Irony is when you've had a scene written up for a day, and before you go on to post it the guy you're jamming with posts one that also deals with damage to the narrator.
And so, appropriately enough:
*hurl*
---
*timestamp - picture of Windbloom skyline, looking up at Garderobe, through a cracked and warped lens.*
When I look back, I find the ultimate reason had been sheer bloody minded stupidity. My body may have been biological - 'human' would be stretching it - but it had a few quirks ... well, a lot of quirks.
The Absolute Territory Field being one. At the barest of basics, you were mucking with localized Reality through the use of that which defined your Self. Not that I was _that_ good at it. I could manage a fair number of useful effects, more after the part of me which met him/her had practiced with Gabriel, but they were by no means what you'd call world shaking.
Still, the Field adapted, and I really couldn't go and outright say that there was something you _couldn't_ do with it. Unfortunately, even a barest scratch at 'anything' was far beyond me, due to both my relatively novice level of skill, and ... well, let's just say that the output of an S2 organ relied on its size, and there wasn't a whole lot of surplus space in the human body which had already had its insides remodeled by the presence of an Angel Core.
I'd also neglected to take into account one point, which was made abundantly clear to me. AT Fields messed with Reality. The _other_ way around also worked.
Over the past few months I'd been tuning my own Field signature to try and detect Otome Robe and, by extension, Slave Materialization. Be it technology or ritual that was used, it caused ripples in the grand fabric of things. Ones I'd been able to feel, to some extent, when I was close enough to the source.
I tried to refine that.
Which was what led me to suddenly and unexpectedly keeling over, slamming onto the top of my coffee table - considering I still liked the stuff as much as I had a long time ago in a galaxy ... well, you get the idea - and ... well, the next few ... somethings were chock full of ...
Pure.
Debiliating.
Pain.
Then I woke up.
I woke up, face down.
I woke up, face down, in a pile of something red.
I woke up, face down, in a pile of something red and wet.
This took a moment to penetrate my somewhat confused brain - you understand, I wasn't exactly a hundred percent there and then - but the realization was briefly and brutally interrupted by someone slamming a jackhammer's point into my skull.
"BWAGHASLAashbasfhthtthah," and the blur of light and noise resolved into Ren, standing some five meters away, saying something. I'd managed to lift my head. "... boss! Holy fuck, what happened?! Scratch that! Somebody call a medic!"
I tasted copper, and looked down to see the pile of red stuff had been papers I'd had on and _in_ my desk, liberally coated in someone's blood.
I blinked. Something dripped from the corner of my eye. It splattered on a still partially white page, a single crimson drop.
Oh.
My mind finally caught up with another fact. I was in the office. The office was a floor down from my apartment. Knowing that this wouldn't be the smartest thing I could do, I rolled to the side. Looked up.
And up.
And up.
It took me another moment to realize that, no, there was no way my office could have a skylight. Much less one that made up nearly the entirety of the ceiling.
I was going to have to get a new place, because there was now a huge friggin' _hole_ where it used to be.
I sighed ... or rather, coughed. Predictably, it was a wet, messy, hacking cough. I think I threw up.
This, unexpectedly, cleared my head. Or maybe my Core's natural response just kicked in and started fixing stuff. My head stopped ringing, anyway, and I think I stopped bleeding, though I'd have to actually wash up to find out.
"You mind getting me a towel?" I asked, startling the newly arrived resident medico into momentary stasis.
It took several reassurances to convince him, and a few more to convince Ren, that I wasn't about to collapse and die anytime soon. Which, considering the extent of the damage ... did I mention that I'd somehow managed to _blow up_ the whole top floor of the building?
I had a fair idea about how I'd done it, too. Or a theory, at least. It came into being at about the time Ren mentioned that they'd heard a shrill, jarring sound that seemed to come from the direction of the Royal Palace, and a moment later the building shook.
_Something_ had managed to jar my AT Field strongly enough to have it react, and do so violently and erratically, like a body suddenly touching a live wire. Same something to make that sound, I guessed.
Great. Even better, the results were damn obviously more than the cracked windows some of the places around the office had come away with.
It would take a lot of creative handwaving to get that explained away. Handwaving which I was less than able to do right now.
After I'd had some time to clean up and realign my Self from its currently still slightly off-kilter state, maybe. There was a bad taste in my brain, and it wasn't just blood.
This event also had one reprecussion that wasn't immediately obvious. It made me focus too much on trying to find out what the hell had just happened, and too little on day-to-day events. Making me wave over the newly arrived message from Aries, in which Yukino Chrysant had asked the company to keep an eye on one, Shizuru Viola, and hand the task over to Ren without a second glance.
Why Yukino and, by extension, Haruka, had wanted that done would not trouble me. Would not make me look underneath the underneath. Would not cause me to investigate. It _would_ leave me gobsmacked, with my jaw flapping in the wind, at a later date, though.
Still, that would come later.
There and then, I was more concerned with getting a repair crew contracted, and finding a place to sleep for the night. Among other things.
---
Sweno: I know. I'm waiting for a moment when he's going through the desert for one reason or another, on a longer trek, for him to find out about that. As much as he tries to be, he's not omniscient.
Also, Nate, good one! I'm looking forward to seeing more of your Shizuru. I'm pretty sure a lot of her fanboys are going to be mildly put off with what I do to her in my story, if not bloody furious. Likewise, with her Natsuki.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
And so, appropriately enough:
*hurl*
---
*timestamp - picture of Windbloom skyline, looking up at Garderobe, through a cracked and warped lens.*
When I look back, I find the ultimate reason had been sheer bloody minded stupidity. My body may have been biological - 'human' would be stretching it - but it had a few quirks ... well, a lot of quirks.
The Absolute Territory Field being one. At the barest of basics, you were mucking with localized Reality through the use of that which defined your Self. Not that I was _that_ good at it. I could manage a fair number of useful effects, more after the part of me which met him/her had practiced with Gabriel, but they were by no means what you'd call world shaking.
Still, the Field adapted, and I really couldn't go and outright say that there was something you _couldn't_ do with it. Unfortunately, even a barest scratch at 'anything' was far beyond me, due to both my relatively novice level of skill, and ... well, let's just say that the output of an S2 organ relied on its size, and there wasn't a whole lot of surplus space in the human body which had already had its insides remodeled by the presence of an Angel Core.
I'd also neglected to take into account one point, which was made abundantly clear to me. AT Fields messed with Reality. The _other_ way around also worked.
Over the past few months I'd been tuning my own Field signature to try and detect Otome Robe and, by extension, Slave Materialization. Be it technology or ritual that was used, it caused ripples in the grand fabric of things. Ones I'd been able to feel, to some extent, when I was close enough to the source.
I tried to refine that.
Which was what led me to suddenly and unexpectedly keeling over, slamming onto the top of my coffee table - considering I still liked the stuff as much as I had a long time ago in a galaxy ... well, you get the idea - and ... well, the next few ... somethings were chock full of ...
Pure.
Debiliating.
Pain.
Then I woke up.
I woke up, face down.
I woke up, face down, in a pile of something red.
I woke up, face down, in a pile of something red and wet.
This took a moment to penetrate my somewhat confused brain - you understand, I wasn't exactly a hundred percent there and then - but the realization was briefly and brutally interrupted by someone slamming a jackhammer's point into my skull.
"BWAGHASLAashbasfhthtthah," and the blur of light and noise resolved into Ren, standing some five meters away, saying something. I'd managed to lift my head. "... boss! Holy fuck, what happened?! Scratch that! Somebody call a medic!"
I tasted copper, and looked down to see the pile of red stuff had been papers I'd had on and _in_ my desk, liberally coated in someone's blood.
I blinked. Something dripped from the corner of my eye. It splattered on a still partially white page, a single crimson drop.
Oh.
My mind finally caught up with another fact. I was in the office. The office was a floor down from my apartment. Knowing that this wouldn't be the smartest thing I could do, I rolled to the side. Looked up.
And up.
And up.
It took me another moment to realize that, no, there was no way my office could have a skylight. Much less one that made up nearly the entirety of the ceiling.
I was going to have to get a new place, because there was now a huge friggin' _hole_ where it used to be.
I sighed ... or rather, coughed. Predictably, it was a wet, messy, hacking cough. I think I threw up.
This, unexpectedly, cleared my head. Or maybe my Core's natural response just kicked in and started fixing stuff. My head stopped ringing, anyway, and I think I stopped bleeding, though I'd have to actually wash up to find out.
"You mind getting me a towel?" I asked, startling the newly arrived resident medico into momentary stasis.
It took several reassurances to convince him, and a few more to convince Ren, that I wasn't about to collapse and die anytime soon. Which, considering the extent of the damage ... did I mention that I'd somehow managed to _blow up_ the whole top floor of the building?
I had a fair idea about how I'd done it, too. Or a theory, at least. It came into being at about the time Ren mentioned that they'd heard a shrill, jarring sound that seemed to come from the direction of the Royal Palace, and a moment later the building shook.
_Something_ had managed to jar my AT Field strongly enough to have it react, and do so violently and erratically, like a body suddenly touching a live wire. Same something to make that sound, I guessed.
Great. Even better, the results were damn obviously more than the cracked windows some of the places around the office had come away with.
It would take a lot of creative handwaving to get that explained away. Handwaving which I was less than able to do right now.
After I'd had some time to clean up and realign my Self from its currently still slightly off-kilter state, maybe. There was a bad taste in my brain, and it wasn't just blood.
This event also had one reprecussion that wasn't immediately obvious. It made me focus too much on trying to find out what the hell had just happened, and too little on day-to-day events. Making me wave over the newly arrived message from Aries, in which Yukino Chrysant had asked the company to keep an eye on one, Shizuru Viola, and hand the task over to Ren without a second glance.
Why Yukino and, by extension, Haruka, had wanted that done would not trouble me. Would not make me look underneath the underneath. Would not cause me to investigate. It _would_ leave me gobsmacked, with my jaw flapping in the wind, at a later date, though.
Still, that would come later.
There and then, I was more concerned with getting a repair crew contracted, and finding a place to sleep for the night. Among other things.
---
Sweno: I know. I'm waiting for a moment when he's going through the desert for one reason or another, on a longer trek, for him to find out about that. As much as he tries to be, he's not omniscient.
Also, Nate, good one! I'm looking forward to seeing more of your Shizuru. I'm pretty sure a lot of her fanboys are going to be mildly put off with what I do to her in my story, if not bloody furious. Likewise, with her Natsuki.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm