Angelic Destructions v.8 Solitude

Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Fortis - Prologue

Apollymi avatar Series: GundamW
Word Count: 235
Sources: A Latin-English/English-Latin Dictionary Client (Java)
Notes: Fortis is Latin for "chance, fortune, luck" but also "steadfast, courageous, powerful". I'll let you figure out which meaning I'm intending.

Let's start this off properly...

Magic is real.

Well, not that sleight-of-hand bullshit, of course. A four-year-old with a good eye can catch most stage 'magicians' tricks. Real magic, though, is more elusive. As it was put to me, you're not going to find the average real magician setting up in a storefront in the big city; it's a good deal more underground, like through this guy that a friend of a friend's brother's girlfriend's knows.

But then, I've never exactly been average in any sense of the word. That's why I've got a little shop set up. It might be in the worst part of town (that's the only way I can afford the rent, and even that's scraping the bottom of the barrel most months), but it's mine. And maybe one day I'll turn a profit there and not at the midnight till eight a.m. grocery bagging that pays the rent. If Howie could see me now... Well, he'd probably tear me a new one then congratulate me on my ingenuity. I've always been a forward thinker.

So that's the set-up. Yes, magic is real. Maybe you can even turn a profit on it. Forget all the bullshit out there. This isn't Barely Legal Teenaged Sorcerers Gone Wild 3 or anything -- and I'm damn sure no Harry Potter.

I'm Duo Maxwell of Maxwell's Magical Services... and this is where the story starts.

posted by Apollymi @ 7:34 AM

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Apollymi avatar Series: Original
Word Count: 90

The war had started millennia before. Even before that, the two sides had never even pretended to get along. In a sense, this had been building up since the dawn of time, but now... Now events were bringing the war to a head.

Experts on both sides were saying the war probably wouldn't last another hundred years, a mere blink of an eye. One side was winning right now, but the other knew something the first did not: the prophecy had come true: one of the saviors had been born.

posted by Apollymi @ 7:30 AM

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Apollymi avatar Series: GundamW, Sailormoon
Genre: Crossover, Romance, Supernatural
Main Pairing: Duo/Usagi/Hiiro
Word Count: 1,010
Notes: This story marks my first major foray back into the Sailormoon crossover genre. I never thought it'd be so nerve-wracking.

Conscious dreaming had never worked for him. No matter how many times he told himself that he was dreaming, that what he was seeing wasn't real, that he could wake up at any time, he never quite managed to do so. Not that he had all that much experience with this, since these... phenomena had just started a few months previously and it did not occur every night, but it went against the order he craved and strove to live his life by. Therefore, it needed to end immediately.

He knew he was dreaming. He could see it, as if he were outside of himself looking in, also not a sensation he was particularly pleased with. He just had to convince himself that it was nothing important and then he'd be able to wake up. It was just a dream, just an annoying, fantastic dream, with absolutely no bearing on the reality of his world. Yes, it was just a dream. A very weird dream, with a blonde angel - who seemed strangely familiar - and, even more oddly, Duo Maxwell - who he hadn't even seen in months! - and something that... 'felt' like the fate of the world hanging like the Sword of Damocles, on a thread over his head. The whole mess was all together too imprecise for him.

The dream world abruptly took on a dark, otherworldly feeling, like a place covered in pitch black mist. It was thick, making it hard to breathe. Each lungful of air was an effort to pull in. It felt like death, and that was a feeling he wasn't likely to ever forget. He'd been close enough to it several times over the years to know and remember the sensation - or rather, the lack thereof. If he were a superstitious person - not that he was, of course! Superstitions were for weak-minded idiots, after all! - he'd be inclined to think something was about to happen that could mean the deaths of them all.

* * * * * Hiiro * * * * *

There was an old adage from science that objects in motion tended to stay in motion. Not that he was all that boned up on physics. After two years of being thrown around a small cockpit at the whim of physics, which did not even begin to count training, he wanted nothing more to do with the stuff.

But if 'objects in motion tend to stay in motion with the same speed and the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force', what did that say about the odd things that had been going on lately? And more specifically, what did it say about him as an 'unbalanced force'? Indigo eyes tracked the object he'd chosen for this experiment, much to what would be Hilde's consternation if she ever found out. Of course, that would preclude her ever figuring out where her monkey wrench disappeared to and who had taken it. Hell, with any luck, she'd blame it on one of the many local gangs or her newest ex-boyfriend, and he could get away scot-free.

And to think: this whole little experiment in sheer blind confusion (and, he could admit, a bit of panic) had started with a simple overturned can of soda. Maybe one of these days, he'd be a glutton for punishment and share this little bit with his best friend... if he could track the bastard down again.

A hard push sent the tool spinning over the edge of the table, spiraling in circles towards the floor. A single thought stopped it, though, leaving the rust-faded tool rotating in midair as though it was caught in zero gravity, even here on Earth. It was a trick he'd done many times to amuse himself in the cockpit of his Gundam when in deep space; it definitely was not supposed to work where there was gravity.

So what the hell was going on? Physics didn't just stop being for some guy bored enough to try to spin tools in midair... did it?

* * * * * Duo * * * * *

She felt like the pinata her brother had had at his birthday party: battered, bruised, and generally tossed aside for the candy filling. She was fairly certain the last few hours' battle and its deadly toll had robbed her of any candy filling she might have been holding onto. She was alone, so very alone.

Everyone was returning home, and the world was slowly setting itself right. But it was taking so long, and she was so terribly alone. She liked to pretend to herself that she was strong, but no longer. Her supposed strength had faded with her friends' souls. All the hope she had held on to, that no one was truly gone until she gave up, was starting to recede, leaving her with the sole thought that her friends, her pseudo-family, was no more, that she had stood by and done nothing while they fell one-by-one to a foe she now felt she could have beaten had she even tried. Refusing to fight had won her nothing and only ended up costing her entirely too much.

Well, never again. Whatever happened from here on out, she wasn't going to lose anyone dear to her ever again. Of course, that meant there had to be someone dear to her again and right now she wasn't too sure there was anyone left in the world, much less her family or even Tokyo.

Such an enormous toll had been paid for the arrogance of thinking one person should be responsible for the fate of many. That's what it had been: arrogance, conceit, and folly. But next time, it would be different. Next time, the fate of everyone wouldn't rest on one person. Next time...

Was there really going to be a next time?

Let there be a next time, was all she could think to pray as exhausted blue eyes slid shut. Let us be able to start again. And with her eyes closed, she missed the silver light winking into existence before her.

* * * * * Usagi * * * * *

And so it began.

posted by Apollymi @ 7:28 AM

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