectiles. Ace stretched out his hand perpendicular to his body, then fired twice in absurdly quick succession. The result was two rapid-fire projectiles with the second hitting the first, causing it to ricochet into a target in front of it.

However, it was a miss. Not by a small margin, either.

”Not bad. Had those projectiles been perfect, that should have hit the third outer ring of the target from this distance,” he told her, admitting he was never aiming for a bullseye. Not that was impossible, but that the exact ratios for the wavelength difference weren’t as simple as halfing it. ”Shape and control will come in time, just make sure you use your partner’s wavelength by default. If you use your own, it needs to be done in small amounts in a safe place and with plenty of practice,” he informed her, being quite serious about just how dangerous her wavelength could be.

Having watched the interaction for an unknown period of time, the former gangster watched with a bemused expression, finally speaking up at that shot and statement. “Unfortunately, practice is what we will need, as my wavelength for now can only be used in brief spurts. Haha, ah, yes, I am Long Feng, or ah in western terms Feng Long.” With that the woman gives a chinese style bow, she was in her normal garments, minus with white cloth pants underneath. “Having fun Aki?”

Ace didn’t allow a lot of time for Aki to respond. He had known someone was there watching, but wasn’t precisely sure who. He was more focused on the trickshot he was trying to pull off. Once he finally had the opportunity to turn to the figure that had finally arrived, their figure was precisely what caught all of his attention. In truth, he should have paid attention to what she said; if she meant using her Berserker Wavelength, he should have said something along the lines of it shouldn’t be used at all.

That was not what was on his mind.

”What kinda growth hormones are they feeding you in China,” Ace muttered, far more interested in Feng than he ever was Aki. She might have been a gun, but Feng was the smoking.

”I can’t imagine it was half as fun as you are, nena,” he replied, this time more directly to what Feng had said with her introduction. He didn’t quite care that his intent and focus was clear as day to Aki given he was still holding her.

“Feng!” Aki called excitedly, albeit pausing when Ace turned. Contrary to what many would assume given Aki’s appearance, demeanor, and overall density, she wasn’t quite that naive. Rather, she just didn’t take subtleties that well. However, there wasn’t much more blatant than a soul.

“Eh?” She hummed, Ace’s second comment confirming what she could tell in his spirit. As such, she transformed, materializing next to him to sever the connection between their souls. “Ooookay… That’s enough of that,” She said, awkwardly stepping over to stand next to Feng.

With a smile and some laughter, she stared at the man after his remark, his shooting was interesting, but more interesting was as she watched in those brief instances the flushed Aki making her way towards her. She had heard tales of Jose and his history. She wasn’t trapped under a rock for three years and gossip was the best of news to spread about her restricted travel allotment to Death City and its immediate surroundings. Arching an eyebrow she spoke in kind, ”Hah, Was it the food in China, America, France or Holland I wonder? I much rather a beef bowl than rice and soup. And I always finish my plate.”

With Aki now next to her she reaches up with her right hand, ruffling the hair of the other briefly before patting her lightly. ”From what I saw, I am pretty sure I cannot make shots as far out like you do. But I was skilled enough to survive gun and melee battles for ten years.”

That shot relies just as much on your weapon as it does your own skill,” Ace replied, his expertise shining through. As he spoke, his eyes most definitely wandered over Feng and he made no attempt to hide that. Ace was as transparent as he was informative. ”A touch wavelength amplification and training your trigger finger to have a perfectly timed squeeze of the trigger every time is the baseline. Aiming it requires extremely small movements, as you would for a dodge, to adjust for the spot on the first projectile you want to hit, which dictates the angle of change in trajectory. The distance is entirely dependent on your weapon. Aki would need to know how powerful each projectile was to know its speed and how much faster the second shot needs to be at any distance to make it ricochet. It’s a lot of trial and error,” he explained, detailing out the precision required on both of their parts that would be necessary to replicate that trick shot. That, in addition to more refined projectiles; if Aki could make them more perfect with more accurate ratios, that would increase consistency.

”I’ve had cuisine from across the world, but I believe I’d rather just have a bowl of the agent I see in front of me,” Ace said, changing the pace of the conversation back to his not-so-subtle flirtation, and keeping with the food themes they had going to begin with. ”I’d finish that plate, too,” he added, not missing a beat on his entendres.

With a snicker and her free hand on her hips, Feng seemed to have not left her old occupation all that much with the words she said next. Though at least they were street smart. A mix of business, logic and maybe a bit of pleasure.

”Hahah, you a funny man, though if you are so eager to fire your gun I wonder how many errant shots you’ve made.” There was more to be said however, though this exchange was one repeated many times, and while not always a no, she was no spring Maiden, there were however three rules she had. Don’t fuck a superior, don’t sell her body, and don’t give too freely.

If she gave anything, she wanted something of a spark there, something more than it seeming like a good idea or a fun time. She had survived the streets as a soldier and before that as a thief, not as some whore. ”Besides, I’m no agent, I’m just a prisoner student and you are the Sifu. I doubt you want another rumor getting around. Plus while the Tao says the union of man and woman is sacred, Buddha disagrees to how that union should go.” With the same smile to her face, she holds up her left hand, closing her pinky and ring finger, while thumb and middle remain extended, the thumb bent and resting upon the former two fingers as she recites something that she likely had many times before.

“If one, longing for sensual pleasure, achieves it, yes, he's enraptured at heart. The mortal gets what he wants. But if for that person — longing, desiring — the pleasures diminish, he's shattered, as if shot with an arrow.

The Buddha then goes on to say:

So one, always mindful, should avoid sensual desires. Letting them go, he will cross over the flood like one who, having bailed out the boat, has reached the far shore.” With that she relaxes her hand and continues;

”So If Tao and Buddha are taken at value, then men and women are two parts of a whole, but chasing desires alone will surely rob you of enlightenment. This dish comes with a price of admission. So, I would much rather have the lesson."

Aki for her part remained surprisingly silent as she stood next to Feng. Even through the hair-ruffling which she had come to appreciate, she appeared rather put off. Then came the remarks from Jose, followed by a groan from her.

“Eugh…”

And then another after his second comment.

“Ugh…”

And then, a third at Feng’s initial retort.

“Uuughh–<Get a room, the both of you>,” She wailed in Mandarin with folded arms. “This was more fun when I was just shooting things…”

”Calm down there,” Ace responded, though this time to Aki. His eyebrows raised as he spoke to her, though more of acknowledgement than any type of stern enforcement. ”If she wants to talk philosophy, then so be it; I am in fact well versed in more than just shooting and fucking, you know,” he added, always addressing the chip on his shoulder regarding people thinking he was a one-trick pony.

”Buddha was but a man. Your eastern mythos claim he achieved enlightenment, but the Christians claim Christ rose from the grave. These are stories that exist in our world, and far from the only ones,” Ace said, taking a more serious tone than he did with his previous flirtation. He also stepped closer and crossed his arms as this conversation continued.

”Besides that, it’s not as if the idea that man and woman were split is unique to that system. The Greek believe Zues created mankind at first with four arms, four legs, and two heads, but split them apart–condemning them to forever search for their other half. Yet, that same mythos and culture had a God dedicated to orgies and debauchery,” Ace went on, ”in short, you can take whatever excerpt you want from a culture. My family dates back generations as Catholics and before that, I have no idea. Clearly, though, that religion perceives marriage as a contract, and only through that contract can the sensualities of life be experienced.”

”Fuck that. We know a God; he is of Death. You can argue Buddha became a God in his own right, but know who else did? Black☆Star. By all accounts, his awakening came through his desire to surpass Death,” Ace said, heating up as he spoke. There was clearly some passion behind his words. He wasn’t quite as tame as some of the mentors.

”You can chase an awakening if you want, but deciding to throw away passion and desire to do so is just picking the shittiest flavor of poison you can–cause all you’re doing, picking your poison,” he explained, outlining his opinion on the matter.

”So, if I see a beautiful woman, and if I have a desire, I believe rejecting it is the real restraint. You will suffer whether you desire or not. From my experience, I’d just rather suffer without regret,” Ace said, finally slowing down and reaching some type of climax from his little philosophical tangent.

”And, I assure you, I’d have regretted not taking my shot had I let you leave without saying my piece,” he ended, coming full circle and in no way hiding what interest he quite clearly had.

Laughing at that, Feng would cross her arms, breaking it all down but by bit.”Hmm… Perhaps my culture and your views of it are too far apart. Though to be clear, it’s not the rejection of all things. Rather it is doing them in a determined fashion to which your center remains and you are not swayed from your path with shallow things.

Suffering you say is generational, or perhaps personal Or do give you reason that might be more able to understand. I don’t fuck my bosses, because they start to fuck you in all sorts of ways, more so if you are one that the wife would have. And while I look nice, I am not a whore, I was a killer.” With that said she placed both hands down to her side and stretched, before lowering back down. “Even if the status of master and Student were not between us, I might consider something long term, but a single sleeping with you and then everyone will be getting in line, and I rather not shoot someone in the balls or throw the knife between their legs.”

Ace sighed, half-defeated, but mostly just deflated by the attitude of Feng. ”So beautiful, yet… so wordy,” he commented. ”You have these labels for everything. Center-Shallow-Boss-Wife-Master-Student,” he rattled on, then just stopped.

”Nena, mi bella… you all call me a sniper, and I do somewhat hate it. I hate it because it implies I have this singular focus on just one thing; a target to hit or a goal to accomplish,” he told her, letting this explanation roll off much more relaxed and organic than his last one.

”Sometimes that’s true, but most of the time? I just want to enjoy myself,” he told them. ”I enjoy shooting guns. I enjoy learning about them. I enjoy maintaining them. Buying them. Trading them. Seeing other people enjoy them, even–if you want to fire one of mine over there before you leave, feel free,” he said, explaining even more, ”even you, Aki.”

”But, that’s not all I enjoy. I enjoy art. I’ve been to almost every major museum in the world. I especially enjoy sculptures. I enjoy food, pasta specifically. And, yes, I enjoy beautiful women, of which you are. I enjoy many sensual things. To me, they are not shallow distractions, but my passion for living,” he told them both, explaining just what he enjoyed about life.

”Besides that, if you consider the experience of your sensual side a shallow distraction, then clearly, you and I do not agree on your intrinsic value,” Ace said, changing the tempo of his rant, first making that final comment, but then changing direction entirely. ”If you want a lesson, so be it. If I recall, you prefer close range combat. A pistol is arguably more of a mid-range weapon. If you want, I can show you how I would fight close range with a pistol as my Demon Weapon,” he offered, steering the conversation back into the more formal direction it was meant for.

Aki pouted slightly, listening to the back and forth with lots of big words and philosophical introspection. This was, suffice to say, all outside of Aki’s area of expertise or interest. Her gaze switched between the two as she spoke, the look on her face showing that she wasn’t all that interested nor processing everything fully. However, one that the trainer said she did seem to process and actually have a thought on.

“But… that’s not a bad thing,” Aki stated, gaining more of her naturally thoughtful expression as opposed to the one of a child stuck between their parents flirting. “You are a sniper. That doesn’t mean you can only be that. That’s like saying Feng can only be a criminal or I can only hurt my partners. You can only do good or do bad. That’s not right,” She added simply before pouting slightly again. “And you can both flirt with each other with and without me here…”

Sighing a bit, Feng decides to clear up what he was saying in response to her Chinese cultural fueled words. And to clear up what they thought, or he thought they did about his hobbies. ”Ace if you prefer, I am not immune to seeking out such things, but as a rule, I don’t do things like that with my social superiors as if you do so, immediately any accomplishments, any progress you made, to others you only got them thanks to your body and the boss taking a liking to you. To them you will always be trash and that line will never go away. It forever stains you by others who want nothing more than to see you fail. And unfortunately I am not immune to such backbiting either.”

”I look for a spark and mutual interest between those I wish to go to that extreme with and as Aki said, you are a sniper, but other things as well. Aki will likely never shake off being a mercenary anymore than I will being a triad, but that does not mean it is all we can be. I would like to one day be a DWMA agent of equal standing. Though if you wish, I would be interested in the lesson. Though, fortunately I will not be totally blind to this.”

Ace just shook his head in disapproval. ”You are both well-suited for each other. You both miss the forest for the trees, just in different ways,” he commented, believing both of them to have been oblivious to virtually all of his points. This was why he rarely took on students.

”I have spent the last decade having most of my skills ignored because I can do something quite uncommon: eliminate a target from a long range. I am other things, just like you two are. But, that doesn’t mean it’s how the rest of the world sees me,” he explained, his tone dry and his passion for this whole conversation seemingly drained.

”As for your second point, the DWMA is not some trench of nepotism and quid pro quo. This is a meritocracy. Even Herakles with his harem of partners makes his picks for the bedroom and battlefield separate,” Ace explained, thinking the assertion that Feng was making to be asinine. ”Even if we hit it off and were involved, it’s a tiny form to fill out. It gets filed, it gets forgotten, and it’s irrelevant to both our status. Cyrus might give me a slap on the wrist at best, but you would be fine, unless you made a habit out of it. There’s one agent in this program that got himself in trouble for sleeping around–and as funny as that is–it was a pretty extreme case by all standards. Something in the vicinity of hundreds of partners,” Ace told them both, explaining precisely how the situation would have unfolded had Feng showed any interest.

”It doesn’t matter now. The moment has passed and I’m not really feeling it. When there’s a spark, it can go plenty of ways. Burst into a raging inferno of passion, or like now, be smothered until there’s nothing left. If you smother every flame that comes by, you’ll never know which ones last and which ones don’t,” he told her, ”and I prefer to burn brightly, even if it is short-lived.”

”Aki, transform for Feng,” Ace instructed, that tone of his still dry and dull. ”I’ll show you the basics, then you can apply it however you wish,” he said. He already knew what he intended on teaching them. It would take some time to develop, and would need to be balanced with their other practice, but it certainly would keep them from being half-useless up-close.

“...Eh?” Aki seemed to listen to Ace’s response with some interest until the bit about the hundred-partner-agent. That was a thing?! The girl deflated a bit, feeling a bit awkward until the prompt to transform, which Aki quickly took. “Yep, shooting. Yes!” She quickly cheered, dissipating into a sheen of light that shot into Feng’s hand. More shooting and less weirdness was good for Aki.

Curiously, while she tilted her head in confusion at the forest through the trees, she gave a simple; ”Then I shall be more mindful in the future. And no, I do not think of you as a sniper, according to Cyrus and Reiko you are very skilled as a marksman in most, if not all fields.” However, something seemed to change and harden to her stare at mention of Herakles and his harem. For one such as her, having so many weapons to serve his whim and more, to just take what he wanted, to treat them as tools, this was no man she would ever care to meet.

“In fairness to passing flames, not many people have a constant compulsion to destroy what is around them… Or maybe that is not correct word. English is a young language, not all words in Mandarin are here.” With that her attention shifted towards Aki as she took her in hand, hefting the weight in her hands she rolled her shoulders and relaxed her posture. “Ready when you are Sifu.”

”If you think you could destroy me–in bed or otherwise–then I’ll gladly prove you wrong,” Ace responded, though he wasn’t neglectful of Aki in the slightest, ”and for now, no shooting.” He hated to sour her excitement, but this wasn’t the time for ranged fighting.

Ace then took a wider stance, his feet positioned apart almost equally with his left being only slightly in front of the right, his body slightly canted to the left from his lips, and his arms both relatively low near his abdomen with his hands open and raised closer to the underside of his ribcage. Then his wavelength exploded out of him with the force one might expect from a Three-Star Meister only for it to reel back in and amplify his body. The intensity itself being something rarely if ever seen at the level of mercenary work Aki was accustomed to, and something only a few members of the Triad even came close to.

”Show me how you fight with a gun in your hand,” Ace instructed–no, demanded from Feng. The gloves were off. The flirting was over. The fight started, and everything from his tone to his soul communicated that.


“Aww, come oon~!” Aki droned in brief complaint. “No bullets… roger…”

Pondering that, the answer would be to user her own wavelength and take advantage of the DWMA timer. That was what she normally would do, identify the enemy, then break them. Hand to hand was more of what Feng was used to. But that wouldn’t help against him, unless she went past the first level and that would likely immediately activate the Collar around her neck… Still, she could amplify herself without relying on that aspect of her genetics, she was well trained as far as Chinese centrict martial arts, more so the Southern Styles of the Shaolin were concerned. Sweeping back her left leg, her right leg went forward as she extended her left hand forward, not being able to use Aki as a gun in this state, she flipped the pistol around much like Kidd some many years ago, holding them akin to a tonfa. A holster that at least partially touched her skin would be something to get at once. With an open palm gesture, she makes a gesture in challenge, before rapidly her left leg advances into the front as she lowers her posture, leading with her left fist into a sudden snap punch aimed for the lower abdomen of Jose. A simple test of the waters as she probed forward.


Ace took note of her different holding on the gun. Admittedly, he didn’t approve of it. In his experience, that would only waste time switching around for minimal benefits and shorter reach. It did at least demonstrate some martial prowess and forethought in her decision. He had done similar things in the past; it was his experience that deemed them less than optimal.

A left strike. Not likely to be her dominant hand, but given she wielded Aki in her right, it made some sense. The real decision was on if it was a feint. Based on her stance, it could have been. She was nearly as defensive as he was. Whether that was to test how this would go or from a lack of confidence in this impromptu fighting style wasn’t completely clear, but it didn’t matter either way. Her wavelength control was sloppy and her amplification didn’t provide her enough speed to concern him, unless she was hiding that, too.

These first few moves were something like a game of chess, a battle of wits, a dance on the battleground.

He needed to push her harder to see what she would actually do. However, he had to restrain himself, otherwise the disparity between them would make the results of this endeavor half-pointless. He decided to time her snap punch, deflecting it with an open hand from his right side, a mirror to her. Then, lean into the movement and thrust his left palm straight forward, aiming for the square center of her sternum, actively avoiding the most sensitive areas such as the solar plexus.

‘Aki, let’s try you feeding your wavelength through me, I don’t think I’ll be able to do too much with it so soon, but we’ll have to do this to fire you, till they trust me enough, or the situation is bad enough to use my own.’ She said telepathically to her weapon, being familiar enough with this communication and the concept of the weapon being the one to boost her own wavelength. The question was if she sent a little of her own, likely not, still, it was difficult to make use of a paperweight, which ultimately was what an empty gun was.

Still, she now had another problem to deal with with surprising flexibility she threw her shoulders back with her arms still leading forward, using her hands, or at least left hand to throw the punch of as best as she could, her feet rapidly advancing beneath her as her wide angled crouch suddenly shifted forward, taking the pistol in hand, Feng quickly flipped it with a twirl of her wrist and fingers, holding it more akin to a normal handgun as she punched out with both hands, or rather the barrel of the gun, with both fists flying out from a vertical angle. If only there were some cover in her, or obstacles she could use to launch herself, though with the limitations on her arms it may be time to go for kicks and knees.

‘Okay! But I’ll only do it a little to be safe,’ Aki chimed back internally. Doing as she was told, she started channeling her wavelength to Feng, slowly and subtly at first, akin to a rookie driver pressing down on the gas pedal. She seemed to be quite conscious of not having a repeat of her last partner.

Ace had a different idea. Her dodge, while creative and definitely a feat of flexibility, created a fairly wide opening; there was little mobility in that stance. She was thinking like a martial artist. The thing was, she wasn’t just a martial artist anymore. She was an agent of the DWMA. They were trained in the spiritual arts and all Ace really needed to do was make contact with her, whether it was soft or hard. This was a lesson he intended on teaching her the hard–painful–way

He simply lowered the arm he used for his thrust until it came into contact with her abdomen, then began pumping that sensitive spot of her body full of his wavelength as if it were a Soul Force strike. The result was the light slap of his hand becoming a significantly stronger hit, feeling more akin to an outright gut punch, followed by the painful sensation of electrocution as the micro-rejections began.

He knew she intended on using Aki to fire a projectile, or at least he assumed, given she changed her grip. Good luck with that while your wavelength was destabilized.

Having intended to pistol whip him with the gun as the Tonfa holding was likely to do nothing, Feng was met with a rude awakening, of course her own counter left her more open, but still. It seemed either Ace was a much harder man that Starwulf and Reiko had been, or he had seriously misjudged her intentions. Either way she soon had much more pressing issues. Over the course of her decade in the Triads, the Shaolin Temple before that, and the Paean Program after that, she understood soul force, been hit by it and even used it before. But being hit with it by someone trained, nevermind a three star, even if he were holding back was something else.

While Feng was a philosophical person, even if she had taken his offer for his sort of fun, she would have 100% rejected it here and now as the wavelength began its assault, shoving the wind clean out of her as she fell backwards with a thud.

The assault of wavelength made its way through to Aki as well, who was wholly unprepared for the feeling. With an audible lurch following by the catching of her voice in her throat, it was only until after Feng fell back and the current dissipated that she spoke. “Urgh…. I hate that zappy thing…”

”Shouldn’t leave openings if you don’t want me to take them,” Ace said as he stood back up and stepped back. ”That's an impressive move, but incredibly dangerous and borderline stupid to use in an actual fight. There were half dozen other things I could have done,” Ace said, critiquing her selection of dodges. He knew factually there were a handful of ways to get out of that arm thrust at that speed, and she chose arguably the worst.

Granted, it might have worked against a more traditional martial artist due to how unorthodox it was. He couldn’t recall any training to respond to a position like that, but that didn’t mean he was clueless.

”That aside, I do have some actual productive tips here,” he told her, transitioning from the critique to more instruction. His arms crossed, waiting for Feng to get up.

”First, don’t reposition your gun. I tried it for years, it’s just not worth it. The protection of your wrist and the few new moves you get from it aren’t worth the loss of the extended range of the barrel or the inability to fire. It’s just not practical. And, if you intend on trying to pink-fire like Kidd, there’s a strong chance someone is gonna break that pretty little appendage of yours someday,” he told her, just flatly throwing out these facts–or opinions, if you are argumentative.

”Secondly, and this is a wild guess, but it seems to me that having a pistol in your hand makes you feel like you’re restricted in close range combat. That really couldn’t be further from the truth,” Ace added, ”especially if it’s a Demon Weapon.”

”There’s one solid technique I can teach you that, if you apply to Aki, will entirely change how you perceive fighting with a gun in your hand,” he boldly proclaimed, certain that he was about to revolutionize her world. Not quite the way he wanted, but satisfactory nonetheless.

”I was--huh..huff..I was trying to pistol whip you.” She said at first while listening to his reply, sitting herself up with Aki, she didn’t know if the girl wanted to stay in this form or not. ”I would have done better hand to hand, but the DWMA has shackled me… Still no, high risk, no reward, the fault was with me.” She wasn’t going to make excuses, but till now she had gotten by almost exclusively off of her berserker trait. And she also had a weapon she could use, though Aki had constrained the flow, Feng was sure she could serve as her partner.

”Honestly, it did, I tend to just use it as a brick when I can’t shoot with it, or throw it at someones face, jump over a counter and soul force them, as you call it, though versus most of yours we are but students before the master. I know of no other way to make use of her if I cannot fire.” She also took the time to look down at Aki and open her palm. ”Are you alright Aki? Need to catch your wind too?”

To respond to that, Aki’s form shifted out of Feng’s hand before expanding and falling strewn across the woman’s lap. “If I can’t shoot… soul force should be cheating…”

”No, it didn’t; and no, it’s not cheating,” Ace retorted, not only disagreeing with them, but doing so in a harsh, strict tone.

”You shouldn’t blame this fighting style for your ignorance,” Ace added, quickly jumping down the throat of Feng for what he considered a blatant demonstration of her misunderstanding.

”There is a technique called Soul Conduction. With practice, Aki can allow you to use Soul Force through her. You may not have the versatility of an open hand, but she extended your range by well over six inches, which in of itself is useful. Furthermore, with practice, Aki can quickly switch between Soul Conduction and Complex Resonance, meaning she can quickly take the wavelength you channel through her and make it a projectile. Essentially, you can hit someone real hard or shoot them. All it takes is communication between you two, knowing when to hit and when to fire,” Ace explained, giving Feng and Aki the most useful possible piece of information he could about actually making Gun Fu work as a legitimate fighting style.

”You may not be able to grapple or grip something, but you can still strike, deflect, use her invulnerability, plus gain an extended striking range and fire at will. It’s not inferior, it’s just different,” he said, his tone heavy enough that it could have stomped the ground itself and left a boot print in the hardest of soils.

Feng didn’t seem to take any of this badly at least. Or as much as Ace seemed to assume. Patting Aki on the back as she laid atop her lap, the green and white clothed woman pondered his meaning. She however had no fighting style in mind particularly when doing this. ”I do not blame you for my own faults, however, it seems if I was leading into a fighting style, then I should focus on this and Soul Conduction. Still, to be so rough with two fair ladies…” With her usual accent, and just a little coy towards the end as her eyes narrowed in on the man.

“So, I should regulate or send back what she sends me or? Also when should I test the waters with my wavelength? I’m not too keen on making Aki do all the work, and the DWMA has its own berserker unit, so clearly they don’t plan on me never using it. Otherwise what good am I at all?”

”If you wanted gentle, you should have taken up my other offer,” Ace responded quickly, not wasting a lot of time on the flirtation as he quickly transitioned into his next point, ”if you’re referring to Berseker Wavelength, then that’s the only part of you I don’t want to see. What little I know of it tells me it has no place in my training.”

”Now, if you mean in a more general sense, it’s best to keep things simple. Provide Aki with your wavelength and once she learns how, either conduct it or turn it into projectiles. Once you can resonate properly, you would develop it as you would any other Resonance. Fact of the matter is that any good weapon should be working just as hard as you are. Being a gun doesn’t change that fact,” he told her, explaining the process he had outlined as clearly as he could. More so, being quite serious about how important the role of a Weapon was in a duo.

”Also, I know jack shit about the Berserker Corps. They’re a bunch of fanatics that only get brought in when we need some heavy artillery. To be bluntly honest with both of you, the vast majority of people with either of your wavelengths don’t pursue this life. They get an education, a job, get married, settle down, have a family, and hope their kids have it better. You didn’t exactly win the lottery with the hands you were dealt,” he told them, a hint of sympathy seething between his words. Almost melancholic. On one hand, he didn’t want to dash their hopes. On the other, choosing to be Agents was easily the most difficult choice for either of them.

“So give her my wavelength a bit but keep that trait of mine locked up unless shit is happening, but expect the same work from Aki.” Listening to the rest of what he had to say, she had to get used to a weapon that somewhat knew what it was doing, most of the time they were barely one star quality. His other remarks however made her smile, a bittersweet, ironic smile. He may have not made her tales, or what they had done, and she wasn’t going to share it all for sympathy’s sake. Even if he was showing them some.

“Afraid that's not an option for either of us. Most sensible people wouldn’t want our wavelengths used, but we aren’t from sensible people and were used by malicious ones. I was a ganger, Aki was a child soldier. She’s never been in a classroom and neither was I. For both of us violence and worse is like water off a duck's back. I don’t have that option, for me it's being an agent and one day retiring, or going back to the DWMA Prison or living under house arrest, for Aki, well, Aki you’ll see some interesting things about. I was told I could do some good here, and Aki here deserves something more than being a dog for hire. And don’t say sorry to us about it, we aren’t. We did the only things we know and we are trying to do them now as better people… Well, at least I am, what about you Aki?”

”I’m not going to say I’m sorry about shit,” Ace replied, letting out a bemused chuckle.

”There are tens of thousands of people out there capable of being damn-good agents out there living shitty lives making shitty decisions because it’s all they know,” Ace told them, ”and half of you are brainwashed into thinking the DWMA wouldn’t help you.”

”I’m gonna let you in a keen little secret. Kidd is a fucking softy,” Ace told them, ”if half you plead to him that you just wanted to lead a normal life, he’d pull every string he could. You might wear an ankle bracelet for a while, but you could go to college. Read some books, pass some tests, get out there and get a job. The DWMA would wash away that history of yours–I’ve seen it done.”

”You could do a lot of things, but there isn’t a way you could convince me that you don’t want to be an agent out in the field,” Ace boasted, absolutely sure of his claim. ”If you wanna go get a career or become housewives, just say it. Go ahead. I’ll take it Kidd’n’Cyrus myself, an’ we’ll see just how quick you get accepted into some college where they can monitor you,” he continued, wreaking of arrogance in how bold he was with his belief.

”I don’t like hearing the excuse that you got no options,” Ace told them both, ”’Cause you ain’t the only ones with dirty hands and dark pasts here.”

Aki laid there for a while, murmuring softly as Feng caressed the back of her head. She wasn’t focusing too much on their words, still recovering from the soul force. However, she did process bits and pieces. Towards the end of Ace’s spiel, Aki seemed to recover enough to sit up on her own, though she looked a little bit groggy still, rubbing the back of her head. “...Why would I do that though?” She asked genuinely.

It wasn’t so much a matter of incapability, at least for Aki. She was for all intents and purposes a victim of circumstance. She could’ve gone to school, or college, or been a housewife now that she was under the DWMA. However, that was akin to asking a fish why it swam instead of fly. She had spent her entire life doing like activities and to her, the DWMA was just a better contractor than any others she had been with. Effects of her old life were not lost on her, as she had put bullet holes in her apartment from being startled and at times found it difficult to sleep in a bed. The idea of not taking this life was entirely foreign to her. Then there was her want to make her mother proud and meet her again at some point.

Being a housewife was in the cards. She wasn’t sure about Feng’s situation, but for her such a suggestion was just daft.

Perhaps there was Wisdom in so little being said. A question in response to another. Certainty grounded in purpose. The Philosophers of her homeland would approve. With that Feng gives a nod, helping Aki up. “The future may hold other paths to me, and I cannot speak for you, but I am not happy about all I did to just live a life like that, not till I’ve paid enough in kind.” She aimed the last bit right back at Ace.

”My point was meant to be rhetorical,” Ace commented, ”but, it seems like there might need to be an actual explanation.” There was a touch of condescension in his tone, but more so, bewilderment that he would even have to answer such a question. To him, it was plain as day. Obvious as the laughing sun.

”There are about two good reasons you might choose to live that life, Aki,” Ace started, shifting into a more serious tone, ”the first is simple. You and Feng both have incredibly difficult wavelengths to work with. There are a million downsides to this lifestyle, not even counting the risks involved. Even if you came into the DWMA in a more amicable way, you’d have it hard.”

He then sighed. ”The second, I guess, is the million downsides I was talking about. Pay is fine, I guess. Chance to travel the world. But, it’s constant training. Constant danger. Constant stress. Relationships are hard, most fail. If you date another agent, you might rarely see them.. Having a family is damn-near impossible unless you get a sweet setup like Flynn has. It forces you to make a lot of hard choices and miss out on a lot of important things,” he explained to them both, now carrying a hint of what seemed like genuine sadness in him.

”Think about it. You work a regular 9-5 in this world with some fancy degree. You can come home to a hot meal, most of the time it’s safe. See your kids take their first steps, say their first words, be there for all those ball games and dances. Can’t do that as an agent. Most that want it bad enough retire. Those that don’t end up with broken families and cheating spouses–just the name of the game,” he told them both.

”Those are things that most people want in their life at some point. They’re baked into our biology,” he told them, finally just shrugging at the whole notion. ”There might just come a time when you want that life more than penance for your old one. When that happens, you’ll understand what I mean. There’s no shame in looking ahead and choosing the path that makes it easier now,” he admitted.

”I had a damn good reason for becoming an agent, but I won’t lie to either of you; if I knew then what I do now, I probably would have just went to law school or something. Read some books, pass the bar, spend some time at a shit internship before getting a job that didn’t make me hate myself… might not be the foremost sniper of the DWMA, but I wouldn’t have to retire early to have everything else I want,” he continued, only admitting more and more about himself, and why it seemed he cared so much about this subject.

”And what was that reason if it is much better one? I have more to say, mind you, but for now that is all I’ll ask. Aki?” Feng said in quick order, she had paid attention to his words at the least, but there was a sternness to her face.

“Mmm… No thanks,” Aki said after a brief moment of consideration. “I’ve done things that are hard. That isn’t a reason to quit… and if I want to see Mama again, then I have to get stronger anyway.” It wasn’t that she didn’t understand. Aki understood the complications brought on by her soul now. However, that didn’t make suggestions of the mundane make any more sense to her.

”I had a brother,” Ace told her flatly, ”and I worked my ass off until I got revenge.”

His stare was pretty cold. All that lust faded away.

”All I’ll tell you is that when I pulled that trigger, I didn’t feel any satisfaction. No relief or sense of accomplishment. He was still gone, and I had spent seven years of my life for a moment that didn’t mean a damn thing,” he told them both.

Listening to his reason, she could not really fault him, she would have done the same, but she learned long ago that it did nothing, and that was not why she was here. ”Of course it doesn’t. I’ve killed plenty that took my family. My Bond Brothers and Sisters, Aunts and Uncles. They were not a birth family like yours, but they were the family I had for ten long years. Before that I was just some orphan whose parents couldn’t cope. I grew up in the Shaolin Temple for a few years, where one Master took care of me. During a spar, madness got to him, and my wavelength, or rather my trait, went wild, so they blamed me and casted me out once he was dealt with.” Feng added on a bit acidly.

”I then made my living as a pickpocket and thief, till I broke into the wrong place and the Triads kicked my ass. Or tried to. I took the beating, so they made me a soldier. Gave me purpose, life, a home. At first we were doing good, I can’t say I’ve not killed a single person that didn’t have it coming. At first. We did dirty work for the Government and during the lockdowns, took on other gangs, even did here in New York. Till they wanted me to kill a Detective and his family, during his 50th Birthday Party, including the grandchildren. So I turned myself in and have cooperated, I was even one of the Templates for evaluation into FATE after that hell which was Paean.” At the end of her story, which Aki had heard, and she heard Aki’s, she adds on;

”I don’t want revenge. Revenge is one hole with two graves. I want to use my talents and martial skills to do good, like in those early days, I don’t care if that's more killing. Maybe one day I’ll marry and leave it behind, or at least take leave for Family. Reiko Tanaka I found to be a good example of what I strive towards. Me and Aki are doing this because it's what we do. And what we want… No in some ways, it's what we both Need. I’ve had three long years to think on this and opt out. It is unfortunate about your brother.”

“...I’m sorry about your brother,” Aki said with seemingly genuine sympathy, a small frown showing on her face. She wasn’t that good with comforting people, especially given her background. Even though she wanted to be able to cheer people up, she lacked the faculties to do so, and so often opted to change the subject to something more positive. “I want to see Mama again, and to do that I need to get stronger. I’m not going to get stronger by going to a college or something. Besides… while I’ve seen a lot of interesting and cool stuff coming here that isn’t related to fighting… I don’t think I could do that. It just feels weird, like I’m not doing anything at all. I’ve always done stuff like this. I can’t just go become a doctor or something.”

”They hindsight is 20/20,” Ace told both of them. He had considered what they said, but this was a story all too common for him. In fact, it was even in part his own. These two were stuck on a path and didn’t feel like there was an escape, or that the path out wasn’t something that would satisfy them. In most cases, if someone survived long enough in this field, they had a change of heart. It was rare that anyone ever felt that way forever.

”But, I don’t think it’s that simple. When you look back on life, sometimes it’s through a whole different lens. You see the same picture, but in a different way,” he explained, ”the people you are now won’t be the ones you are in five, ten, twenty years. There’s a solid chance all these things that seem stupid or unfulfilling now won’t by then.”

”But, since you two are hellbent on ignoring the wisdom of your elder, then I’ve already outlined what you need to work on,” he told them both, shifting the conversation. He didn’t feel like wasting time convincing them that those other paths in life were equally possible and satisfying. He wasn’t even sure if he could. Experience just told him it was the truth.

”You won’t get in a day or a week, but once you do, you’ll see an entire road to fighting styles open up to you,” he reiterated, trying to reinforce the regiment he wanted them to undergo. ”Soul Conduction requires no small amount of control from the Meister, and the Weapon must be relaxed and capable of allowing the wavelength to pass through unhindered. Swapping to creating projectiles out of it is easy, so long as the Meister reduces how much wavelength they’re pouring into the weapon. Communicate, get the timing down, and you’ll be swapping hands and firing bullets instead of feeling like you have a brick in your hand,” he told them, truly recycling the same instructions he gave earlier.

”We are mortals for we are fools.” Feng says in simple reply, lifting her arms up and her elbows pivoted out roughly below the shoulder level, her right hand closed over a clenched left fist. Bowing her head in the chinese fashion. Either way our course seems set.”

“Maybe that’s right, but right now I’m not that person,” Aki stated. Whether she wanted to stay in this line of work later or not was beside the point. Now she needed to. Regardless, he seemed to move back towards their training and so Aki quickly moved onto the topic as well. She’d need to practice Soul Conduction so that Feng could use her properly. Relaxing would be a bit problematic, but she could learn. She would learn if it would help Feng. Bouncing up to her feet, she gave Ace a smile. “We’ll have it down in no time! Thanks Ace!”

RedArmyShogun EmperorsChosen​

 

[EmperorsChosen]

Daniella Ethalyn - Hawaii Beach Resort
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Dani's arms folded with a brow raised as the aforementioned asshole showed up. Her expression turned from light to her traditional scowl as her gaze turned to Raph. "Yep, that's him," She added, though not going further to interrupt his interaction with Ark. When he extended his pleasantries to the both of him, Dani sneered in his direction. "Peachy," She answered in smartass fashion. It was a step up from previous interactions at least.

Thankfully, Ark seemed to steer the conversation elsewhere and Dani's facial expression seemed to soften overtime. Her mood did appear to be significantly better the latter few months. Taking Ark's phone, she input her phone number before offering it to Adrian. "Sure thing...Hm?"

Picking up on Ark's mention, Dani's gaze searched for Zosar in the crowd, eventually spotting him with a few others she knew and one she didn't. Dani still wasn't by any means an expert in Soul Perception, however of recently she had become capable without relying on Nadia. That guy that Ark seemed to hone in on Dani didn't know, nor could she decipher his soul, but looking into it, it did feel somewhat off. Dani couldn't put her finger on it, but she ultimately figured it was just some special wavelength.

"...Ark? You know that guy?" Dani asked curiously. "You're staring a hole through his head."

Sir Les Paul RedArmyShogun The Regal Rper Merciless Medic