genessia | [Video]

Entry tags:

[Video]

[Yang's serious face flashes onto the screen, her arms loosely folded over her chest. One hand comes up to gesture as she begins.]

So I'm just going to get straight to the point for this: I need some sparring partners. And I don't just mean people who are good at punching and kicking, I mean someone who can test me and push my limits.

[She shakes her head with a small frown.]

I just... I need to be better. More controlled, more thoughtful. So whatever you're good at, weaponry, magic, super powers -- I'm interested. Maybe I'll give you a run for your money too.

...And if you're any good at dealing with enchanters or illusionists, send me a private line. There's a bounty that's giving me more trouble than he's worth, and I could use some tips, or back-up.

[Not something she likes admitting, especially for a one-star bounty, but that's how things stand.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It suuuuuuure is. I mean, if I did know one, I wouldn't want to expose their abilities after they asked me not to do that.

But I don't know any, so it's not really an issue!

Lure them into a building with a sprinkler system and set them off.

[ That's the closest thing to a hint Yang is getting. Just as thanks for not outing her. She's not going to tell her why that'll be useful, but increasing the number of reflective surfaces, the number of elements within the area to deal with and account for (each droplet of water needing to fall differently around objects, dripping, the amount of water that would be pushed out of the way by a footstep, etc.) would make it easier to see what was real and what wasn't unless they're an absolute expert or they have water-based illusion abilities. ]

[Yang is quiet. It's clear she's thinking about how this could work out. Even though Fayren doesn't have any buildings with sprinkler systems, there are places where water might be used, or places with lots of snow. She could even bring a water pistol, Etshan definitely won't be expecting that.]

[But even if she can't back Etshan into that kind of place, it's still good advice in general if she has to fight any other opponents that can deceive her eyes. Including Emerald herself. So admitting that kind of advice takes a lot of guts and trust. Yang grins.]

Thanks! Never had to pay too much attention to my environment before, this is a good way to start doing that. Appreciate it, Emerald.

[ Emerald would love to see Yang bring in a water pistol and get her ass kicked for ignoring that the idea was to overwhelm the illusion with stimuli the user couldn't control, not just spray them with a little water. It would make her so happy. But...

Trust isn't the right word, but she has decided that she is loyal to Mercury. Which means if Mercury trusts her, she's not going to let her get killed when she can help. ]

So you know, I've had too much practice for you to get away with something like that with me.

Hopefully that won't be the case with this guy too.

[She folds her arms, shifting her weight to one hip.]

Besides, I wasn't really expecting you and me to get into a fight any time soon.

It probably isn't. Mine is a little different than magic anyway.

[ Though she would be trying to learn magic a little later from a talking skeleton. She's not sure how that would go, but it would be nice to be able to do things on occasion without a headache or getting cornered if there were too many people to use it defensively. ]

I'm sure you also noticed the other easy way to stop anyone from doing much when we fought Mr. Black.

[ She's not referring to Mercury, but she doesn't know really how much Yang knows about what happened there, so it's better to just say it that way. Still- bashing someone's head against something does the job against most powers. ]

[Yang doesn't try to hide her grimace, a phantom tingle on her right shoulder prickling up into her brain.]

Y...e...a...h... Yeah, that was effective, I guess. Brutal, though. I was afraid he'd killed you.

[She'd checked her pulse and everything to make sure.]

Just a concussion and a scar. I've got a tough head. It's effective though, even in our world- if you can't think straight, you can't activate your aura. If you can sneak up on your guy just punch him in the back of the head and avoid the fight altogether.

[ Not that she and Merc usually did that- they liked to play. But it was one way to solve things. ]

True!

[And she kind of doubts Emerald would appreciate it if Yang told her that having a thick skull was something they had in common. She'll keep that to herself and just grin.]

Well thanks for the tips. You want me to pick up any souvenirs in Fayren while I'm out there?

I go there all the time. I have this like... it's not really a business, but people pay me to bring stuff from one archway to the other.

But if the bounty has anything cool and you can sneak it out of evidence before you turn him over I'll take it.

Whaaaaaaat? I'd never do something so illegal, I'm dating a cop!

But who knows, maybe I'll punch him so hard he'll drop something interesting.

[Fayren justice is more based on how much the king doesn't like you than evidence anyway, right? It's probably fine.]

I'm kinda surprised, though. Everyone seemed like they were super interested in 'preserving the culture' of the other cities and stuff. I mean, you're probably moving technology from Nova, and not those weird little wrapped cream-filled sponge cake things in Attleton, I'm guessing.

You know I have to tell him you said that and it's going to break him a little bit.

[ Calling Mercury a cop.. you're breaking their hearts. ]

Sometimes. A lot of times, it's restaurants. Fayren has better fish than anywhere else because the waters are clean. Grell's lingerie store likes to ship to anywhere. Most of Nova's tech needs a power source they haven't developed in Fayren, so most of the high tech stuff is pretty useless there, but advanced medicine is a lot more functional and can save people's lives a lot better than leeches and magic. No offense to magic, but I still haven't seen it cure the cold, and in Fayren especially there's that Chimera Infection that caused a panic since it's basically a cold that affects mages and makes their powers go haywire. Attleton's got a great farmer's market, so again with the restaurants...

[ There's a brief pause. ] Everglade's got stuff for dealing with the spirits that break through too, so those are hot items.

Pfft! If he can handle the roomie nicknaming him Robocop, he'll heal in time.

[She listens with more interest than she expected, though. Maybe she's been dealing with Remnant stuff for too long, what with chasing after her absentee mother through all the shady clubs, then Torchwick and the White Fang, because she didn't even consider the fact that things could really be so normal. It also serves to remind her just how much she's missed during her own absence, and how much she doesn't know.]

Huh. Never considered that kinda stuff. ...The spirits breaking in, is that frequent?

Yeah, and with the WaysPoints it makes travel not as bad so I don't have to charge that much unless it's something hard to get or they don't want me asking questions. But no one else was doing it, so I figured it was something I could handle, and I've only had to kill people once over it. [ She quickly adds, before Yang goes jumping to conclusions: ] In self-defense, and I called the Guardian over it right away and he cleared me. Attleton's mafia had dissent issues a while back and I got caught in the middle of it. On the bright side, the Don really likes me now.

[ It's one of the reasons that she thought she could handle Attleton when she thought Cassian wasn't going to run for a minute. She backed down from that when he did, but it was something she could've definitely worked with- a good relationship with local organized crime would've been great for that, if in less conventional ways most people look for. ]

It's happened at least three times. Normal weapons won't keep them down permanently, just make them disappear for a while then they reform. I had one that I think was stalking me during one of the breaches, I saw his stupid face at least four times and he kept coming back for more. Anyway, Everglade has a lot of seals and wards that seem to affect them, and other spiritual magic supplies. The Rabbit's Foot can stay in business for the rest of that old man's life just because of those breaches.

[Yang shrugs a little to show she's not worried. She's not exactly the law-abiding teammate to begin with. Besides, she'd be a hypocrite since she and Mercury had to kill the first bounty she took on. As long as Emerald isn't going around murdering people for giggles, and she also doubts she ever went as dark as Mercury did. Tolerated it, maybe.]faces? Creepy.

[She looks to the side, thoughtful for a moment. Looks like she'd better pay a visit to Everglade.]

Wouldn't want to get caught unprepared, so I guess I'll add to his retirement fund before I head to the Docks. Might as well pick up something for Mikaela and Gwen too.

[ There's a lot of stuff she's done and maybe she doesn't revel in the killing as much as Mercury might, but she certainly doesn't shy away from it- nor being cruel while doing it. You learn to behave like those around you to fit in, after all, even if she couldn't stomach the fall of Beacon as well as the other members of her team could. ]

Wait until you see one, creepy doesn't cover the half of it.

[ Though it's nice exercise- Em doesn't really do anything useful during the breaches like be helpful, but she does take as many out as she can. It's rare to get to really have a massive fight like that anymore unless she goes looking for it. ]

Talk to Haller and Schnee, they took the rocket lockers out of Beacon before she shut that subarchway and use them to rapid-distribute weapons that can kill them instead of just seal them. There's a lot of drawbacks to using those, but you know. Options are nice.

Can't wait...

[She says it with a mumbled drawl, but she's also making plans to go to the holodecks and run some simulations so she knows what she'll be up against. So she might actually kinda sorta mean it.]

Why seal them if given the option? They're just like Grimm, right?

[Yay, go Weiss! And this is why she and Ruby usually handle the tactical side of fights while Yang handles the punching and being punched.]

Do they always come out of the same place, or does it vary each time?

Because those weapons drain you to use them, it's just not as bad as if you actually touch them so it never really causes long-term damage. From what I heard, Haller had a bunch of mages bind actual captured spirits to the weapons with strong magics of different kinds. I usually just skip them and let other people handle that.

[ In case she's wondering why Emerald fought the same one four times. She ain't messing around with that crap. ]

It varies. I don't know about the first time, but the second there was a crack in the barrier, the third the barrier flat-out went down in some areas, but the skies were so overwhelmingly full of them it was impossible to get out anyway.

Holy crap.

[Yang looks down at her hands; first the left, then the right. The latter works in and out of a fist a few times.]

I'm kinda starting to appreciate the robo-arm more and more. Otherwise I might be next to useless in a fight where you aren't supposed to touch your opponents.

[And they drain people, too.]

...Did they drain you? How does that even work, is it like...an aura draining, or your life force, or...I mean, you probably know how my semblance works already, so I'm not sure if that'll be a factor in my favor or not.

Your emotions, supposedly. I think you'd be in more trouble than most with your semblance. Though it might save you from doing something you regret after you lose them. Some people have said after they got drained they just kept trying to do things to make themselves feel again without thinking about it, like trying to hurt their loved ones because they know that should make them feel something, and just escalating from there. Then there are modified ones that really screw you up, too. One of those got me once, those ones aren't as dangerous but it's kind of like feeling like a moody psycho since anytime you touch someone you feel everything they do.

[ Which for Emerald was probably the most awful experience to date. ]

[Yang frowns down at her hands now. Her emotions have always been her greatest weakness. She should be glad to have them siphoned off, at least a little, if that means she'll have better concentration and control.]

[But she's so damn sick of hurting people she cares about. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.]

If that happens and I start going after the people I care about, you've got full permission to take me out. Or get the mob to do it, whatever. I'd rather die and reset myself than carry around the blood of my friends on my conscience.

[She doesn't have the heart to get fired up and pack her words full of conviction, it's still too soon after that whole stupid butterfly mask thing.]

How long did that last?

It's not a timed thing, you have to fix it or it stays that way. Taking you out will do the trick, but you can also just drag someone to the Bay and share. [ She pauses, then almost begrudgingly: ] There's a third way, but it's really vague and a pain and I don't want to risk him being stupid enough it doesn't work so I'll drag you to the Bay if you get caught. Just text me if there's an emergency or you don't think you'll make it out.

Wait wait...share what? You mean drain someone else's emotions and split the difference?

[She turns her head to look at the screen askance.]

...And what's the third way?

Basically. That one does work, that's how I fixed mine.

[ She didn't.. tell Jaune that's what she was doing, but she did it. ]

Gushy emotional power of love crap that I wouldn't be able to begin to tell you how to make work because it sounds fake.

[ She's pretty sure there's no way it's a real method. She'd rather rely on the first two. ]

[Oh. Oh hoho! Yang's perplexed expression slowly eases into one of glittering-eyed fascination.]

Oh no, I have to hear this!

[She was standing before, but now she's sitting with the communicator resting on the headboard, cupping her chin in her hands as she grins in eager anticipation. She's dying to know how someone who barely tolerates her thinks she can step in for Mercury if it's going to involve the power of love.]

This is all hypothetical, anyway. Go on!

[Video]

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

Re: video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private

video; private