10th Rise of the Phoenix ஜ Action/Voice

[flamesofanger]

[Filtered from Selphie | You can probably hack this by just sneezing]How many of you have gone to school? I don't mean studying about something specific like magic to be a sorcerer or however that's done. I mean a general school, with several classes and a lot of hours sitting on a desk doing nothing but listening to the teacher. Do that type of

Comments

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

I won't say that there aren't people who want to fight just for the sake of it. But from experience, most of the people who fight would prefer to enjoy a peaceful life, they just have too much pride, sense of justice or whatever to keep themselves quiet while others attack them or the ones they care about.

[Ikki notices that it's a difficult subject, and this guy is really having trouble with it. It's almost a bit disturbing, mostly because it's clear that this guy has been taught to think like this since little, that he has been trained to be like this. Makes him wonder if he comes across the same way at times, maybe not so wavering but confused and lost as well.]

Hn, sorry, but I'm the kind of person who can't say "I'm sure it will be all right" or anything positive. To a situation like this my instinct is to say that "they can't kill you if you kill them first" or that "they can't kill you if you kill yourself first". None of those options are viable though.

[He can admit that at least.]

This is a dangerous place, mostly because of the people here. Not everyone is evil but there is a lot of evil here, hoping that it won't happen again sounds like hoping that a bean will grow into a giant plant and bring you to a castle in the sky.

[... He apologized first and said that he wasn't good for this. Seiya or Shun would have probably been better.]

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

[It's fitting that Robert is hearing this from a relative stranger - things that he's never heard anybody say about violence before. They are weird and scary and disturbing on many levels to him - yes, Ikki comes off as indoctrinated to him too, though he doesn't exactly have that word in his mind. Still... there are points in there that he's not sure if he can automatically disqualify, and that worries him.]

... In this place, death is not even permanent, or so I have been informed...

... I have yet to see it happen, of course.

[Slowly:] ... I o-ought to... introduce myself, though, wh-what with how long we have been conversing. [Really, this is a long conversation - and a deep one - to have without knowing each others' name.]

... I am Professor Robert Alexander Hastings.

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

[Well, at least regarding the violence and fighting, Ikki can agree with that he has been indoctrinated. Because he has. Then again if Robert learned what Ikki teacher had really taught him he would be even more horrified, but Ikki has grown up enough to be able to decide on his own. There's still a lot of hate inside of him there always be, hate and anger that will never qualm. But he doesn't wish that to anyone, doesn't think others should be the same.

Hate, Ikki. Hate everything and everyone, no matter who it is, no matter what they did for you, you must hate! Burn with hate and use it as your strength to destroy everything in your way! Hate your teacher, hate your mother, hate your brother, hate the whole world and the gods. Just hate and destroy.]

It's not, but it's still troublesome enough to not be something to recommend.

[Ah, introductions. Ikki knows that this is a long conversation and a deep one, but he has never had problems with not knowing who the other person is. Even if in this place he has tried to take the habit of asking, but sometimes it just slips back to old habits. See? This is why he prefers to just arrive to places and say who it is and go on. Makes things simpler.]

A professor? Like a teacher?

[Well, normally he would just say Phoenix Ikki but since Robert made it the long way he will answer the same.]

I am the Phoenix Saint, Ikki.

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

[Hate. It's an emotion that Robert can't really feel, can't really allow himself to feel. It's terrifying because it leads to anger and violence and cruelty and he can't allow himself to act on those dark feelings (even the comparitively little that he has, he demonizes to such an extent that it's almost disgusting to see how much he internally reproaches himself for real and relatively-harmless feelings). He can barely accept the fact he has any hate, let alone use it constructively.]

W-well, "professor" is something of a catch-all term for Terrans, generally a designation for a highly-trained intellectual. Many Terran scientists carry both a professor and a doctor title, respectively.

... Phoenix Saint? [The word "phoenix" is lost on Robert, and the word "saint" only has the vaguest half-remembered meanings.]

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

I see. I always thought that a doctor was just someone who treated people with medicine and a professor someone who taught people. Then again I've never really met any scientists until coming here.

[He notices the question, he expected it but it comes in a different tone than what he is used to. Well, it may be easier this way.]

It's a long story. But it's basically a rank. Saints are how Athena's soldiers are called, don't ask why because I don't know, though I assume that she considered that "soldiers" brought to mind images of violent wars rather than the ones she represents.

Each saint wears a Cloth, an armor, that represents a constellation or a mythological being. Mine is the Phoenix, thus making me the Phoenix Saint. There's also the Dragon Saint, or the Pegasus Saint or the Gemini Saint, for example.

[There's obviously more to the story, but he sees no point in explaining the full story unless asked.]

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

In a more specific sense, you would be correct, and the use of "doctor" in the colloquial way tends to refer to medical doctors. But anybody who earns a doctorate degree can potentially be called a doctor...

[And then Robert listens thoughtfully to Ikki's explanation. "Constellation" pings him, though many of the images evoked by the constellations have long since been lost to Terrans, and now only the names remain with no real meaning behind them.]

So essentially, you are a warrior of a kind... [Not surprising at all, obviously, and Robert is more musing aloud than anything.] And your designation is a constellation? ... Or a mythical creature? I am not certain which.

[Yes, Robert doesn't recognize the word "phoenix". And he only recognizes "dragon" because he met Toothless and Hiccup.]

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

[Ikki doesn't really get what makes those doctors with a doctorate special or why they are called that way, but neither is he terribly interested. It may be like asking why Saints are called Saints after all.]

Essentially, that's right. There has never been a Phoenix Saint before me, but even if there had been it's generally only one Saint per generation. There's no phoenix constellation so it's the mythical creature, I don't really know why it's that way, but it has never really mattered to me.

In my world the phoenix is a mythological creature, a fire bird that lives its full cycle of life before burning itself down into ashes, from which it raises once more at the start of its cycle. It's called the immortal bird, though it can die, it never remains dead.

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

An immortal creature... [Robert makes a thoughtful, surprised noise at this.] There are jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, on my planet that are capable of reverting to a polyp stage - basically, a younger, immature form of themselves - when they reach sexual maturity. It is the sole example of an organism capable of reversing its own aging process.

[Though he heard from Ami that the species she belongs to, as a non-human sapient, is also capable of this but in a far more fundamental way. That still boggles his mind.]

The biota of other worlds sounds incredibly fascinating... I wonder how a phoenix might generate flame to begin with?

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

I don't really think there are phoenixes in my world, if they are they do a great job hiding, because no one has ever seen them.

[And it's not possible for them to become extinct based on their premise. He's obviously ignoring the part about the jellyfish, mostly because, really, does he look like someone who understands of those things? All he knows about them is that they can't be eaten... And if they can, he doesn't want to try it.]

Though, the way I generate flames is merely with my Cosmos, my own energy. The flames are just the way it manifests when I raise it past a certain level. I know someone whose energy took the shape of snowflakes when he raised it, and another guy whose energy manifested as green flames. My little brother's energy manifests as star dust or something, it looks like a nebula.

[Yeah, his world is crazy like that.]

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

That would be like my own world, then, where these species are... decidedly nonexistent.

[The next part earns a thoughtful sound.]

"Cosmos"...? Do all the people in your world have a Cosmos? And it all varies in terms of how it looks?

[This might be fascinating stuff to add to his ongoing thesis, if Ikki doesn't mind.]

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

No, every living being has it. But most don't ever use it, the people in this place have it too, and can learn to use it with the proper training. But yes, the way it manifests differs between each person though some are similar in the most general aspect. The way it's manifested mostly depends on the guardian constellation of the person in question.

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

I... would hasten to add that I likely do not have one myself, if current patterns tend to hold.

Considering my world has no paranormal physics whatsoever, it would seem most likely. [It makes Robert a strange anomaly.] For example, I have been told that I lack "chi", another similar form of "energy" or "life force". By logical extrapolation, I likely lack this as well.

Still, it might be fascinating to see anyway.

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

It's not "chi", if you have a soul you have Cosmos, the only things that lack it are soul-less things actually.

But it's true that some individuals in my world were just naturally unable to control it no matter how much they trained. Most of the people don't know about it though, it's not a common thing even there.

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

As far as I know, I am also soulless, in the sense that I have no associated paranormal process other than my brain's electrical activity.

Is there some way to see or measure Cosmos? Perhaps, if w-we were ever to meet in person, you could... analyze me, so to speak.

[Robert kind of hopes that the pattern holds true because he would be disturbed if it didn't in this case.]

[Voice]

[flamesofanger]

I'm trained to sense Cosmos so yeah, meeting you in person would allow me to check. Normally I could do it even without meeting, but this place isn't fond on letting us run at our full capacity.

[ooc: Just leaving this here since it seems it's going to be needed if they meet xD]

[Voice]

[semper_cogitans]

In th-that case... I do hope we m-meet at some point, in order for me to d-discern this. It would be valuable data for my p-paranormal thesis, regardless of what the results are.

(OOC: Hopefully my answers for that are okay? \o/)