tushanshu_logs | [Open] I Could See Into the Soul of Every Passerby

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[Open] I Could See Into the Soul of Every Passerby

Characters: Valdis and YOU!
Date: The Month of June
Location: Around Keeliai and Hatal
Situation: Various
Warnings/Rating: In Headers

The previous month had been somewhat of a whirlwind. Meisheng’s revelation that Milyn had truly betrayed them, Yunxu’s failures as a leader and her decision to move forward with the Police force had set in motion things that she wasn’t certain she was prepared for. In particular, she wished she could spend her time hunting the cultists, but her commitments to the Dojo and the Police Force currently hindered that. Hopefully she would be able to refocus her attentions soon enough.

Personally, she was concerned with keeping the Void under control, it’s temporary possession had been disconcerting to say the least and she couldn’t be certain it would let go so easily the next time. For now, she kept Revelations on hand at all times, the warm glow from the entire blade kept hidden by a dark cloak to keep out the cold and conceal her presence when she didn’t wish to be noticed. So many eyes seemed to be on her and her potential police force, it was different, because any mistake would be closely scrutinized and it reminded her why she had never tried to rule a country directly. The spotlight was detrimental to her secrets.

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Tonight was different than most nights, for Valdis had managed to slip away from her duties and wander the streets as a hound. It felt good to stretch her legs and breath the night air. The light rain couldn’t penetrate her thick coat, the small droplets clung instead to the guard hairs and were easily shaken off. Her breath billowed out of her mouth as she blew out air and she watched it twist and disperse before repeating the action. The Gardens of the former Palace were wild now, but the hedgerows still formed pathways large enough for the giant hound to walk through.

She lowered her head to sniff at a puddle, her breath causing the surface of the water to ripple, then she snorted and stepped over it, continuing down the path to the clearing where she used to spend time with Wan. The sudden dizzy spell was followed by a sense of peace and then, even more suddenly, the rage of the Void at the intrusion of...whatever that was. Her disorientation lasted only a moment and she spun around with a snarl at the sound of a branch breaking.

Who is it? Her voice would ring harsh in the mind of whoever approached.

Silifel held his hand up as a sign of peace as he walked into view. He hadn't expected to stay hidden for long and the lingering dizziness of whatever that was- a hex?- made staying quiet much more difficult. Anyone with any ability to sense magic or such energy would be able to pick up his presence with ease, he was making no attempt to mask his power. The rain was making no more impact on him than it was on her, raindrops veering off to the side as soon as they were about to hit him.

"My apologies," he said in a soft, pleasant voice, not quite sure how to reply to a giant hound that spoke in his mind. "I mean no disrespect or harm, I saw you in passing and was curious, that is all."

The stranger who walked into view was tainted by strange magic, it was potent, powerful and she didn't know how she had missed it. She couldn't sense any lie in his words and her ears rose upright from where they had been pressed defensively against her skull.

Curiosity can be dangerous.

But she relaxed, releasing the tension with a deep breath.

But you didn't answer my question.

She didn't recognize him despite the fact that he must be a foreigner.

"Ah! I am not usually so rude, I'm afraid that spell has left me dazed," Silifel replied with genuine regret. "I am Silifel Surana. Might I know who you are?"

Curiosity was indeed quite dangerous, he was amused by the comment. Of course it was a risk to be following giant magical hounds around in the dark but he would be dead now if he hadn't stuck his nose where it hadn't belong. He'd resigned himself to having to toe a very unfortunate line to stay alive when he was much younger.

Valdis tipped her head, tongue flicking out to lick a drop of water off her nose as she watched the newcomer. He seemed polite enough, non-threatening, but she didn't like the feel of the magic wafting off of him.

My name is Valdis.

She couldn't find a reason for her unease, the man's soul seemed normal enough.

May I ask why you are so curious about me?

Valdis wasn’t so busy with her new endeavor that she neglected her students. She could still be found holding regular classes for various levels of fighters, both with weapons and without. Her advanced students, when not training, had taken to helping her with the less experienced students so that she could give more one-on-one instruction. At the moment, she was demonstrating a self defense maneuver designed to disarm and knock aside an opponent. The small kedan female she was teaching watched with wide eyes as Valdis grabbed the wrist of her much larger sparring mate, twisted his wrist to make him drop the dagger he was holding and swing him away using his own momentum. It wasn’t a complex maneuver, but speed was the key.

“You don’t have to go fast right from the start,” she assured the girl, “Just practice it slowly and soon enough your muscles will remember the movement and it will come naturally."

Valdis had recently found herself with far too much negative energy and she was growing tired of feeling watched by the Chihuelans and everyone else. She also felt the growing need to remind the Chihuelans that the Foreigners were not to be trifled with, a need that was becoming difficult to curb. Bakura had once told her that is she ever needed to blow off some steam then he could summon his monsters, she didn’t know if that offer still stood, but she certainly hoped it did. She didn’t like the consuming need for violence that kept rearing its ugly head. It wouldn’t do for her to break down now, better to work it off in a controlled manner. Hence, she had asked Bakura if he would be willing to help her put on a ‘show’ for the citizens of Hatal and the Chihuelans.

"You ready?" She whispered, half to herself and half to the white haired man.

"Am I ever not?" he returned lightly, grinning.

He pulled a card seemingly out of nowhere, though Valdis would be able to feel the shift of the Shadow Realm against the fabric of this plane when he did, and uttered the beast's name to call it into being. "Botanical Lion, sign of attack!"

The foliage adorned lion sprang from the shadows into a ready stance, snarling and scraping at the ground with long claws. It had a decent attack power, but more importantly, a higher defense, meaning that it should be able to withstand more than one of Valdis' hits (he had not forgotten how easily she'd dispatched some of his earlier summons with one swing, and adjusted accordingly).

Valdis grinned back, suddenly feeling mischievous. This was to show off power and she was more than happy to oblige as Bakura summoned the large lion. She drew Revelations, tossed it into the air, caught it and slammed the point into the ground. A flash of blinding light obscured her from view and an instant later the gigantic hound was leaping forward, jaws agape to grab the lion by the throat.

The crowd gasped the two combatants met with a clash of fur and fangs, nearly all of them leaning forward in their seats. The special Jagaiz ring had been the scene of some truly spectacular Foreigner abilities, but this was new.

The Lion roared despite Valdis' grasp on its throat, claws moving to rip across her flank.

Valdis snarled as the creature's claws opened long slashes on her haunch, but the deep wounds didn't stay long, the torn muscle weaving back together within moments. Her jaws began to close, sharp teeth backed by a jaw strength that could crush armor, then she ripped backward, taking a large chunk out of the lion's throat.

The crowd gasped a second time at the viciousness, almost taken aback by the sight, especially considering the Jagaiz games were intentionally bloodless and controlled. The lion went down hard, before dissolving into a black mist that drifted away seconds later. Bakura winced fleetingly at the energy drain caused by the creature's 'death', but he'd been prepared for it and straightened after only a few seconds.

"How about a change of pace," he drawled, and in the place of the lion, appeared... a comically small and adorable blue feline, so much so that the audience alternately uttered delighted noises, and sounds of alarm as it faced down Valdis' hound form by barely reaching her ankle.

"Not all monsters are good for brute strength," he added, even as the Kitty's special effect kicked in: as there was another 'Beast' type on the field, Valdis herself, the Kitty became literally unattackable, overriding whatever conscious decision she wanted to make to the contrary.

Valdis shook herself as the lion dissolved into black mist, then her head dropped so it was even with her shoulders and her lips curled back in a wolfish grin.

Bring it on.

But the next summon caused her to take a step back. The small cat reminded her slightly of Anani and her hackles rose at the sound of the crowd, they wouldn't like it if she attacked the small creature, this kind of battle was new to them and despite her explanation of how it worked...

Her head lifted with her ears upright, and she took another step away from the small feline, uncertain how to approach it. An ear flicked back and she tucked her tail in, not understanding why she couldn't just attack the summon monster. Then another step, shaking her head, trying to clear it. She closed her eyes and sneezed, unable to wrap her mind around the thought of killing the animal.

"What's the matter, khapshemet?" Bakura called over the noise of the crowd, feigning surprise at Valdis' sudden hesitation, as if he didn't know what had caused it; like any good showman, he was playing for the crowd.

"Did you suddenly lose your motivation?"

Opening her eyes, Valdis growled and directed her gaze away from the small cat, settling it on Bakura. She flattened her ears back against her large head as the urge to attack returned, but when she looked back at the cat, the hesitation returned. Another glance at Bakura, then, with a flick of her tail, she charged, not at the cat, but at the white haired man, being certain to go slowly enough to give both him and herself time to react. It was a show after all.

Given that he knew Valdis couldn't attack the kitten directly, Bakura had anticipated this as a possibility, and prepared for it. "Reveal Trap," he called, and a heavily armored and caped figure appeared, forcing her to stop her charge.

"Now you get to choose," he said. "And you'll get to face the result. Which will you pick: one, two, or three?"

Valdis slid to a stop just short of hitting the strange caped summon thing and spun around leaping away to put a bit of distance between herself and Bakura's trap. Her hackles settled and she sat down, hiding every ounce of annoyance that she currently felt for Bakura's type of fighting. This Duel Monster's thing was all fine and dandy, it was the damned traps and spells that made it difficult.

Three.

"Three," Bakura echoed, and a whirl of shadow coalesced on the 'field' between them. "Then it seems you'll get to meet the Patrician of Darkness even sooner than expected," he announced, as the duke-like creature stepped out of the portal. "And his ability allows me to choose whom your target will be-- and it won't be him, and it certainly won't be me."

With Patrician in play, Bakura could direct any of Valdis' attacks toward the Kitty, which its own ability prevented her from attacking, leaving her in a perpetual loop, unless she could find a way to outsmart it.

Valdis eyed the new monster and huffed at Bakura, her ears flattening against her skull and her lips curling back. She couldn't attack anyone now, not Bakura, not this Patrician, or the small cat, much as she wanted to attack the cat. She slowly got to her feet, hackles rising, fighting the hesitation even as she held back the Void's interference, she didn't need the Parasite's help and there were rules even it would have to follow when it came to Bakura's game.

She shook her head to clear it, trying to think about anything but attacking and being unable to attack that darn cat. Her eyes locked on her sword, still sticking out of the ground, she wasn't sure why she couldn't attack the kitty, but perhaps another shift could change her point of view. She leaped for the blade and it exploded with blinding light as she shifted to take it in her hand. Armor flowed over her skin, carrying its own radiance for several seconds before the light faded and it looked like nothing more than normal armor.

"Shall we dance?" She asked with a smile, spinning Revelations around in her hand, finally able to think clearly again.

Valdis was furious. She had known that the gangs would be difficult to bring to heel, but she hadn’t thought that they would flex their muscles in such a way. In particular, she was unhappy with the gang from the fire sector, but she had assembled the majority of her force for a briefing.

“I would like to remind you all that we currently lack the authority to make arrests, especially in the manner in which a few of them have been made. We are not the Snakes and acting like them will only bring resentment. There is no justice system in place, nothing we can legally enforce. Helping people is one thing, but hurting them is another.”

She sounded incredibly calm and collected, two millennia of practicing the art of deception was quite helpful in such circumstances.

“If you cannot follow the rules yourself, how can you expect to enforce them?”

She waved a hand, dismissing the crowd, ignoring the few grumbles that rose, pretending that she couldn’t hear them. Not all the gangs knew that she had enhanced senses and she saw no reason to let them know now. The crowd dispersed and she headed to her office, shutting the door behind her. She sat in the chair behind the desk, placing her head in her hands and taking a deep breath. The simmering rage tried to come forward, but she pushed it back, with no small difficulty. She looked up at the sound of a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

Edited 2016-06-10 17:13 (UTC)

Welp. It had probably been inevitable that they would have a rocky start; this was part of why she had wanted to have a government in place first. But that hadn't been terribly feasible, and in any case they all are going to need to learn together to do this. There's some training that needs to be done here.

And more than that, they also need more support and more oversight - for both the police and for developing a government. After Valdis finished addressing everyone, Pepper went to the office she's claimed for her own and knocked quietly.

"Hey," she said quietly, closing the door behind her after she entered. "Rough start, huh. That was a good speech, by the way."

Mag just missed Pepper on her way to see Valdis. She knocked gently and entered. She stepped very lightly for something built as heavily and solidly as Mag was; her way of walking betrayed her obvious martial skill. Were Valdis to use her soul vision, she'd find Mag to be... complicated, at least.

A soul, but not one that fully existed inside of its body. And it was a soul that was... tainted. Poisoned.

"Excuse me," Mag said, bowing lightly. Her voice emanated from her body rather than any particular speaker or mouth. Her face was a maelstrom of energy. "I'm led to believe you're the one to talk to about volunteering for the police force."

It had been her conversation with Sanzo concerning the strange child that had sparked the idea in her mind. The Ritual Chamber beneath the Palace hadn't been properly investigated and since it had been tied to both Malicant and Tu Vishan, it had to be the center of whatever had been done to the turtle. Definitely worth investigating. But she had allowed this revelations to remain dormant until she had a better handle on her forces. Now, however, she realized that the interim Police Chief couldn't just open a door sealed by the heads of the families without some sort of permission.

Now she was in the lobby of Stark Industries, waiting for an audience with Xuiyu to discuss the matter. The woman was a potential and powerful ally, quick witted and sharp minded, dedicated to her people...if anyone would make a good leader, it was probably Xuiyu, though Valdis had no intention of saying that out loud.

One thing Xuiyu regretted about removing Zanru from office, aside from the fact that it required essentially betraying her cousin for the good of the family, was that taking over meant she had a hell of a lot more meetings and paperwork. She was an engineer. She was meant to be engineering.

Instead, there was politics.

Fuck that crap.

When Xuiyu sent for Valdis, she would be found in an office off the main hall--not the one at the top of the tower--and cluttered with tools, materials, junk and a jars of console goo against the wall. Xuiyu herself was using a thick red pen to a sheaf of pages, and using it liberally.

"Take a seat," she said to Valdis, motioning toward a stool by the counter near the goo. (Xuiyu herself was sitting on the desk at the front, the one covered in pages, with her legs swinging.)

It was anything but formal, though perhaps that was refreshing after all her interactions with Yunxu, though the cobra was a bit more fun to play with than Xuiyu. Her gaze drifted around the room as she debated whether or not to actually take a seat. The internal debate didn't last long. Valdis moved to the indicated stool and sat down, facing Xuiyu with her legs crossed and placing one elbow on the counter, ignoring the goo as she watched the woman.

"If I may get straight to the point," Her voice was soft, but not the same softness she used with others, more one of respect, "I have a request to make of you."

"So hop on that, then," said Xuiyu comfortably with a swipe of her pen on the page. She muttered mostly under her breath, "That's not how energy transference works, you idiot," and made another swipe.

Then she looked up, cocking an eyebrow. "Does this request have to do with the police force, Milyn's investigation, those spiffy notes you gave me, or that pretty gun you loaned me a few months back?"

Hey, she kept her options open.

"None of the above," she replied, "Though I would like my gun back soon. This is about waking the Turtle." She paused, "It has come to my attention that we don't actually know what Malicant did to him and if we knew what he did, then we might be able to counter it."

Another pause, this one a bit longer as she thought about how to proceed.

"If I can get into the sealed chambers beneath where the Palace used to be, I might be able to figure out what happened."

Without missing a beat Xuiyu used her foot to pull out a desk-drawer under it in one smooth motion, so it thudded to the floor and slid up to Valdis's feet. Inside was a lockbox whose key Xuiyu tossed over too.

"Figured you lot were all over those chambers when the Palace was abandoned," she observed. "Didn't take notes?"

Valdis caught the key tossed in her direction, not bothering to hide her surprise at the ease with which she had seemingly achieved her goal.

"I wasn't exactly allowed to stay in this particular room long enough to examine it closely." She admitted, leaning down to pick up the box and then straightening to set it carefully on the counter near the goo. Dante had made her leave, and she wondered if it had been the taint or the Void that had her to lose it that particular time, but Valdis was confident that it wouldn't happen again.

Xuiyu grinned at Valdis's obvious surprise, but didn't bring it up. Especially in light of the second part, which made the grin fade. "Yeah? There a reason for that? Because having a Foreigner rampage with the essence of the nightmare isn't my idea of a good time. If anything goes wrong, it's not on you, it's on me. So what kind of security can you give me that that won't happen?"

"Malicant's taint," she replied, "but it died when he did, and I'm certain you've at least heard about my sword."

Revelations wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

"Heard something about a glowing pigsticker," Xuiyu said. "You think it can hold back the nightmare, or what's left of it?" She lifted an eyebrow. "Which is still really only your word and not security."

"That sword helped defeat Malicant." Or at least the Dreaming version of it had. "But I'm not going alone, I plan on asking Raine Sage to accompany me, among others. Her knowledge will be quite helpful and her light magic is second to none."

"Heard of Raine." Everyone had heard of Raine. She was one of the few Foreigners a majority of kedan trusted. "I thought she was a healer, though. She's got magic that opposes--a nightmare?"

Xuiyu had been into those dungeons. Nightmare was about the only thing which summed up what was down there. "What are you looking for?"

"Yes, it has something to do with elements and mana and a few other things that I don't entirely understand, but she does, and that's what is important."

As for the dungeons.

"Malicant did something down there, some sort of Ritual that hurt Tu Vishan. I want to know what he did, and there is a girl who can help me see what happened from a safe distance."

In other words, not on the soul plane.

For a little while there's thoughtful silence, while Xuiyu drums her fingers on the desk. Raine's good people for most of the kedan, even as a Foreigner, and there were things down there that the kedan didn't understand.

"I want everything you find out," she said at last. "Whatever Malicant did--I want to know what it is, so we can stop it happening again, if we have to, without the help of Foreigners."

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[Open] I Could See Into the Soul of Every Passerby

Open | Night at the Palace Gardens | CW: None

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Open | The Dojo | CW: None

Bakura | The Special Jagaiz Ring | CW: Fighting

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Open | Police Headquarters | CW: None

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Xuiyu | Stark Industries | CW: Plot

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