valentine's is done.
Who: A Certain Scientific Vampire (tiersdes ) and A Certain Scientific Psychic (soldiershin )
When: The 14th
Where: A place where little girls should not be in---er, Lion's Gate
Summary: A Crusnik and another (yes, another!) Mu cross paths inside a nightclub.
Warnings: mild violence, Seth being Seth.
( The curtains flew, then she appeared. )
When: The 14th
Where: A place where little girls should not be in---er, Lion's Gate
Summary: A Crusnik and another (yes, another!) Mu cross paths inside a nightclub.
Warnings: mild violence, Seth being Seth.
( The curtains flew, then she appeared. )
Even when facing death, the mind lingers, hindered from passing on by attachments too strong to be cleanly severed by lifelessness. So perhaps the more accurate term is that minds fade. Slowly. Reluctantly. It's a sensation that Siren's Port is in no ways lacking; the buzzing and the fading and the general noise is always present, and the ensuing headache is something Jomy has long-since accepted as the norm during his stay in this city.
And so amongst the bustling of medium-sized crowd of the night, he doesn't catch the bodies' disappearances. Not immediately. His eyes are open, but are a little glazed, exhaustion crawling up and down his spine as he continues to keep vigil. What does catch his attention is the bright spark of alarm that goes off, flavored by panic and an all-too-telling whatthefuckishappening-thoughts, slamming into his senses with the sensitivity of a freight train ( ... )
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That'll be his first clue.
But once Jomy enters the fray, Seth is safely (or so she'd like to think) in disguise, mingling with the crowd and flirting with some of the younger men. Her thoughts are oblique as she makes sure not to arouse any suspicion before vanishing again, but an off-hand thought of I need actual information... may just tip Jomy off.
But only for a moment. She's back to playing up her game, although now she's on the lookout for her next target.
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He doesn't immediately connect the two together - the emotions were too far from each other on the spectrum to click, just like that. Only they do (click, that is), as soon as he blots out the background noise from the rest of the guests, blissfully unaware of his mental chase. And from there? It's just a matter of narrowing down the suspects on a physical level while following the source.
It takes Jomy no more than ten minutes to pinpoint her (a girl one of the thoughts had shared). But a place of the club's size, no matter the number of thoughts, is easy enough to search through if he knows what he's looking for. And a barcode made of thoughts-emotions- ( ... )
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And that's when she feels him prying into her mind. Her Crusnik nanomachines twitch---the feeling is even more uncomfortable than when Shiroe tried to do so weeks earlier---and uncomfortable enough to make her thoughts blurt out, Shiroe? for just a split second before she bolsters her own will to shove Jomy out before he finds out too much.
Damn. And the prying is deliberate, too---has she been caught? He's approaching her now, and the way he's looking at and addressing her---it's much too deliberate.
Although his question does make her laugh, and she treats him just like any of the other guys who've been sniffing her butt all night, grinning mischievously and meeting his inquiry with another inquiry of her own: "I don't know. May you ( ... )
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Nonetheless, he goes along with the momentum of the push (it's a strong will, but that's not very unusual in this city), not fighting, not really, but he grasps that slip, grasps what he can without damaging her mind. No need for that (yet).
Shiroe, she had thought. Shiroe knew a lot of people, but to insantly note that this sweeping against the mind was the link between them? That's not the norm. So he grasps at that thought, yanks at it, resorting to the force that he so rarely applies, demanding more information from her mind. The distance that she puts between them relents some of the pressure, due to the sudden break in his focus when she seems to disappear from his physical sight.
Swerving, Jomy's quick to walk off into a quiet, unpopulated hallway and teleports, materializing in a sheen of blue light to where he feels her mind had vanished and reappeared. He's not in the mood to chase. Too tired. Too surprised (alarmed).
"Please." Wait. ( ... )
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As she manages to roundhouse kick that lackey into a nearby wall, Seth's face is still covered by a wince as she tries to figure out a Plan B while she dashes further into the hallway.
Wait.
----OwDammit, there he goes again. He's close when he teleports to where she's at---and he'll notice that now she looks different: she's dressed in black, her hair matches and is much shorter, and her eyes are now green. Her nanomachines twitch again, causing her to grunt as she skids to a stop and whirls to face him ( ... )
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So he freezes when the daggers come at him, body going stiff with adrenaline; it's really just pure instinct (subconscious self-preservation) that responds, a shield in blue stopping the daggers in their path. When the energy releases the blades, there is a loud echo of metal resounding off the ground. A short silence reigns as Jomy peels himself out of the defensive (he has a slight preference for the defensive; it's more familiar to him than attacking, and he's never really grasped the idea of moderation), his body hunched a little. Making itself smaller than it is, reducing the surface area that she could target ( ... )
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...So he's kind of like her. If beings like Jomy and Shiroe had certain 'levels' or 'classes,' it's clear that Jomy must be in the top-tier. The hold he had over Seth's thoughts; the teleporting; the shield---all that, stemming from his will alone...Scary. Perhaps even scarier than a Crusnik like herself, who was a god even among the equally-inhuman Methuselah ( ... )
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Wait. Too, she had said ( ... )
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She doesn't really understand why he's so damn calm---kind of like that Keith guy she spoke to, only not as creepy and amusing (even childlike) and more...off-putting. This calm Jomy exudes---this dignity, this...pacifism---it reminds her of Lilith to some degree; it's a sign that he must have been some kind of important figure wherever he's from (Shiroe's world? Perhaps this one was the leader of the "outcasts" in that reality?). As much as Seth admired Lilith, however, she always found her near-constant state of calm to be a little frightening in some respects. How she was calm even amidst all of the chaos and mayhem that had taken place during the war of Armageddon and even in the face of extreme adversity from the newly born-Methuselah when she had sided with the Terrans.
How she was calm in the mere moments, seconds leading to when Cain killed her.
Seth never really understood what it was that kept Lilith so grounded, considering she was a Crusnik---a monster---just like Seth herself and her brothers ( ... )
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(And they didn't really seem related to Shiroe and he. Not exactly.
The undercurrent of her own weariness is noted, however. Hers feels like a fleeting touch. Ghost-like, strangely softened by... something. Not like his own, where it was a constant presence that he shouldered with muted pride.)
There's so much from her words that Jomy can respond to that he needs to pause, taking it all in. He's finally noticed her quirk of calling him prince; it makes him twitch, awkward in the notion of being called a member of nobility, no matter how jokingly. The small smile falls at being related to a god though - because no, he wasn't. Not at all ( ... )
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But she keeps that hypothesis---and thought---to herself. Now wasn't the time. They had to leave here. Well, okay, no, she had to leave here, but...he was making no motion to make her get out. At least, perhaps not alone.
Prince, indeed.
"...Don't I know the snail's pace of change." Seth murmurs, more to herself than to Jomy, irritation briefly taking the forefront once more. And I am the system, in a way. With that particular thought (now guarded, of course; now that he's let up a bit on his telepathy, she's got her mental shields back up with renewed vigor) comes a fleeting note of sadness and perhaps---perhaps--- ( ... )
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"My shift should be over." A beat. "I can walk you back to your residence if you require it. We can speak at a later-" more neutral "-time ( ... )
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...Interesting. It made the weariness she could sense in him all the more credible---if he'd gone through similar experiences (she hoped not: war, near-genocide, and continued tensions were not situations she'd wish on anyone) to her own. It takes her a moment to respond to his offer. Only because...
...Only because, yeah, the telepathy kind of startled her. But inherently, she could tell Jomy wouldn't use it for nefarious purposes--not unless he was pushed, probably.
Nevermind that it seemed he didn't want to come off as an enemy to begin with, so---
Seth laughs again.
"If you insist, Prince." She chuckles, looking toward the door and then winking at him before adding, "keep up with me, though!"
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