214/Mitakihara Nights

Mitakihara Nights
Date of Scene:	07 August 2023
Location:	Mitakihara Ward
Synopsis:	Riventon is out looking for a little bit of a late night snack, but so is La Crima, and it leads to a short conversation.
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, Norie Okana

---

Takashi Agera has posed:
    It's a late night in Mitakihara ward. Most of the ward is still relatively bright thanks to the bright signs, screens, and lights that make up the neon techno-show that the ward is in late night. But the alleyways themselves are still dark. And bad things, and bad people, roam freely at night, even in a ward that is so bathed in electronic brightness.

    And some of those bad people are not involved at all in the battle between good and evil that the Four Wards are the center of. Not drawn here by the leylines that converge at Clover Tower. Some of them are just your regular, ordinary, everyday bad people. Like the man in the dark coat who waits in the darkness of an alley with a knife, gleaming in his hand, waiting for someone to cross too close, to be grabbed and mugged.

    But some of the people in Mitakihara are exactly the type involved in the grand battle, and one of those people is Riventon. But today, Riventon is not looking for a fight with magical girls. Today, it's Riventon who is looking for a quick surge of energy, because he has work to do. The device on his arm is still slightly cracked, though much of the damage from the prior fight has been fixed, not all of it has. Riventon isn't in a shape to fight. He needs energy to repair himself.

    So as someone starts to walk by the man with the knife, his foot steps forward - and then he is toppled into the darkness of the alleyway, looking up at the person who has shoved him down, one hand at his neck and the other drawing up wisps of energy into his metal-clad hand. Passing out as he looks into that shadow-masked face with the glowing red eyes.

    Riventon pulls far, far more energy from this man than he does normally. "Scum." he says. He won't kill the man, but he'll be sleeping in the cold of this alleyway at least until morning, and that may have effects which Riventon doesn't care about.

    Little does Riventon know he's not the only one who's out hunting energy tonight, and the person he is currently preying on was recently targeted by someone else - someone who may not have seen another person doing what she would intend to do, pulling energy from an unwilling victim.

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima likes hunting in the big city section of Mitakihara. She's never run into trouble here. It's loud, and you run into people she feels less bad about draining sometimes. Not like the restaurant worker she had to drain the other day who was just...doing a job, taking out trash? But she's been. Running into others now. Some of these others didn't want her draining energy.

'Only take it willingly, or I'm coming for you'. That's what Sailor V basically said to her.

"Sure, I'll just ask." she said in dripping sarcasm to herself as she thought back to the moment. "Like I have the benefit of manners." she whispered to herself as she peered over the edge into the alley below. A potential mugger? A yakuza thug? or just... someone? She didn't know. But it was lonely in the alley and she gently melds into the surface of the building and slides down it, into the shadows as some sort of misty blob as she gets ready to pounce and---

---and someone else walks by and---starts... draining him first!? Her first thought process is to try to drain him but. She isn't. She stops short of making a threating move and instead just watches as she reforms from the shadows.

"H--hey..." she finally says. "What are you doing!? That...that was my dinner..." she says a bit grumpily. Sounding less accusatory and more pointed frustration of the fact she would need to find someone else suitable.

She sulks about it. "Ugh." she goes a little unnaturally slack. "...whatever." she says, finally.

"Do you uh. Are you a vampire, too?" she asks as Riventon finishes his work, speaking her stilted manner a little bit.

She isn't about to fight for her meal. Right now. She isn't...starving. Yet.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    When she first complains, Riventon drops the thug and snaps his body to look at her. Instinctively, he puts up his gauntlet, like he's going to blast her. But practically in his mind he knows he's in no shape to fight. But then after his rapid manouvers he can actually look at the person talking. The girl talking. He'd have sensed her coming, he is sure, if his Device was up to normal power, but it really wasn't. It was mostly just for decoration. He didn't even want to channel anything through it.

    But she doesn't seem like a youma he was going to have to dodge away from. "Sorry. He didn't have much worth taking, if it's any consolation." Riventon says, shrugging. "What do you mean dinner, though?" He asks.

    "If you're a vampire I'm pretty sure he's still got blood. He's not using most of it, he's gonna sleep a long night tonight on the concrete." he says this suprisingly casually, like 'yeah you're a vampire okay here's some blood' - but the things Riventon deals with are the sort of stuff that goes bump in the night. He knows of a literal oni and a dragon. Vampire seems reasonable.

    He steps back and geustures to the unconscious man in kind of an overly formal way. "All yours."

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima seems to visibly flinch when the gauntlet is raised. "...N..No. Don't. Please?" she asks. "I'm just feeding...I don't.. don't kill people.." But then Riventon lowers the gauntleted hand she relaxes a bit.

La Crima shifts a bit uncomfortably, when the unconscious man is offered. "...no. I... Um. Energy. Drain. Like. You just did. I drain. energy." she says. "Energy vampire." she says. "That's. What you did. Right? I think I know. That much." she says quietly.

"...Considering I saw it a few times already from others." she says with a sigh. She looks at the cracked gauntlet and comes a little closer. "--it's damaged." she says quietly. "....did Sailor V beat you up because you didn't ask first, either?" she asks dryly.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "I did. I... need it to fix the gauntlet." Riventon admits. "Sailor V didn't beat me up, no." Riventon doesn't think he's encountered Sailor V, but he knows of her, and knows she's more than the girl on the video game. "She'd probably try if she saw me." he admits. "Actually, can you make it up to the rooftops? I don't think we want to have this whole conversation next to sleepy here. If one of them shows up it'll be really hard for us to both plead innocence. And they wouldn't trust us even if we had good excuses." he says, guesturing up there. For Riventon it's a simple jump, and he'll make that jump if La Crima indicates she can, to sit on the edge of the roof facing the other street and release some of the energy from his gauntlet nearby her. He's not sure if she can feed on it when it's in that wispy, ambient state. But it's an offer. If not, back in his gauntlet it goes.

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima floats upwards after Riventon. She just kind of flies casually upwards like gravity didn't exist and sits on the rooftop next to the boy. She then blinks as energy is offered. She kind of wearily looks at it, but she puts out her hand and touches it. She sucks it in. She closes her eyes. She shifts a bit. "Thank you." she says quietly.

"But it sounds like you need energy too then?" she asks, opening her eyes again. "Sailor V tried to beat me up. But I left. She said. I should ask first for energy." she says dryly, like she doesn't agree. "Oh. Um. L..."

"La Crima." pause. "Name." stilted again. Speaking in strange fragments. "Sorry. I don't. Normal people. Well. Annymore."

"Not since. All this." she says motioning towards the alley and then back to her.

"Are you from that weird between place?" she asks curiously. "Do you even know what I'm talking about?" she asks.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "I'm Riventon. I have other names but I'm not really very 'civilian' right now am I?" says the boy with the shadowy mask. "I can get more energy, I'm just trying to avoid having to pull it from reserves, really. There's usually one or two scum around here at night that I can grab without worry." he says.

    "I don't think you should have to ask for anything, really. You're a vampire, right? And that's just some regular guy. Not even a regular guy. A loser, scum. But even those people walking down there aren't like you and I. They don't have the energy that we do. They don't even see the world the same way you and I do. They walk down there, not even aware of what they're missing, of how insignificant they are." he says, guesturing to the people just moving from shop to shop.

    "You mean the Dusk Zone? It's not really between, more like beside and below and above all at once... but that's assuming it's what you mean. Dark watercolor sky, trees that look like they're reaching for the heavens with gnarled hands, wierd fruits?"

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima listens. "I guess we're not." she says quietly. "Some girl called me a monster. I don't think I liked that very much." she admits. "I mean. I guess. On some facet it's true." she snorts a little to herself and looks down to the ground. "I guess we're not normal. But..."

She shifts again on the ledge. "Riventon. You seem friendly. So far I've..."

"Well the only friendly thing I've encountered has been some kind of jellyfish! and some.. doll. That offered me tea. But I couldn't stick around. Because a girl turned into some sort of ridiculous military uniform and made something weird happen and some singing girl and some horned girl killed the jellfish. And- then earlier I guess, some firegirl with a bear."

"And I dunno how friendly she was because I tried to offer suggestions and was ignored."

"....Yes! That place has a name? I just know I can go there. And can end up somewhere else. Dusk Zone..." she repeats to herself.

"So uh. How. Are you. You?" she asks.

"I guess."

"I bought a necklace? Then I got sick. Then I went into shock. Then I was okay. But I wasn't okay because I was this thing now." she says. "Is the short of it. Can't. Feel things easily.---"

"I guess you're right. About the guy. But. I also. Do things like drain workers in the back of businesses? Some.. sometimes at school. When I'm desperate and need the energy."

"...is that okay?"

Takashi Agera has posed:
    The mention of a doll offering tea gets an eyebrow raise from Riventon - not that it really transfers outside the mask. "I may know that doll, actually." he says. The firegirl with a bear doesn't ring any bells by description alone, even though he knows the girl in question.

    "Yes. I've been able to go there for... a very very long time." Riventon says. "Have slept there a few nights, actually. I'm pretty comfortable there. Most people aren't. A lot of people, really, just jump in and jump back out, mostly to get away from girls who sparkle too much and hurt your eyes to look at." he continues. "If you can stay there for any period of time without going crazy it makes you pretty rare, actually. Pretty special."

    "Look, I try to only take energy from people like scumwad back there, but... it's not always that easy, that simple. Sometimes I need it, they have it. I don't need it to feed myself but... I have things that are important that need energy. So sometimes I take a lot of it from these boring, normal people. You know what happens? They rest for a day or so and then get better. But then I have the energy. So everyone wins. It only gets tough when people try to stop me. That's when people get hurt. But I can't... just ignore what I need. And if you need to feed for... food... for sustenance, then it's wrong for them to try and stop you."

    "It's weird, how people try and get in the way. Sounds like for you too. Like the regular people down there are cattle, and they sparkly ones are farmers and we're wolves. But you know, wolves have to eat to live too." he says. "I don't like being told no, anyways. I'd sure rather be a wolf than cattle. Or a farmer, really."

    "So no, I personally don't think it's wrong. Do what you have to do to survive. If someone tries to stop you, make sure they have the power to back that up. If they don't, drain them too." he says, boldly, crossing his arms.

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima is listening and relaxes a little more. "Oh... Oh good. That's... that's always the point of contention. It seems." she says. "If I don't eat. If I starve myself. It ends poorly for me and everyone else. I know that much. So I need to eat. It's just. I don't want to but I need to. And some others... don't understand. Or try to offer their energy and... has anyone ever just. Offered you their energy, Riventon? It's strange and makes me feel off!"

"...Sparkleskirts! I remember that term! That girl used it when she was using her bear!"

"Yeah. I can stay there. And just. hang out. Nothing bad happens to me. It's comfortable. That...makes me special?" she head tilts. "Nothing attacks me or anything. There. I find the things interesting, and the creatures rather cute."

"Yeah. People try to get in my way. Or make a big fuss. When all the people do is sleep and wake up tired later. It's not like I'm hurting anyone long term---!" she says with wide eyes. "-and I try to. Make sure the people are put down carefully after. I mean. People in a heap only looks off."

She head tilts the other direction. "I don't think anyone likes being told no. I don't like people telling me I can't eat." she admits. "Like you'd knock a donut out of someone's hand because you don't want them to eat it." she scoffs.

"So you've been as you are for a while then?... I've only been as I are for a few months. I've only recently started hitting into other people it seems though. I'm still learning." she admits sheepishly. "I don't. Fight well. Sometimes I dream about things. And I can do what I saw in the dream after. I had a lot of those at first. But they've been slower coming."

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Riventon listens to all of this very intently. "Yeah, it's been part of my life for pretty much most of it. I've always seen my ability to manipulate that energy as a lucky thing, but I think only recently do I see how lucky it is. Not just that I have this power, but that I've had it for so long that it comes naturally to me. Another one of my friends - my coworkers - she's like you. Young girl. Didn't always have the energy. Hers doesn't make her... hungry, like yours. But it tries to overwhelm and control her. She has to manage it. But some people want her to get rid of it, when it gives her such potential, such power, which I don't understand either."

    Riventon looks down and pauses. "If you can go to the Dusk Zone without feeling all of that negativity in your soul - without the locals trying to fight you - but can also subsist here - it makes you very special indeed. Some people can go there temporarily, but largely thery need someone to manage the local area - a powerful ally to control things - to not fall into its mental manipulations. I only know of myself so far. As far as I know I can remain there indefinantly, it's just... a little too quiet. I miss the business of this world too. Whichever one I'm away from for too long, I miss."

    "...Do you have somewhere you're staying? I work for a company that... pretty much tries to manage and understand Dark Energy. Which is what I sense from you. And... well, okay, honestly most of the other people there are basically drooling idiots working on instinct or poorly understanding my mother's research - but they won't try to fight you or cleanse you just for being who you are?" he offers. "I know that's all a bit sudden. If you'd rather, if you have a cell phone, I can give you my number?"

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima shifts a bit. "I know I'm more closer to those 'creatures' in the .. Dusk Zone ... than a human." she admits. "I don't think I can go lower than that. I've seen myself in the mirror. When I drop this form. I don't like being that thing."

"I prefer this form. Or my uhm. Normal. Disguise. Form?"

"I live at home. Still. But home is admittedly a mess now since. All this. So I'm always hiding in my room. or being forced out because my parents don't want me in my room all day."

"Huh?" she says. "...I guess. A phone number wouldn't hurt. Um." she blinks. "There's a whole company of people like me?" she asks. "Really?" she leans a little in. She isn't getting uncomfortably close though. "I'm interested! I mean. Um. Look this is going to be weird but I may talk to myself for a few moments. Just. Hold on."

'What... what do we think?' she asks to herself.

The voice answers back. 'Take it.'

'Huh?'

'Allies are useful.'
5R"Really?" she asks outloud.

'Yes.' says the voice, exasperated.

"I guess. Friends. would be nice..."

She looks over with a blush. "Sorry. I know that made no sense! But. Y--yes please. Give me a number. Riventon."

She doesn't smile the whole time but her tone feels a bit more... strangely hopeful. Somehow in a monotone. "As long as you don't mind I'm strange and speak in weird manners and sometimes speak to myself and I wanna try to pet creatures." she says.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    And at this, Riventon laughs. But not at her. He points a finger at himself. At his shadow-face with the red eyes. "Come on, you think I'm not weird too? And you met the doll, right? Look, I know an Oni and a living Dragon and a wolf-man, and a catgirl, and a girl who thinks she's a unicorn, and a woman who thinks the entire food pyramid just is different flavors of cake, and I could just go on and on... Man, most of the whole company that's worth anything more than just pushing paper is some kind of wierd. Honestly, I don't find you that wierd in the grand scheme of things." Riventon admits.

    "Here." he says, rifling around in his Barrier Coat for a business card... which he promptly realizes is one with his civlian name, so he has to dig through the other side of his coat for one that reads Riventon instead. "Phone, email, all of that good stuff." He says, passing the card to her. The little purple parts on it sort of gleam in the light. "Just let me know. I can find a place for you. A place for you to stay, a place for you to feel safe. A place for you to help us get things sorted as a whole. And I think one of my friends would absolutely adore spending time with you. Firefly." he says. "And the doll is her friend too. Yochu, if you met her." he says. And then he pauses and also releases the rest of the energy he grabbed from the guy down there her way. "I can pick up more from my team's stores. It's not food for me like it is for you." He admits.

    Plus, if a little bit of energy now can net him another dangerous ally in the future, then it's going to pay out as a great investment. "Hell, if you have questions about all of this, just text me. Maybe next time we'll meet in the Dusk Zone. I know a tree that grows some really great duskfruit. If you don't mind purple bannanas."

Norie Okana has posed:
La Crima blinks at the laugh, but she relaxes quickly. "Alright then." she says. "I'll call you soon... it..it would be nice to have somewhere to go to. If things. go pear shaped enough at home." she admits. She takes the card and... it disappears when she gets it. "Don't worry. It's. In my pocket. Not that I have them right now. If that makes sense." she says.

She blinks when more energy is released. "A..are you sure?" she asks. But she can't help herself, she isn't waiting too long for the answer before she shoves her hand into and sucks the energy up- afraid it might become gone or something, closing her eyes.

"Thank you. Too for being kind. It's nice to talk to someone like me. I think the others find it difficult to relate." she says.

"I should probably get home. Before I start getting texts." she admits.

"I'll meet you again soon, Riventon. I hope! Maybe in the Dusk Zone, yes! Oh----! You.. you can eat those?" she asks with wonder. "I've been avoiding it. I thought they might be poison! Now I'm curious. Another time though..." she says with a nod.

"Speaking of Dusk Zone. Uh. Geee. Awkwardness. But later, then!" she says as she disappears into the duskport, aiming to get home to her room before her parents realize she's actually gone somewhere else.