inventrix: (soul-eater leo)
They strolled through the halls, Disguised as nondescript maintenance workers while Leo murmured Workings; shifting suspicion to disinterest, bending light away from the security cameras.

They were finally in the last climb of the current arc and it was putting Leo on edge. It'd been building for weeks, starting from a small gang's sudden rise in the local criminal underground and following from there along a chain of suspicious people and businesses - of intrigue, power-hungry corruption, and an illegitimate flow of funds leading, finally, to here.

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inventrix: (kenshin leo)
Luke was back at Addergoole. Just for a couple of days, so far, but it was the official mark of his advisorial role being temporarily over. Leo had mined him for all the thoughts and information he could, before Luke had to leave - not because he needed it, but because it was stupid to waste valuable resources. Even if they weren't in this case his resources, exactly.

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inventrix: (Default)
A snippet of conversation relevant to the recent RP Lyn and I are in the middle of.

Lyn, you may or may not want to wait to read until after Cya and Leo talk. ;)



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inventrix: (Default)
It took two weeks of it - of Belonging to Leofric Lightning-Blade, of living in his house in Cloverleaf - before Jeska finally couldn't take it anymore.

"Sir?" They were in the living room, with his owner watching what he'd explained to Jeska as "anime" on the "television" while Jeska sat nearby and, usually, stayed quiet.

"Yes, Jeska?" The blond man looked over, seeming mildly but genuinely interested.

"Sir." Jeska took a deep breath and tried to keep his ears from tilting back in nerves. "What am I doing here?"

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inventrix: (kenshin leo)
Part 1
Part 2


"You can move now."

Jeska bolted upright, gasping for air as he pushed down the surge of panic. He'd felt the injuries healing and the perpetual dull aches from old injuries come back, so he knew his new owner had to be near, but that was right in his ear and there was nobody-- oh.

"Easy now, you're okay." The blond halfbreed suddenly appeared next to him, sight, smells and all, and put a hand on his shoulder. It was surprisingly warm and pleasant; Jeska wouldn't have dared pull away from his owner anyway, but he found himself not wanting to, which was... new.

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inventrix: (kenshin leo)
previous

this is turning into a bloody saga


Leofric sat, waiting and watching, and the only thing keeping him from pacing nervously - or worse, charging the camp single-handedly - were decades of martial self-discipline. He'd sat down, worked out the whole plan in advance, made absolutely sure it would work, and yet... And yet. The younger man - Jeska, he'd said - was his, now; Leo was responsible for him. And he'd just sent him back into a pack of Nedetakaei, to get himself grabbed by a wild monster and hauled off.

It wouldn't be that bad, Leo reassured himself for the dozenth time. He'd turned off his new Kept's ability to feel pain, for the moment, and he'd heal him as soon as the others were sufficiently convinced he'd been killed, but it was still... uncomfortable.

He was never, ever, going to tell Cya how he'd done this.

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inventrix: (kenshin leo)
The woods were quiet as Jeska sat in his hiding spot, waiting. He was responsible for getting food for dinner that night, and to that end he'd been camping out waiting for something to pass by. His hiding place had the bonus of being out of the way of the rest of the pack, giving him a few precious hours to himself. And those few hours would be even more valuable if he kept having so little luck. There'd been a deer, but something had startled it just as he'd taken the shot and he hadn't even wounded the damn thing.

Just as he was thinking it might be best to cut his losses and head back to camp, there was a whisper of a presence behind him - and before his hand could reach the hilt of his knife, let alone he could turn around, there was a press of sharp, cold steel against his throat.

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inventrix: (Default)
Not that Kouveig would ever admit it where his oldest brother could hear, but plants were boring. Yeah, sure, it was useful - for eating, houses, not getting killed, blah blah - but the actual plants? They just sat there. ...Unless you made them do something.

He glanced surreptitiously around the rest of the class; they were all paying attention to the lesson and their assigned plant. Schooling his expression to one of studious concentration, he muttered a Working.

The biggest tree in the greenhouse bent over, waving its branches gently in a slow-motion macarena.
inventrix: (Default)
Another teleporter from Addergoole. Number six in the Air event.

Calcifer Stein scanned over the Games roster for the student in question and put a perfectly innocent asterisk next to her name. Nobody would question it; even knowing whose copy it was, no one would suspect anything of it. And the roster, it had the names of the students, their Mentors, and their year. Enough information to easily find them, later.

This one would be graduating at the end of next year. Calcifer considered the timing carefully. She probably already had her two children for her school and, as past experience has proved, the female Addergoole graduates were rarely willing to have another child, let alone sign them away to another project in any capacity. Which left the theft of genetic material as the only option.

Calcifer sighed, chewing absently at the end of a pen cap. It was a tricky option, legally speaking. What with the Law regarding maternal rights, the material had to be donated willingly. The only loophole that had worked in the past was that full disclosure was not necessary...

Berena. Berena would make a good surrogate. She liked children, she was always thrilled to assist her former Mentor, and she was excellent at persuasion and prevarication. Motherhood would make her effectively useless for any other projects or experiments for a few years, but with Wells as the genetic father again...

One more generation. One step closer to opening a gate to Elleheim.
inventrix: (leo by djinni)
"But then why did she give him to Professor Inazuma?"

The Unofficial Shipper's Club of Doomsday Academy were gathered on the lawn outside the dorms, trying to make sense of the most recent, completely unanticipated developments in one of the most hotly contested 'ships of the school.

"Maybe she was regifting him or something?"

Principal Doomsday, it was known both throughout the school and most of the city of Cloverleaf, Kept a new boy ("young man") every year. He was usually an Addergoole graduate, which most of the school and very little of the city knew. And all but the most unobservant noticed they always fit one of two types: tall and blonde with horns or antlers, or small and dark-haired.

"He was one of the blonde ones!"

The Unofficial Shipper's Club kept a meticulous tally of which was which. When she came back with a blonde one, the Red Lightning faction cheered; a brunet, the Doomsday Law faction looked smug. When she'd come back with the latest - a blonde with a crown of horns - Red Lightning had gleefully marked down a third in a row for their side, and Doomsday Law had sulked.

"Maybe she's tired of blonde."

"No, no, she's got a new boy now and he's blonde too."

The third consistent feature of Cya Red Doomsday's habits was that she always released the boy at the end of the school year, shortly before going and getting a new one. Never sooner; never later.

"Leo-sensei doesn't even want to Keep anyone again. He said so himself!"

Except this year. This year, she'd handed him over to Professor Inazuma. Leofric Lightning-Blade. One half of the 'ship that this year's Kept was supposed to be supporting.

"I guess he changed his mind...?"

"Forget about why; what does it mean?"

The Unofficial Shipper's Club stared at their charts, both halves completely at a loss.
inventrix: (Default)
Cya was happier. Every time Leo had started wondering what the hell he'd been thinking, he reminded himself of that: not dealing with Apollo had made a visible difference in her. That's why he volunteered to take Apollo off her hands, and it'd worked. Having to live with a confused and still resentful teenage Kept for ten months was a small price to pay for helping Cya.

Leo sighed, resisting the urge to put his head down on his desk as the first few students for his last class started wandering in. He'd known the kid was going to be a pain. He'd known he was reckless and stupid and full of himself in that way his fellow cy'Luca graduates specialized in.

He hadn't realized how little Apollo knew. The only things Addergoole'd taught him were from his Keeper (whoever she'd been). Leo'd disagreed when Luke said he'd "failed" Apollo when he'd come by to check on him, but now... Well, he was feeling a lot less sure about that.

Not that he was complaining about the situation. Leo flipped through his notebooks, looking for the one with today's lesson. Apollo wasn't outright rebelling or anything. He hadn't trashed the house or tried to run away or refused to come home or started sabotaging things or... well, Leo could think of a lot of ways to be a deliberately bad Kept, and so far Apollo hadn't done any of them. And it was nice having someone around the house besides Sayuri (his cat). Even if that someone was still too annoyed about the situation to be much good for conversation.

It had only been a week. Apollo'd been months with Cya before he started even trying to cooperate; he wasn't going to get used to being Kept by Leo in just one week. Leo could give him at least a month for things to settle down; maybe even two. The last thing he wanted to do at this point was make Apollo hate being Kept even more than--

The sound of a throat clearing caught his attention and he looked at the door. To his surprise, a young woman with metallic flower-like patterns on her skin and wearing the city guard uniform was standing there at attention. Frowning, Leo stood and gestured for her to come over, searching his memory for her name.

"Sondra, right? What's going on? Did something happen?" He kept his voice low, though the students had probably already started rumors about this...

"Not to the city, sir. I recognized him from your description," she added, just barely loud enough for him to make out. "Says his name's Apollo. We're holding him at the hospital until you get there."

The hospital.

He nodded curtly. "Thank you. I'll be there shortly; I need to let sa'Doomsday know."

"Glad to help, sa'Lightning-Blade." Sondra inclined her head and left.

Leo's jaw clenched and he flipped the notebook back shut. So much for giving the kid a generous adjustment period. Now, now he was annoyed.

--------

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inventrix: (ruki glare)
It was an entire week before Corentin finally said something.

"You know," he said in a low voice as they stopped for lunch, "there's some--"

"Yes." Sigruko cut him off before he could finish the sentence. "I noticed."

Corentin sighed. "I know you did."

Sigruko had known Corentin for years now - decades, really - and that tone in particular was one she knew very well. (Better than she would've liked.) Holding back an echoing sigh of her own, she looked over at him. "All right, what is it then?"

"Are you really going to just let him trail after you like this?" Neither of them looked back; the boy following them was good enough that they wouldn't see anything, and they knew it. "It's dangerous."

"I'm sure he knows that." Sigruko looked thoughtfully at her friend. "What are you thinking, Cory?"

"Well." He hesitated, now that she'd forced him into the topic, like he usually did. "I was thinking, if we can't convince him to go home--"

"Unlikely." The corner of her mouth twitched up into a smile. "He's stuck with us this far."

"Yeah. And trying to lose him is too dangerous, so why not let him join us?"

Sigruko raised an eyebrow. "Because that's not dangerous at all."

"It's less dangerous than trying to follow us through the wilds alone," Corentin pointed out, a little acerbically. "At least that way we could keep him from getting killed. Maybe even teach him something."

Sigruko blinked in surprise. "You mean take him as an apprentice? ...a Student?"

"Well... something like that."

Sigruko thoughtfully pulled out a piece of bread and chewed on it. Her father had taken up being a Mentor; she could certainly handle having one Student. Or student, if the boy wasn't Ellehemaei after all.

It was an interesting idea.

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