I'm ridin' down your moonlight mile
Who: Troll 1/Seth (tiersdes) and Troll 2/Shiroe (zealouspeter)
When: Saturday, January 29th, 5pm, before Grandmama's Boy shows up.
Where: The streets of Sector 4
Summary: A Crusnik and a Mu pass by each other in the street, and the cat is quite literally out of the bag. Or rather, away from the NV and out of the house.
Warnings: Snarkiness and trolling, but are those ( Read more... )
When: Saturday, January 29th, 5pm, before Grandmama's Boy shows up.
Where: The streets of Sector 4
Summary: A Crusnik and a Mu pass by each other in the street, and the cat is quite literally out of the bag. Or rather, away from the NV and out of the house.
Warnings: Snarkiness and trolling, but are those ( Read more... )
Of course. His attempt at breaching her mind must have sent her some sort of warning. He gave one brief, potentially panicked thought to is she part of SERO? before discarding it-- no, she didn't have that underlying apathy that SERO scientists nearly always had. Maybe AGI, but he wasn't particularly afraid of AGI. Found them beyond disgusting, yes, but not threatening.
And even if she had been putting on an act to cover up that fact, it was kind of a pointless one. More of an act to hide the fact that she was a hundreds-of-years-old empress, just as he'd thought.
"Must be!" He practically chirps, breaking that scrunched up 'ew' face for an almost smug one (easiest to pull off, even these days), though that quickly morphs into rather sincere-looking curiosity, too. "You haven't, really? You weren't born here?
"Mm, it's a good thing you're not afraid to try out the weather... I couldn't imagine getting stuck inside for all of winter." Actually, he could, and it didn't do well for his claustrophobic tendencies (especially since it wasn't even claustrophobia-- more just the idea of being trapped somewhere). He nodded vigorously to the Arcade part, maybe playing up his act a bit too much; but inwardly, he was still categorizing her movements, taking notes of everything. There was a reason he'd managed to live through almost a year of Siren's Port and five-odd months of being a SERO employee without any real issues.
And yet, that last observation almost broke it. He wanted to laugh, crow, at the very least snicker: but all he really did was smile, wide and completely true, shoulders settling down. This game would all be fun. "Yeah. Something like that, anyway. What about you? Have you played in the snow, or at the Arcade?"
Cat and mouse, until the apparent end.
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In that brief moment of him being able to reach out to her mind, he would've caught the fleeting thought of: I can't let those companies create and exploit mistakes like me. Because that was precisely what they were perhaps trying to do. SERO, especially, if rumors she'd heard about them were true...it was certainly something to go over with Allen, once AGI was taken care of.
But outwardly, she laughs at his little 'EW COOTIES' expression. "Girls aren't that scary, really." She chuckles, smirking a little bit. This, perhaps, would strike Shiroe as a more familiar expression and tone of voice.
And that sudden smugness that follows, before the 'curious' look---Seth frowns momentarily.
...Really, who was this kid? Still, playing along:
"I'm from nowhere near here, actually!" She laughs, grinning. "I'm from the east! It's much warmer over there---surrounded by desert! Still, I figure what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, as they say---so here I am, braving the cold!"
There's more laughter, and suddenly, she folds her hands behind her back, continuing to grin rather innocently. "The Arcade seems pretty cool, but I'm more of an outdoorsy person!" She says, mentally willing her nanomachines to activate to 10%, just to boost her speed. "So----"
And in the blink of an eye...
"----I'd prefer playing in the snow."
...She is now behind him, having pelted him in the back of the head with a snowball.
A little role-reversal in Cat and Mouse couldn't hurt, now could it?
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Her last line got a small laugh, nonetheless; a laugh and smile that boys would share with their partners-in-crime after filching a plate of sweets. The grin doesn’t vanish after she makes her declaration, instead gaining an outwardly admiring role-model sort of look, head tilted.
The only warning was something changing about her outer shields, and even if it was slight, he mentally latched on to it, was about to process and make a decision about what it could’ve meant when she was gone.
And the back of his head felt much colder.
He didn’t yelp (really!), but he did let out some loud noise of surprise as he toppled forward, stumbling in an attempt to stay upward but ending up falling anyway, a flail of arms and ‘oof’ as he landed, twisting enough that it was on the side of his hip rather than his face. Blink, blink. A…?
No outward reply; instead, his eyes turned upward, hand reaching back to pull some snow off his neck. Eggh, it was dripping down his neck--!
“Nice aim.” He couldn’t keep the huff out of his voice, but his face wasn’t unfriendly. No, he was just rolling back to his feet, (how’d she move so fast?) making a swipe for some snow of his own and throwing it right back once he was fully standing. He was a weakling, but the snowball was at least on target and had some force behind it. Not near as much speed, though.
(Honestly, what was he doing? If she knew-well… actually, that made it almost funnier. Still.)
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Two slices of cake, to be exact---because now she had a pretty good idea of who this kid possibly was. The digging into her mind, the questions, the rather smarmy attitude (though masked fairly well at some points, thanks to his childish exterior; she'd go so far as to say he was as skilled an actor as she was)---but mainly the digging into her mind. She knew only one person who would have the balls to start crap like this.
When Shiroe retaliates with a snowball of his own, Seth quickly unzips her jacket to grant herself more freedom of movement, and then cartwheels out of the line of fire (boy, is she glad she's wearing leggings underneath that skirt of hers). When she lands back on her feet, she makes a grab for more snow and chucks it at him, giggling all the while.
"I'm not from China---I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist anymore where I'm from. In the past, I believe my homeland was referred to as the 'Middle East.'" She says, her voice now sounding less girlish and more...oddly adult. "But if you really want to know, try burrowing into my mind again like you were doing before."
And she giggles again. "Shiroe."
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She threw another snowball and he snapped back into reality in time to attempt to dodge it in time. Attempt, as it caught him in the shoulder. Another piece of ice to add to the water slowly making its way down his neck--
Shiroe floated over to him, working as well as any snow down the back could at making him freeze for just a second. Actually, no: it was less his name and more that accusation toward his mind-prying that had him locking up, staring toward the ground and thoughts whirling up into double-time to process the options that he had. He could deny it - not the mind-prying, obviously (there was a very large, very cold piece of dread in his stomach at that, but he'd worked well under pressure before), but the name. There was no reason for her to be absolutely sure that he was who she thought; it had to be a guess, an out-on-a-limb sort of assumption, something easily crushed...
This random encounter on the street just wasn't exactly how he'd wanted their first meeting to go. To be able to lord it over her later when they did meet up would be better.
... But despite that irritated thought, it was a quick grin and an outright laugh, feet staying right where they were and shoulders relaxing. If he had to be ruffled, better to try to irritate her back. "How long did you have to think about it, Seth?"
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So the boy had powers. He'd briefly mentioned something before, about there being another 'race' in his world besides normal humans. She realized it now. He was one of that 'race.' It was no wonder, then, that he did not divulge any more about them. Because he'd be divulging about himself.
...It actually made Shiroe seem less annoying and obnoxious and more scared and lost, now that Seth thought about it. A Lost Boy who'd probably been struggling with being different, endlessly searching for a Never Land to run off to.
Like in the story of Peter Pan.
......Was that why he was so curious about everything? Because he was still searching for that Never Land, that Peter Pan?
Her own grin only widens when she quickly dashes again and reappears at Shiroe's side, reaching a hand out and pulling lightly on his cheek (not enough to hurt, though if she were still in an odd mood, she would've made sure it hurt, just for being a pompous dolt) before vanishing again and reappearing a couple of feet away, tossing two snowballs at him.
Oh, she had won this one. She could feel it, as she responded brightly, "I admit you kind of had me for the first few minutes, but when you continued to try and poke around in my head, I had it figured out! Like I said to you before---you're not as subtle as you think you are. You've got a lot to learn."
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But she was pulling on his-- pulling on his cheek, that was really, really weird, and he couldn’t do much more than give a noise of discontent, since most of his concentration went toward keeping his powers from rushing at her. Something like a ‘mrrgphh,’ then, even if it didn’t hurt (it could, he knew), and then she was disappearing again and two more snowballs came his way. He was a bit too out of sorts to dodge those; down, down he went, sitting down hard on the cold pavement, and yet -
He looked none the less arrogant for it. She had one thing right: he was a scared, lost boy, but he was also a boy who used those feelings as motivation to be independent (foolishly so), head-strong, determined, bratty and conniving. He’d lasted nearly a year in Siren’s Port after his own death, too, and that was nothing light to consider.
In front of him, he saw a girl who wanted to deny what she’d been made as; who had nothing to do but to keep things light in face of what she’d gone through, who was held down even if she didn’t think so. Some people might have considered that as a strength, but he just saw it as denial - and as per becoming a hypocrite, he’d call her weak for it, too.
She was also someone who could either teleport or move fast enough that he wasn’t able to track her. That probably had to do with her lineage-
“I could have just been some random telepath.” He was climbing to his feet again, hands a bit snow-covered and feeling red-hot pin pricks because of it, but he was ignoring that, “There are a few hundred in the city. You only have mental shields, don’t you?” He wanted to figure out that disappearing trick of hers, but knowing whether or not she was a telepath would do for right then.
More time to observe. Anyway, he was relatively sure that she wasn’t.
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Chuckles Seth, as she watches Shiroe fall right onto his butt, taking the chance to use that opening to dash into a nearby small park in order to hide from him---she was a big fan of hide and seek; when she was younger, she'd often hide around the space station just to mess with Abel or avoid Cain. Of course, Lilith would always find her (but then again, Lilith knew all three of the Nightroad siblings better than anyone), but it didn't make it any less fun.
But the sharpness of his violet eyes never dulled---and she caught that. It scared her a bit, reminded her of Cain; in spite of his languid smile, his eyes were always cold, always intimidating...
Shiroe was right in that she was in denial; not so much about what she was and what she was created for---that, she knew all too well, and for that very same reason hid her true nature all the more (just as he hid the true extent of his abilities). If he used his TK on her, she'd just increase the output of her nanomachines to resist his will and counter him with a sound blast enough to knock him out (not kill him; she'd actually be kind of sad if he died (again), for some odd reason she doesn't want to dwell upon right now).
Rather, she was in denial about being held down. She wasn't as omniscient as everyone else saw her. She was hiding a lot of things from her people. All of her burdens were of her own making. Her very existence could very well break apart her Never Land as much as it had created it to begin with. She was a Peter Pan who couldn't fly. A Peter Pan who had too many Lost Children who depended on her, and after 800 years, she was starting to feel the wear and tear of all that.
But she would never admit it to save her life. She was a paradox. Strong in mind and body, weak in heart. In the end, if one stripped away all of her power and status---
---She was a monster.
"Oh, I know better than that, Shiroe." She retorts as she's zipping about, hiding behind mounds of snow and trees whilst throwing snowball after snowball at him. "And like I said before---you're real good at prying, right? So try me!"
Yeah, that could be interpreted as a "pssh, no."
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Whomp! Another snowball, right to the shoulder. Two more to the back, a fourth at his chest - it was somewhat pathetic that he couldn’t retaliate, but a pathetic look wouldn’t be on his face. No, he was still grinning, sly as a fox and maybe just as nasty, even as he backed himself up to a tree, pressed his back against it. He’d long learned that attitude was half of any presentation - and while it might not have wholly fooled her, grinning instead of cowering allowed him some amount of dignity. His pride would - had - bring him to his doom, his absolute need to continue fighting back even in the face of something he couldn’t really do anything about. That might be an exaggerated statement, what with its relevance to Seth’s snowballing free-for-all, but it was a fact.
That, and the fact that as long as he could block any that came at his face (which he did try to: his reflexes were still fast enough), no more snow would drip down his back, with the tree covering behind him.
“How did you know better than that?” A challenge, a jab, a poke - his voice was all of those things, as if he wasn’t the one pinned against a plant. She was moving far, far too fast-he kind of wanted to take some of her blood, have Daedalus inspect it; might have actually gone for that if it hadn’t reminded him so much of what had been done to him, what SERO still did. No, he’d just continue to infer from what he could see. It would do.
Besides, it was more fun that way. An actual challenge: who’d have thought.
“Did you ever have snow, in your ruined world?" His voice was carrying, not exactly cheerful but not at all harsh-- more and more challenge, from the lift of his shoulders to the lowering of his chin. A jump in topic, sure, but when did he ever stay on the apparent topic?
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That's the one fleeting thought that Seth will allow Shiroe to detect. That is the only time she will open the floodgates just a crack.
He wasn't much different from her in that regard. The act of putting on a brave face and smiling even when you felt quite the opposite was not alien to Seth in her long, long experience.
But she knew his mask of courage was borne out of defiance. It was his conditioned reflex---unsurprising as he knew full well she was an empress. It amused, intrigued, and flat out annoyed the shit out of her all at once.
Faster than he can blink, she'll suddenly appear right in front of him, leaning toward him and smiling coquettishly as she responds, "I know better because only a naughty little cat like yourself will try to make himself at home where he otherwise doesn't belong."
Because, really----where would his rebellious attitude take him in the end? It'd gotten him killed once. Now what?
That was what prompted Seth's curiosity.
And with that, she pokes his nose a little. "The UV rays that have contaminated the eastern half of my ruined world makes snowfall impossible. The west probably still gets it, though."
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It would be more frustrating for her, he thought, and so he’d act like that.
What really got a reaction was that abrupt closeness; he reeled back from that, almost - but not quite! - cracking his head against the tree. Regained his bearings as she leaned in, looking smug as the feline that she definitely wasn’t (more of a dog without a master). Her words didn't frighten him any more than her expression did, though he didn't feel that invoking fear was really what she was after. No matter-- the proximity, however, was still an issue. He didn't like it.
Opened his mouth to maybe say as much, and then he was poking him in the nose and he side-stepped (get some distance needed some distance from this new woman), probably would have gotten away with looking casual if the timing hadn't of been so convenient.
"Most people don't have mental shields," was what he finally said, arms straight at his sides. "Most people don't have centuries to hide either, though."
A beat - a smile. As long as she wasn't tapping him in the nose, he could do that.
"Most people have experienced snow, too. Do the humans live in the West half?"
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(besides the defiance. the hidden anger. the odd powers he seemed to both ashamed of and yet reveled in----at least, around her.)
He didn't seem to be fond of physical contact---no, correction---he was adverse to it, almost phobic. The way he practically freaked out when she pulled on his cheek; how he swiftly strafed away after she poked his nose...she could write it off as simple shyness, the shyness of a little boy, but his movements and reactions to her touching him were much too deliberate.
She giggled. She'd found a weak point, and she was going to exploit it for all it was worth until he cried mercy (or at the very least lash out---but she could take care of him without killing him). If he was going to put on airs, she was going to provoke him into acting like the child he really was.
"That's where someone like you comes in handy, I suppose." She remarks, snickering as she dashes over to his side and rubs a little snow into his hair. It'll be enough to wipe that damn smug smile off his face. "But, to answer your question..."
...And now she's suddenly sitting on a thick branch of the budding tree he's leaning against, right above him.
"...The West is the humans' domain. If the Vatican is Heaven, then Albion is Purgatory."
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He didn’t squint his eyes or cock his head, though, for all that it would communicate the point well; no, he just continued on watching her, up until-“Hey!”- she was rubbing snow in his head. Ah, cold, cold - he ducked and sidehopped, his own ungloved hands immediately going up to brush what was left off. His voice wasn’t annoyed, though - well, the ‘hey’ had been somewhat offended, but his next sentences were back to being lofty and arrogant, taunting in a better-than-thou sort of way. “If you don’t want anyone knowing about it, just get better at keeping it to yourself.”
He forced that tone, of course; really, he was already a bit irritated at the constant prodding, but that giggle. It was a tip-off. He’d been careful in his reactions, but he’d still made them; if she thought she’d get to him by incessantly poking, she’d have to be proven (completely and utterly right) different. It was no wonder he was adverse to it, though; E-1077 had never been big on contact in the first place outside of sparring, and after his powers had been activated, a simple brush of the hand could mean a mental overload on information. His own fault for always monitoring the people around him in the first place, thereby inviting them into his own mind, but he’d live in denial of that.
Not that Seth presented any problems with overloading, but by now, it was as much of a reflex as his rebellious nature.
“Which one’s yours? Albion?” She had teleported (only not really, but he still had to figure that one out) up on the branch, but he only bothered looking up-and backing up, out of range of having anything outright dropped on him-after getting most of the snow out of his hair, shaking his hands out in a futile attempt to keep them from being soaked. With the chilled air, his breath still left as a tiny cloud, but that really didn’t mean anything other than that he was alive and warm-blooded.
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"Oh, I don't hide either my true nature or my past because I'm afraid of it." Like you happen to be. She leans her head on her palm. "I do it to keep the people around me safe."
There's a small pause, and Seth's expression suddenly ices over. The face of a weapon, the merest of glimpses he'll ever get of her inner beast in person.
"Shiroe, if you haven't picked up on things from what you've forced out of me----I can kill you anytime I wish, if you push me that far. And with little effort."
She snorts just as coldly. "Just so you know. I promised Marionettenspieler the same thing. And he was one of my mortal enemies."
Then, just as abruptly, her expression becomes unreadable, at the thought of Albion.
"Byzantium is my domain, the sanctuary for my children. Albion may look pretty on the surface, but it's a stinking snake pit underneath. A snake pit filled with enslaved Methuselah. Does that answer your question?"
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But even if she did, he wasn’t sure if he’d care. He was already dead- he’d experienced death five times over as a second party during those months in Sector 9, where monsters stole in at night to devour the drunkards just one floor below. Death wasn’t something he had ever much feared, though he wouldn’t run towards it with sirens blaring-even if this Seth-baiting might have been said as having the same effect.
“It’s not the safety thing, either. Maybe partially, but not fully.” He was on a roll, now; head tilted to the side and up, watching her with the same cutting eyes. She was- “You don’t like being treated like a killer. Or even like an empress, probably. Normal life is what you want, isn’t it? Peace with normalcy.”
Not so haughty as loud, clear, sure and factual. As if the other was a specimen under a glass, ready for dissection and examination, eventual classification- something Shiroe had come to do to all people he met, though it wasn’t entirely intentional. Another defense mechanism: to distance himself from the ‘alive’ part of the people he met, make them lesser so that they wouldn’t matter so much when they inevitably disappeared.
“It answers that question.” But, he had another, though who knew if it’d be answered after that little tirade - “Does that mean that you like Siren’s Port’s people?”
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But, he was wrong about another thing: if he ever did decide to cross her one day---she would make good on her promise. She would kill him ten times over and then some, even if he was just a child; Dietrich was just as much of a child (compared to Seth, anyway, being a Terran) as Shiroe was, and he was a ruthless extremist. Shiroe on the other hand was, nonetheless, a child with powers, dangerous powers that, if tapped into further, would make him practically an all-seeing god. So, he was, in some way, a potential threat.
Once he's done with that little spiel, all Seth can do at first is continue to watch him icily. Yet, there was truth to it. But she won't admit it; not to his face. Perhaps to Yosuke, or even to Allen or Akira, but not Shiroe. So, she'll only reply---as irritatingly cryptic as ever:
"Peace never lasts, and you know it."
And at his next question---well. Seth's expression wavers for the merest of moments.
...How could she answer that? Did she prefer Siren's Port to home? Even if it was a virtual Purgatory in and of itself, it still afforded her a strange kind of freedom she didn't have back home, back in Byzantium.
She could be Seth Nightroad, and Seth Nightroad alone here. She could use her powers for good here, without the fear of being feared or even hated. But, indeed, she could just as well live a simple life here.
And as for the people...
Well.
Some more than others, anyway.
"I can't say the people here are too terrible, no." She says, her grin becoming mysterious, unreadable.
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