Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Aug 22, 2022 23:19:38 GMT -5
Janus was sitting behind the bar at her little hotel as other versions of herself were moving around the place doing various chores. Her black robed self came out of the back with fresh linens as her blue mage self was cleaning the four tables in the bar area. There was a smell coming from where the cyclops was dancing to music being played by the fullbard and cooking something that vaguely smelled of citrus and mint. The normal Janus, that seemed more real, and easier to look at than the odd phantom potentials of the future was watching a football game and complaining loudly in multiple languages every time any of the woman took a dive.
Her divination, a future sight limited to a few hours with nothing around, to mere seconds of basically being able to do no more than react fast enough to look really lucky or really bad ass depending on the day pinged something. Someone was going to arrive, the loss of focus, as she tried to figure out who it was led to all the potential future members of her own "army" winking out. Which, meant now there were linens on the floor, something being cooked without anyone watching it, and a spray bottle of vinegar with a rag on the table. "Oh, come on."
Janus ran to the stove and turned the pasta sauce to a simmer, then ran around the bar to grab the linens and take them in the back. Finally coming out to finish wiping down the last table as she took the bottle and rag back behind the bar and added more cheese to the pan. She looked at the game with her future sight, saw no one was going to score for about ten seconds which gave her enough time to pathwalk. The ability to follow a future forward for a limited period based on an action.
The future Janus ran out the door to see what was coming, a white robed individual that she got only a basic glimpse of before she snapped back to twenty seconds before and she looked at the door. She reached over to grab a bottle of wine, and poured some into the sauce before taking the pasta out of the boiling water next to it and mixing them together with a practiced skill. She looked at a future where she tasted it, decided it needed more cracked pepper and put some on. That way she avoided contaminating the food. She pulled out a knife and sliced up a piece of the illustrious wagu rib eye that Niji's family had sold her and plated it next to the pasta on a few plates.
Finally, she looked a the door and began counting down. Something she did to make sure that Janus was at the point in time, she thought she was. Diviners could easily get lost in the waves of potential futures and never remember where they actually were, as far as the present went. That's why most never used the gift, or ended up broken. "Two... one, go." She stated as the door opened.
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Player
Continuing to slaughter, kill, take. Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself.
nezuel
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Post by nezuel on Aug 23, 2022 13:25:51 GMT -5
There were a few thing that Janus' future sight had perhaps gotten wrong..or atleast had seen another version of. The first of which was the manner in which Nezuel's arrival was foretold. He had been flying you see, not the standard method of using reishi to propel oneself, no, but the flying backwards when his with a significant amount of force. The second was Nezuel's attire. While it could be described as a white robe it had smudges or red blood, brown dirt, and other smudges..it had seen better days. So as Nezuel flew into the building he had been trying to avoid he was rather surprised as he didn't break through the wall, window, or doorway and instead landed on his back inside. He blinked his eyes for a few second as he looked up at the woman before him.
His inaction only lasted a second as he got up quickly and looked out the door where a rather sizable amount of hollows were gathering. "Ah...pardon me miss...." he looked around for any sign of a name. "miss, it seems like I've brought some trouble to your doorstep." She couldn't have been normal, this woman. Something in him screamed at him that something was a foot, something odd. Perhaps the way the door had opened or the way she'd look at him...the riatsu in the air? It was all rather confusing so for now he should stick to something he knew, Hollows. "I'll take care of them if you'd like...unless you have a way to deal with them?"
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Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Aug 23, 2022 16:19:03 GMT -5
The name of the small place was on the bar, it was in Italian and meant "Fleeting Time". She looked over the bar and guessed that her divination was just crap like everything these days due to a complete lack of use. Though, that was a good thing, it meant that most likely, Fate would still ignore her so she was still okay with not being home.
She looked more confused than anything, staring at the half-beaten arrancar on the ground. As she did, the hollow outside were gathering and Janus, had no idea. But her future sight was taken to mere seconds. Too many people making too many decisions too fast. The actual problem with the power, though in her mind it proved that there was, in fact, free will. He mentioned something about taking care of them and she nodded.
Then, the hollow behind the building raked its claws through the entire wall, and in a loud noise of destruction it ran through the small structure and the bar that Janus had been standing behind, just to her left. She grabbed her side as blood erupted from it, and seconds after Janus had met the individual, she fell to the ground, dead. The hollow screamed from behind the wall in triumph as Janus convulsed one last time on the floor behind the now destroyed bar.
Seeing reality quiver, is not a healthy thing for anyone. Angles, that cannot exist, and waves that move outwards in dimensions that minds can not wrap their heads around cause massive mental damage to anyone who is unfortunate enough to see them.
Janus seemed to twitch, as the angles around the bar went wrong, and like a broken VHS tape on rewind, her body shuddered and began moving backwards. It moved back into place where it had been behind the bar seconds before. Nothing else was displaced, there was no evidence that time had moved at all. Janus had simply died, and got returned to before it. The hollow looked the most astounded at all as stared blankly from behind it's mask.
Janus, looked around. "MY BAR! What the Hell Man?!" She stated, and she suddenly looked very mad. "FRACK YOU!" She screamed at the hollow, and once again, angles seemed to twist as another Janus stepped out of her body, this one an arrancar, much like the man. The new Janus was slightly opaque, and looked dead set on a lot of murder.
She reached behind her for a bottle of whiskey and another Janus stepped out, this one a slightly older version of her wearing a tattered version of the cream cloak on the coat rack at the entrance, who stole the whiskey and went out the front door to inflict a lot of serious damage on a lot of asshole hollows in really violent ways.
Another Janus stepped out, this one in shinigami robes with a hollow mask, missing an arm who moved to the arrancar and offered him a hand up.
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Player
Continuing to slaughter, kill, take. Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself.
nezuel
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Post by nezuel on Aug 23, 2022 16:38:42 GMT -5
Things...were not right in where ever the hell this was. Reality seemed to be warping one way to the next and the woman in front of him, behind him, dead on the floor...whatever, was using some kind of cloning power. Yet as he saw the original, the one who had opened the door, die and then get back up then splitting into multiple versions...he found himself reliving his past as well, turning back towards the door and getting back down on the ground. It wasn't a cloning ability then...but then some sort of time manipulation...yet that didn't explain the different versions of the woman nor her ability to seemingly turn into other races.
The most shocking was the one in front of him...the black robe of the shinigami with the signature hollow mask, Takano had talked about such beings. "You're...a visored?" Nez would ask with a start, before turning to notice the other...her that was dealing with the hollows. He took a step towards the door reflectively, one part of him craving the battle, another trying to fix what he'd brought to this place, and the last and largest, the part of him that wanted to spend this time resting and relaxing away from the need of battle and blood.
"Does she...do you...need help with that?" he'd ask the masked shinigmai. "And...what exactly is this place?"
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Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Aug 23, 2022 16:52:41 GMT -5
Janus looked at him as she found another bottle and was now fixing to drink a lot of it very quickly as the other Janus instilled a lot of very violent and terrible things on the hollow outside. The one inside vanished after he was back on his feet, no trace remaining of the future of the Visored version of Janus for the time being.
"A what now? I'm sorry that wasn't English, Greek, Italian or Japanese, I don't- can you speak any of my languages?" She asked him as he asked if she needed help. Janus looked out the GIANT HOLE IN HER WALL. The hollow was currently being pinned down by its appendages and tortured by the arrancar Janus as she poured a glass of wine. "I don't think they need help, but if it makes you feel better you can go hit stragglers with a pole or something." It was odd, Janus had always referred to the army as not her. This being because they were only the potential of the future. That and every other Janus prime ended up like the one before her, dead on the floor.
"I don't fight, I can't." Janus prime pointed out as she finished pouring the wine from a new bottle into a small glass, then swigging from the bottle. "This is-was-would have been! my bed and breakfast." Janus said, trying to get her tenses right. "Is, is there a reason in particular you have a bunch of masked monsters following you around?"
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Player
Continuing to slaughter, kill, take. Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself.
nezuel
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Post by nezuel on Aug 25, 2022 15:10:53 GMT -5
Nez raises an eyebrow at the odd woman. "I think the term is more of a proper noun at this point anyway." he'd shrug. "A shinigami with hollow powers, a reverse arrancar." His eyes drifted off to the battle, slightly curious. Amoung whatever versions of her existed, he figured the arrancar might be the toughest for the hollows to deal with, the iron skin of their race stopping the weak blows. He was tempted to join in, he admitted, but not to whack some of them with a pole but to feel the hunger in him receded from feeding. He was tired, haggard, and sick from lack of sleep...but he wasn't that hungry, the Queen had seen to that.
Eyeing the bottle Janus held he looked around, spotting a half broken glass on the floor. He stooped to pick it up, the arm of a hollow flying where he his head had been and hitting a wall nearby. He put the glass on the counter and tapped it with a finger. "Its something of a tale...but I think I'll skip the boring and embarrassing parts and simply tell you that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." he sighed, looking at the crowd. "Or in this case...a Hollow Queen scorned and betrayed."
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Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Aug 25, 2022 19:19:26 GMT -5
"Your nomenclature is wrong, Death god implies not dying, and black robed interdimensional die all the time." Janus said as a matter-of-factly and then went back to watching the TV, she was also now drinking really heavily as she needed to come up with a way to fix the place. Which, sucked a lot.
Janus poured a double from the whiskey bottle behind her that had it's time broken recently and watched it refill. Though watching it cause a sickly feeling as humans were not meant to see broken ghosts in the machine. She looked away from it as she put it back on the rack and then took another swig out of the wine bottle as the army outside continued its onslaught. "A least a woman scorned is slightly nicer than fate itself trying to kill you." Janus stated as a massive crash was heard outside the bar.
"Though I am still mad that my bar is destroyed. Do you have any idea how long and much this is going to cost to fix." Janus pointed out as she sighed and wondered why this shit always ended up on her doorstep. She rolled her neck and thought about how she was supposed to explain this one. Her coat, the cream coat that seemed to have a presence stared at her.
"Not a word." She said to it before she looked back at the white robed man. "So, if you're a white robe why are you working for a masked monster?"
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Player
Continuing to slaughter, kill, take. Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself.
nezuel
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Post by nezuel on Aug 28, 2022 19:25:51 GMT -5
Nez tilts his head at the woman's confusing words. He thought he was slowly figuring out just what was happening and how to deal with it...likely by running the fuck away, but perhaps staying here, with whoever could handle those hollows, was the better option. "Death god...I suppose you're assuming that the word, god, implies some sort of divinity. I've seen no evidence of a true God and, since you don't seem to know how the worlds work, once you die you reincarnate as either an evil or pure spirit. Some of those pure spirits can become shinigami, going around and purifying evil spirits." How odd of an interaction this was, usually when he met a spiritually aware being they had to explain things to him...but perhaps this being simply didn't...care?
"I destroyed her arena, some other arrancars," he pauses, putting a hand to his chest. "My kind, and scorned, is a light way to put it." he motions at the hollows. "She can control other Hollows and these are the ones she keeps sending after me as...punishment." he then looks her over once. "To repair this place...can you not summon a you that is a craftsman, carpenter, something of the sort? As for a masked monster I serve...I'm not quite sure what you're talking about...and why does the color of my clothes matter?"
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Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Aug 29, 2022 13:48:23 GMT -5
Janus, could-and would have, have had? interrupted the white robes explanation with her usual, all bullshit. She was, however, polite enough to, wait as he spoke and pointing out some very simple points. She should have flexed all over him but it in no way, shape, or form, worth it. That and it very well may have gotten her killed... again.
"So, from the top. Reincarnation is not a thing. All interdimensional beings have ways to essentially induct others to your concepts of power. Which, is not reincarnation as you literally use most likely a virus to change their nature." Janus said, which was true, dead souls got infected and became masked monsters, and souls got usurped to other dimensions with the power of black robe swords as she saw it.
"How do you actually know they purify spirits, and what makes them evil. I have met masked monsters that were very tame and intelligent, and black robes that were total asshats, in my actual opinion, black robes are inherently evil and run like a dictatorship. With a multitude of a standing military that will murder humanity without a second thought because they were given orders to do so. Or, at least I think so, since I had to learn this second hand because they killed mes. A LOT." Janus pointed out. "So implying that the color of your spirit or robe makes you good or evil, seems really dimensionalist."
If there really was a doubt left, hopefully it was now gone, Janus was very simply, insane. "She can control masked monsters, so she gets to be their queen, that sounds like as much of a dictatorship as all the other dimensions. One of you guys should probably try a system of government that doesn't revolve around waiting for one idiot so old they can not see past their nose to say yey or ney." Then she moved on.
"I categorize dimensional beings by the color of their attire, blue mages, white robes, black robes, bookworms, men in black suits, plaid puppets and normal nobs. It also, most of the time explains their powers, you have something that lets you transform, most likely. Blue mages have blue flowing magic, black robes have tranmorifying blades, bookworms have books that change how they look the more they open, and you get the point." Eventually her power winked out as the hollow began to vanish.
"As for fixing this place, it costs money to hire those things, and time and effort." She wished earth had insurance for other dimensional dicks bringing their war to her doorstep. "Can I get you anything?"
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Player
Continuing to slaughter, kill, take. Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself.
nezuel
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Post by nezuel on Aug 29, 2022 18:32:42 GMT -5
Nez took his time to listen to the woman's...rather unique view of the world. He supposed that an infection or virus might be one way to look at it, but that still didn't explain a few things. Her views on what the individual races of their multiverse wore was...somewhat funny if he was being serious. Her whole way of categorizing and identifying races would fall apart if Nezuel had come here in a black coat. Would she have thought him a shinigami what with the sword that he had at his waist...or would she look to the small bone that hung around his neck and still call him a white coat? Perhaps the next time he showed up he'd do so wearing a different outfit.
He wasn't entirely sure who the blue mages were and Quincies also tended to have uniforms made of white albeit in a design of more warlike uniform than anything else. Black Suits might be Gaia or that Quincy that had tried to recruit him...so not just a sense of abilities and race but faction too? As to the bookworms and plaid he really had no idea...and he didn't really feel like asking.
"I think you will find that any being that lives a long time will tend to gain the idea that its opinions and words should be followed." He'd shrug. "That combined with the fact that they have quite a long time to learn skills and hone them to perfection gives them the ability to seize power. Perhaps it is the relatively quick lives of humans that allow them to experiment with this 'democracy' I've come to learn about?"
He wasn't going to confirm her suspicion of his powers, the seal he was keeping on that can of worms strenuous at best. He still remembered the panic that...thing had caused and the possible friendship...though he doubted that now, it had ruined with carless words. No doubt it'd be pleased to gloat about it if he let it out. He sighs, looking at the woman. "Can you reverse time from before I pissed the Queen off...or get this tracking kido a shinigami put on me off?"
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Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Aug 31, 2022 10:14:32 GMT -5
"Oh, do not get me wrong, democracy is terrible and designed to be abused by people in power, and humans are idiots, I am complete proof of this." Janus said with a nod. She thought about something and looked to the future before realizing what kind of a question she was going to be asked.
"Chronomancy is dangerous, do not attempt temporal restructuring because
it will always end in a cataclysmic event. No matter how much you try and make it better, it will always get worse." Janus stated as she looked at the coat again and offered the man one of the plates of food, that was not destroyed. "Eat, then go take a dam shower, please, you look like you have been eaten by a blender, spit out, then tossed down a flight of stairs."
Janus stated before looking behind her for the bottle of temporally dislocated wine. She then flexed her shoulders and the older version of herself, complete with a missing eye, scars, one arm and a bad attitude came out. The main body looked at her and handed her the bottle. The potential future took a swig. "I am completely screwed if I fix this." She said to her future as it drank and then it winked its remaining eye and she grunted. The other Janus vanished and she was left scrambling to grab the bottle.
"Plus, if I go hacking around the timeline again, fate itself is going to come kill me."
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Player
Continuing to slaughter, kill, take. Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself.
nezuel
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Post by nezuel on Aug 31, 2022 18:12:13 GMT -5
"My...food is out there" Nez says, nodding to the world outside and the hollows it contained. Yet as he looked around, he would nod. "But I'll take the shower, especially if its warm. You have no idea how uncomfortable is is to take a dive in a cold lake only to find, when you surface, a lamprey hollow has attached itself to your...sensitive parts." He would normally have used other words yet he didn't want to offend the one person who seemed able to give him shelter.
"Should I attempt to understand your...situation, your abilities, or would doing so create more trouble for you? You say you're screwed if you fix this, which perhaps means you can. And then there is this talk about fate...is it a person, a force, personification of an idea." He tilted his head at the interaction of the scared and beat version of her. Was that the version of her that happened if she did this for him or was their appearance a quirk, not causation? "Are you stopped from interacting with the world at large...is this place a prison for you?"
He looked down at the food, then back up at her. He was grateful for the help and small respite she was giving him but...if there was a cost he wasn't sure he was willing to pay it. "Is there a cost to helping me, then? For changing things even if slightly, even if indirectly? If so then I must say that I'm obligated to either decline or offer you repayment in some form?"
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Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Sept 3, 2022 10:41:17 GMT -5
Janus blinked at the lamprey comment and was more or less confused as hell. She was unaware that interdimensional beings had unmentionables. Apparently that was a thing. Janus decided to file that away somewhere in her brain that was most likely never going to come up again. After all, Janus' ability made doing anything remotely related to sex, terrifying. So, she pretty much turned her brain off it.
"I would not try to understand me, that is kind of asking to lose your mind, and the mind is a terrible thing to lose. In answer to your questions, though..." Janus stated as she shrugged at him. "Nothing creates more trouble than people trying to kill me, and that happens a lot. So, I doubt that learning about me matters at all. Fate are three people, what is, what was, and what will be, and they all hate me. Though they have more pressing problems recently, I have been told. No, it is in no way a prison, I just do not like people or going out because it never seems end well. I considered this place more of just a centralized location away from the insanity. Is there a cost for messing with Time? Ask Gaia, she backtracked a lot more than I ever have. My power is a bit less influent. I can see what happens if someone goes left or right at an intersection. Then each time they make another choice, another set of futures. Eventually it overloads your mind with potential choices. Now imagine going to say, somewhere with a thousand people making a thousand decisions. Insanity. Helping you is fine, if I need money, I go and gamble, cheating at that is pretty easy for me. Go shower up. Then, do not spend your time worrying about me, someone will kill this me just like the last me, anyway."
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Player
Continuing to slaughter, kill, take. Life is to constantly sin. Life is evil itself.
nezuel
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Post by nezuel on Sept 3, 2022 15:55:24 GMT -5
Most of what Janus said now made a certain kind of sense. Even back in his day there had been a goddess whose life was divided into three, the god that had been was, and what to be. Yet for those myths, from what he understood, were about the goddess of magic. Within his own head he always imagined time to be under control of Father Time, that terrible titan. Of course any such beliefs, myth or otherwise, had been driven away by the same source of his thoughts.
"I find that trying to kill people often causes trouble." Nez would say with a shrug. "Enough so that my first inclination on most occasions is to talk...very rarely, even amount my people, do I find someone I can say truly deserves a good killing." There was a faint smile on his face that soon went away as he processed Janus' works. Nezuel's eyes narrowed and he seemed to withdraw a little into himself, unsure now. "How do you know...that I know Gaia?" Nez would ask, curious if he had let something slip. With the Hollow Queen after him he was somewhat careful with what he said and to whom...he'd even broken the phone that he'd been given in fear of him being taken captive and the item used against the group.
His other words were also slightly worrying. Nezuel was, at his core, a multitude of souls with a dominant personality. While he kept them under control, there was one that was rather bothersome, and his particular powers often gave him the ability to influence the world around him. If Janus could see the world around herself...he wondered just how exactly she saw him when she used her powers.
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Player
Insert Passive Aggressive Statement Here
snugglyrum
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Post by snugglyrum on Sept 6, 2022 17:07:17 GMT -5
Janus pulled out a book about some old wiccan magic that was entirely not real but she found fun to read in the background anyway as she cracked her back. Nez was one of the few that would probably understand that father time, had marked Janus to be as too faced as her name implied. When Nez brought up Gaia, Janus almost responded dismissively. "Cause everyone that meets that superhero seems to come here at some point. I did not know that you knew her, I just figured. I think she is something akin to a Quantum tempest, at this point in time being near her is basically how everything starts." Janus pointed out.
"Congratulations on being one of the few non sociopathic murderers. The last four people I met, killed mes. I still have no idea what reason they could have had, seems like most do not need or want a reason to do so. I mean, I even was drafted against my will to another dimension to fight bookworms with, really overpowered abilities and was promptly murdered by the three people I helped while there." Janus pointed out.
"So, how often do you find yourself dimension hopping, does that not get boring, or makes you sick? The last time someone did it to me I got really sick. I hurled my guts up."
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