Match of the Millennium

Description: Wandering her old hometown brings back a number of memories for Clio St. Jeanne. Not expected is the reappearance of the very subject of one of her last assignments as a member of the NOL, the Lamia Sophia. With a sense of purpose, Clio seeks out the snake lady and gives her something promised what feels like a lifetime ago, a post fight ice cream.

[CLIO]
Home. Or at least something that was home. A place to grow up, to escape into the dark and climb the fire escapes and rooftops. A place to imagine what the stars look like. A place to find low rent thugs from the various gangs. A place of bloody noses, knuckles and chains. A place before military schools, a place before a potential bonfire is honed to a useful flame. A place forsaken by policy, and returned to as either dead or a fugitive. But a place returned to nonetheless.

Clio St. Jeanne, former NOL Lieutenant, walks the old streets of her old neighborhood. The hood of her civilian attire up and over her head, flared like a cobra, heavy leather cups on the top to mimic the ear coverings of the clan of her master, Jubei. An oversized collar hangs around her neck, outside the hood's fabric, a heavy length of chain connected to it runs down her front and wraps around her waist. Boots and shorts in spite of the weather, she stands out in as many ways as the flashy styles of Metro City youths. The anonymity of numbers a saving grace.

She's wanting to see the old neighborhoods, the close together apartment rows and blocks that were home. Unlike the brassy commercial districts or the tumbledown harbor she's been hiding at thanks to Abigail, this place is where she first bled and made her mark on the world. Less than a decade and already it feels like a lifetime away from her as she walks the streets again.

[SOPHIA]
Sophia's been to Metro City before and she seems to stand out a bit less here. Of course when you have people like Sodom and Abigail, a lamia seems little less weird. Well as long as there aren't any ninjas out to kill her. She slithers out of a bookstore carrying a stack of used second-hand books. Most of them seem to be on the supernatural. She looks around to make sure no one's trying to ambush her before she continues down the sidewalk.

[CLIO]
It hasn't been too long since the Majigen incident ravaged Metro City. Darkstalker invasion, the disappearance of a major city, terror, it's all still fresh in the memory of the people of Metro. Looks and glances to a clear Darkstalker, fears and comments whispered under breath, wide berth's granted to a woman just trying to slither about her day with a stack of books. What could she be planning? More dark magic and destruction? Or just one of the growing number of beings not entirely human looking that seem to arrive week by week?

Clio was in a different life then, but she wasn't about to forget the Lamia she met while in Illyria. The researcher. Not as familiar a face as Minal Panesh, but a strangely bittersweet reminder of the potential good that the NOL had at one time.

She hesitates, at first, wanting to disappear and slip among the crowds. It would be smarter to simply not involve anyone. Clio had come to terms with her friends being strong enough to shoulder that, but this wasn't a friend. This was just a person she helped one time. And a person that now seems in a way more likely to be alone in a city like Metro. With a tutting cluck of her tongue toward her hesitation, Clio reroutes and with all the subtlety of someone familiar with the streets of Metro, she picks up her pace to casually step closer into the circle of space being given to the Lamia.

"Haven't seen you in a while," she says, head low, though she's smiling. "Gonna walk with you so the locals don't freak over you."

[SOPHIA]
Sophia adjusts her glasses a bit as Clio approaches, "Hello again..." She looks a bit embarrassed as the other woman apparoches. She lost complete control of herself the last time they met. "Most of the locals tend to stay clear of me. You haven't seen any ninjas in purple wielding claws around have you?" She's not sure if Geki will try and go after again. She doesn't drive her way figuring the extra protection is always helpful along with the extra set of eyes.

[CLIO]
Clio looks down at her purple hoodie, her lips purse and a moment of thought is given to a few comparisons that could be made between her and some others that may by called ninja due to similar stylistic choices. She discards this thought in a moment with a short laugh and a shake of her head. "Nah. No shortage of ninja running around, but none here dressed that nicely."

She walks along, looking behind herself here and there, partly to gauge the surroundings, partly because she likes looking at Sophia's tail, she finds the slithering fun to watch. Her focus falls back onto Sophia, though, and a crack of remorse opens to a quick spit of words. "How've you been doing? I, uh, sorry about not checking in on you. Cats, I wanted to but I never got the chance with everyone getting sick and having to investigate. Then I had to kick an elf in the chest and fight Queen Mab and I got really busy there in Europe."

[SOPHIA]
"Queen Mab as in the queen of fairies? How did I miss this? Is she still around?" The normally soft-spoken Sophia. actually sounds rather excited upon hearing Clio's story. "I've been all over the world so I might have been a bit difficult to track down." Then again there aren't too many lamias out there. "I've been keeping my power under control...for the most part." She's had a few slip ups as she hides her face behind a book.

[CLIO]
"Yes and no?" Clio has to confront. "There was this girl, and she was being taken over. So me and a few friends beat the hell out of her and some elf goons and a shadow hound that genuinely kind of cute." The explanation and off hand. She was in a lot of emotional stress that night and memories aren't the greatest when it came to details. "I lit her on fire at one point and she had a really cool dress made out of feathers. But anyway, a new one came from the old and we righted some things."

Clio is a touch rambling when confronted with the excitement, it leads to her own, but she pulls her own energy when Sophia talks. And what's admitted gets a somber smile. "I won't judge, if you got something to get off your chest, go on."

Clio suddenly brightens, grinning lopsidedly, as if awake again. "There's a place I used to go to all the time when I was little. We'll go there, I'll pay you back that ice cream."

[SOPHIA]
"It still sounds quite interesting." Sophia unhides her face a bit as she responds. "It's a bit difficult to keep the hunger under control, especially in a fight. It can be a bit draining at times." She wasn't trying to make a pun there. "You're from here originally? I can imagine you fought a lot. "You were serious about that?" She remembers the offer but didn't think much of it at the time. The lamia thought it was an attempt to get her to calm down.

[CLIO]
"Yeah, course I was serious. Just hard to get ice cream in the mountains along an old leyline. It's magic, not, well, magic," Clio says, then just shakes her head, "It makes more sense if you understand magic. Anyway, c'mon, the place it just around here."

It's neither a long walk nor a long slither to get around to a small ice cream and frozen yogurt bar. There is limited seating in the small place, but enough space for a Lamia to curl up if she needs to.

"See? Always came here after doing stupid stuff as a kid. Which was a lot of fighting, yeah. How'd you guess?" Clio snirks, happy inside of an old haunt, happy with the weight of a new chain, happy with some little changes, moving forward, but taking time to enjoy the now.

"And if it helps, that little love bite was nothing to me. I'm just fine," she jokes, realizing only afterward she had been more focused on the ice cream than addressing what Sophia actually had said to her.

[SOPHIA]
Sophia curls up on the stool, "This doesn't look like the best place to grow up. Then again I'm from Florida." She's been exposed to her share of weirdness and that doesn't even include being transformed into a lamia. "Vanilla ice cream please." Even if she is part snake her ice cream tastes are pretty mundane.

[CLIO]
"Adventurous," Clio deadpans as she opts to wait in the short line, rocking back and forth and clinking the chain wrapped about her waist. It feels comforting to have the metal around her again, the faint lines of etched symbols and hermetic formulae run violet from certain angles and observations.

The wait isn't long, and Clio's opted for something small and simple by way of black cherry. Though her choice was mitigated by not going all out since she didn't want to have so much compared to Sophia. "And this place isn't bad. Wouldn't be who I am today without Metro." She looks out the window, lips drawing thin. "S'good people out there, even in a place like this."

[SOPHIA]
Sophia's more of the practical type if you hadn't noticed. She does her best not to swallow the entire scoop at once when she extends her long forked tongue. "I don't think I would have survived in a place like this. I was kind of a klutz before I was transformed." In fact she still is. She shivers a bit as she tries to regulate her body temperature.

[CLIO]
"Maybe you wouldn't," Clio admits with a shrug, taken from her glancing out into the distance. Back toward Sophia and Clio rests her chin in her hand, watching Sophia closely. "How has been?" she asks, "Becoming a Darkstalker?"

[SOPHIA]
"It's a been a bit difficult, I didn't have much fighting experience before I was transformed. I was just simple researcher of the supernatural." Sophia was pretty down to Earth before being transformed. "How did your powers awaken?" She knows Cleo isn't exactly a normal human herself.

[CLIO]
Clio nods, listening, still much of her hidden by her hood. She sits up more, her hand dropping out of sight, the steady clinking of chains come as she thinks about her past while she buys herself time via eating some ice cream. "As far as I can remember I've had the spark," she admits, "I've always been close to the Boundary. I can tell its energy, when it's near, and I can pull it. Combining it with the flow of energy in the world around us, through chi, it can be manipulated a degree more safely than the raw oblivion and eternity itself."

As she talks, she draws a ring on the table between her and Sophia. Marks and symbols. "I wrote this after stopping the thing within you. It's a containment spell. Scatters the energy and disrupts your connection. Chaos within order, the boundary within chi. Magic as I understand it." She looks from her marks to Sophia. "I've always had this connection as long as I remember it. A lot of people do, but working with the NOL, going through their academy, that helped me figure out how to focus what probably would've killed me."

[SOPHIA]
"Interesting, I wonder if I could learn it. It might help me keep it under control. Then again it could kill me if I keep it sealed too long..." Sophia needs energy to survive after all. "You had trouble controlling the energy at first as well?" It seems like they're not that much different after all.

[CLIO]
Clio is quiet on things for a moment. "I wouldn't look into things that much," she tells Sophia with a shake of her head. "This was meant to hold back certain energies, you needing to do whatever is probably something you need to learn for yourself."

Clio puts some focus on her ice cream, and thinks. "Like," she stops, takes a bite, continues, "I can't really just launch into some lecture about Seithr and why it's a bad idea to rip your soul and existence apart. But."

Clio puts her hand to her forehead, she looks to the short distance, unfocused, thinking. "It's not controlling the energy. It's not that. You aren't just grabbing something. You're controlling you. And that's harder."

[SOPHIA]
"You have energy inside of you that's trying to tear you apart?!" Sophia sounds rather concerned about Clio now. Her power is trying to keep her alive at least. At the expense of others though. "Well, I constantly feed to keep myself under control, but if I get in a fight it burns through that energy quickly."

[CLIO]
Clio shakes her head. "The Boundary does that. There's a lot to explain on that, it's a part of magic, and really really complicated." She scrapes at the bottom of his ice cream cup. "Getting too close, looking too deep, it wipes you away. It's dangerous. It's always there, but too much and too deep and it's all over. That's part of why the NOL wants to keep magic out of the wrong hands."

She closes her eyes and frowns, finding herself defending the NOL, knowing some of the deeper reasons behind the altruistic and protective front. It made her words burn hot on her tongue. "Okay, let's let's look to your thing. You eat to live, but you need more if you use more?"

[SOPHIA]
"Yes, that's correct." Sophia nods as she confirms that. "Except instead of food it's energy. I mean I can eat food but I don't get much benefit from it." Speaking of which she finishes her ice cream. "I can transform into a human form, but that also drains my energy rapidly." Which is why she stays as a lamia most of the time.

[CLIO]
Clio looks at Sophia, her eyes narrow with thought. Clio is a woman that has, in much of her life, resorted to simply punching, kicking, burning or very direct application of force to move her way through. But the reality of her life is she is a trained graduate of the NOL's military academy. She is a magician in her own right. She does know spellwork and her mind isn't dull. She tends to just prefer her own methods.

"Sounds like a battery. Like in your phone. Charge it up, it uses stuff, charge it up again cause it's dying out," she says, trying to frame things in an easier analogy to pick at. As she does, the formulae on her chain start once more to gain a faint glow of power.

"And I know I'm a little weird, but I like the snake look. It's cute, figure it's soft like a normal snake. The scales, that is," she says, slipping from her ponderance to a casual subject while she considers possibilities of arcane batteries.

[SOPHIA]
Sophia blushes a bit at Clio's comment and her tail accidently swings a bit at the other woman as she loses her focus. "I guess it's like a battery but it's certainly not as easy to charge. I mean I can normally keep how much I drain under control but if it gets really bad..." Things tend not to go smoothly.

[CLIO]
Clio isn't exactly afraid of Sophia. Darkstalker nature or not, she has faced down and walked away from bigger threats than a cute snake girl. She does have a small laugh at the blush, however. "Sorry if that was something off. Just trying to make you feel better about yourself," she admits. "Okay, um, so, let me get serious for a minute here. You have to do what you have to do, don't ignore that, it'll hurt everyone really badly. You are who and what you are."

She holds her hand toward Sophia. "Maybe find some way to take nibbles or something. Or, maybe look into finding some way that, yeah, you got something kinda bad, but you can work it to be okay. I mean, I've hurt a lot of people, I like to fight, it's what I am, just have to do it the right way."

[SOPHIA]
"Well, it doesn't hurt or anything as long I don't drain too much energy. It just makes the other person tired. Still, some people aren't going to be happy about having energy drained from then." Still having people suddenly black out does draw attention to Sophia. "Or if I run across someone stronger than me." She isn't the best fighter after all.

[CLIO]
Clio gets a knowing grin, toothy and big. "Went a long ass time doing things on my own. Sneaking out, fighting for people, getting hurt and trying to fix myself."

Clio leans toward Sophia, conspiratorial, close. Her catseye makeup making that grin all most cheshire. "More than any magic, the Academy made me rely on friends. Real ones. Ones that I'd fight for and that'd fight for me. Someone like you could find some friends like that. Just don't go it alone. That's dumb."

[SOPHIA]
Of Sophia's kind of shy, she rather avoid conflict if possible. "Well, I rather try to avoid fights if possible but I doubt that's possible in my current state." Yes, she knows that sounds kind of strange for a Darkstalker. "I guess it couldn't hurt to know more people, but I'm afraid they might try to kill me as well." The more of presence she gains the more people she'll have after her as well.

[CLIO]
"Hey, not everyone's a fighter," Clio says, leaning back from Sophia, not wanting to intrude, and her hand was ignored after all. Swing and a miss, Clio. "But you, there are people out there for you. You weren't always a Darkstalker. You know what people are like. Shitty ones and good ones. Just try to find the good ones and, iunno, eat the shitty ones only."

[SOPHIA]
"Well, sort of. I wasn't the most social person even when I was human. That's part of the reason that Lilith went after me." Sophia prefered to hang out in libraries after all. "The unpleasant ones are mostly to try and pick a fight though." Sophia takes the offered hand.

[CLIO]
And now the hand hold. She blinks and laughs, feeling a bit awkward over it all. "Lilith? Who's shee?" Clio asks, leaning a little closer again, chin resting on her hand as she looks at Sophia, trying to gauge the oft blushing snake girl.

[SOPHIA]
"A succubus, she dragged me her into her own domain and I don't really want to talk about it..." Sophia sounds rather uneasy about going into more details. "Let's just say I was quite different when I left." That's about all the explaination she's going to give regarding the subject.

[CLIO]
"I'll remember that name," Clio says, a darkness to her tone, the lights of arcane power surge down the markings on her chain. The promise in the words punctuated by a quick, secure squeeze.

Clio pulls back, taking her hand from Sophia, tucking her hands at her chest, leaning over the table. "Ain't gonna push you on that. I only know this you, anyways. And I'm glad you don't hold it against me that I sort of beat you down."

[SOPHIA]
"You were just defending yourself, something about that scroll made me go berserk. I can't even fully remember what happened." Sophia places a hand to her head as she tries to recall. "I hope I don't run across any more writings like that out there. I heal much faster in this form, which is part of the reason fighting takes a lot out of me." She explains in more detail.

[CLIO]
"I was there to protect you," Clio says, "Ended up having to hurt you to do so." She fidgets, looking down at her cup, she runs her fingers over the edge of the cup. "There's probably more, and if there's something that can set Darkstalker's off, I'd want it put under wraps. Keep it from messing up anyone, Darkstalker or human."

"Well, yeah, I think your healing is like hiding like a human. It's a thing you do and you burn that energy up that makes you want to eat more."

[SOPHIA]
"Were you able to find out any information about the scroll?" Sophia's a bit curious because it wasn't a good idea for her to read it again. "I certainly wouldn't have survived all the fights I've been in if weren't for it." There were some benefits to being a lamia despite all the problems it caused her as well.

[CLIO]
Clio has to shake her head. "I'm a soldier. Research is the kind of thing you guys do. I mean, I know magic, I know some stuff but the big science and studies is the sort of thing my mother is into," she admits. "And I had a lot of things to fight. Faerie armies don't just turn around and go home."

Clio's fingers slip, start to run along the length of chain coming from the oversized collar hanging loosely at her neck and shoulders. "Had a lot of other things to do. Lots of stargazing and thinking. Getting that close to a Leyline, seeing fighting like that. The stuff inside of Illyria is amazing and it all kind of pushed everything else out of my attention."

[SOPHIA]
"I was dealing with banshees myself. I was wondering if you had heard anything further." Sophia can't look at the scroll herself without going crazy again. She been hired to do research though and she would like to know the results of the investigation.

[CLIO]
Clio shakes her head. "Afraid not. I've been on extended leave and don't have access to any resources," she explains. "I just came back here for a bit to do some personal work on some formula that's been on my plate for a while. I want to make the conduit formulae more efficient for my magic. Just some personalization."

[SOPHIA]
"Oh, I see. Is there anything I can help with?" Sophia still felt a bit bad for cause trouble for Clio. She doesn't know much about magic but she's good at doing research at least.

[CLIO]
Clio goes quiet for a long moment. She looks over the hometown ice cream shop. Her past around her. Her past in front of her. The present lurking and lingering like a predator just outside of the periphery of this moment.

She sighs. "Nah. Not really," she admits. "Thanks for considering. But what I'm doing now is something that you're better off not getting too close to. But it's enough that I got to catch up with you and get the chance to do this after fight ice cream."

[SOPHIA]
Sophia nods at that, "I'm glad we had a chance to talk again under better circumstances." It certainly beat being chained to a wall. It would be a good idea to get a better grasp on her powers as well, but she's going to have to do some more research before that happens.

[CLIO]
"Next time will be even better," Clio tells Sophia with a soft smile before she stands up from the tall table. "Hopefully you find the things you need. Just don't be afraid to trust your gut and get close to people. Can't do it all on your own," she reiterates. "But I got to get going. Have to keep moving and got a lot of things to do. Enjoy Metro City and don't go breaking up my old home too much now."

[SOPHIA]
"Thank you..." Hopefully Clio didn't see her fighting Geki on the parade balloon. That would certainly be awkward for Sophia. She collects her books before following outside behind her,

Log created on 12:22:21 03/16/2019 by Clio, and last modified on 18:40:04 03/16/2019.