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 Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2026 11:16 pm
So that little Connections app really worked! This Maus guy seemed nice, and she'd seen him at Kerberos' festival gathering. Andromeda wouldn't pretend to quite understand what a 'Knight' was, but maybe Maus could give her a better explanation for that. And what did he mean by being on the other side? Like, he'd been like Hestia? She rocked back and forth from heel to toe as she watched the sky, her arms swaying in opposition with her movements to keep her momentum. Occasionally she would rise up briefly onto her toes in a quick movement before settling back down, an action that she seemed very practiced with, just likely in the wrong shoes for. Eventually she reached back behind her and brought out her phone, scrolling through contacts until she found Maus! 🐁, continuing to sway forward and backward in easy movements while she typed away with one hand. Quote: Hey Maus! It's Andromeda! I'm here! ✨ Thanks for helping me out with this btw
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 7:05 am
He wasn't sure exactly what had made her reach out to him specifically, but even with his rapidly-diminishing personal time, he wasn't exactly in a position - nor did he have the inclination - to say no. He arrived not long after, his energy signature sparking to life somewhere nearby before approaching - whoever he was, he must prefer to travel as a civilian - and his voice preceding him, called out as he came into view. "Andromeda, I take it," he said, in a tone fully as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as he intended it to be despite everything working against it being so. There was a genuine pleasure in meeting someone new, as always. It was enough. He put out a hand to her, his face a sunshine-smile. "Maus. Knight of Tea," he added dutifully, having reached that point in repeating a lie where its justification had been mentally rehearsed so often that it no longer felt like a lie.
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 9:34 pm
She perked up and stopped rocking when she felt the unfamiliar energy signature nearby. Well, it was kind of, but it was still weird. Andromeda smiled widely as Maus approached, and she offered him a wave of her hand in greeting. "Yes!" And he was nice! Excellent. Huge. Amazing. As he offered a hand out to her she took it and gave it a shake, pausing ever so briefly as she took hold of his hand. Weird, why did this feel oddly familiar? She shook the idea off, releasing his hand and clasping her hands together behind her back. "Andromeda, Senshi of Jellyfish. And. I'll be honest." Her smile turned sheepish, her shoulders raising and her head ducking down a little into them. "I don't really know what a Knight of Tea is? I know Knights from like... storybooks. And I guess you kind of fit the vibe. It was kinda why I asked if you'd help me. One part curiosity, and one part hoping you can help me. I've been kind of lucky in that I haven't had to fight much in the last month I've been like... awakened and stuff, but the best move I've got was macing and then punching a woman named Hestia in the face."
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 10:29 pm
"I don't know what you'd call us, to be honest," he said, leaning on his staff with a sort of restless energy. "We're a little different from you guys. We don't get our power from our own -" he waved a hand vaguely, apparently encompassing the ideas of planets or spheres or both. "We sort of get them - like - secondhand, from whatever Senshi royalty we're allied to." He had mentally rehearsed his playful rebuttals to the idea of being called out as a Knight of Tea so often that he'd internalized the logic of them, considered them pretty good arguments, and therefore felt no need to correct her in her ignorance and naivete. Not that he would have anyway. "We don't get to pick. We sort of - get assigned, I guess - to, like, some kinda important place on the Senshi's planet. But Tea is the Senshi of Mice," he said, with another broad smile as he gestured at the rodent embroidered on his tunic. Being named Maus, he probably didn't need to clarify anything there. "But the name Knight is sort of misleading. We're not - well. I have a friend who's a knight and she'll go on a hell of a tangent about how people, like, only think a knight is some obedient servant, but traditionally they just go out and raise hell on their own terms and just pay lip service to the allegiance. I don't know how true that is for the storybook kinda knight, but it's accurate enough for the us kinda Knight." He paused. "I assume Hestia was one of them," he said casually, without feeling the need to clarify what he meant. "A senshi, based on the name? Not good to get tangled more than you have to, at least til you're a little stronger. Good not to run around alone, but - like - we all do it, anyway. Mace'll do you some good, but you'll find it hard to carry when you're powered up. The Cauldron doesn't like us to fight dirty," he added, with a trace of dryness interrupting his hitherto-flat tone. "But we should do it anyway, much as we can. How much do you know about fighting? Anything counts - kickboxing, pulling hair outside the club, anything."
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 11:13 pm
Andromeda listened quietly and attentively, nodding her head slowly as she absorbed the information. Wait, royalty? There was royalty in their ranks? Why was there so much she still didn't know that she felt like she should? Maybe this was more complicated than she was starting to believe. Her brow furrowed a bit and a hand came up to rest a finger against her lips in quiet contemplation, her other hand settling at her hip and her gaze turning down toward the ground. A man named Maus being sworn under the Senshi of Mice made perfect sense to her, in fact it made her wonder who else was a knight to her. Did they all have rodent themes? What was a real princess like? And a mouse one at that? "No, it makes sense. Some knights are more like... dedicated to the cause than others. And some just go cause a ruckus and say it's in the name of their patron. You ever seen the game changer skit of the guy being a problematic knight? It's a pretty good one." The hand at her lips dropped down to join her other at her hip, standing comfortably with her feet pointed away from each other, one behind the other and ankles close together, like a ballerina waiting for her choreographer to tell her what to do next. "One of them? Yeah. Little black wings, looks like a housemaid, big hole in her forehead. The mace was my first instinct until Creedence showed up and shoved my pen at me and told me what to say." Her lips pressed in a line for a moment in an awkward half smile. "I'm what they call a 'late bloomer'. So I'm only just learning stuff that everyone around me has known for like half their lives in some cases." When asked what she knew she hummed and tilted her head. One leg began to idly swing forward and back in an easy movement, creating an invisible half circle with her foot. "Stage fighting? Nothing real, you know? Just enough to convince an audience without hurting my dance partner. Stuff I've seen in movies. I'm not really a violent party girl, admittedly I'm more the girl who has too much fun and would absolutely get Hereditary'd hanging out the window of my designated driver's car trying to have my own whimsical drunk girl moment." The example sounded too specific to not be an actual experience, along with the chuckle and smile that came with it. "When I hit her I didn't really know what I was doing, it left some pretty bad bruises for a day or two, and honestly I think I'd have broken a finger if I hadn't been like.. magically strong or whatever, you know?"
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 11:31 pm
"Unfortunately," said Maus with a grin that was lingering from her description of her drunk tendencies, "a broken hand is just kinda the price you pay for hitting people, sometimes, especially if you don't learn the right way to line up your fist." He said this with the nonchalant voice of experience. "Way less when you're magically armored against it, though, you're right about that, so I wouldn't worry too much about picking up a boxer's fracture from it any time soon." He gave the stick an absent little twirl, his gaze abstracted as he considered some inward question even as he continued. "We all start there. Sometimes it's worse. I've spent more time - like - unlearning bad habits than I have learning good ones, in some things. Like how to line my ********' fists up. It's sticky, though. I was gonna say you wanna fall back on your power more than anything, especially at first, but if you're late to the party - I don't know. Doesn't that work weird, sometimes? Well," he continued, focus briskly snapping back, "one of the many advantages you guys have is having access to it right out of the gate, anyway. Show me what you can do," he prompted. He suppressed a feeling that was half dread and half hope that he might, once again, get something like Odainsaker's power or - good God, it was still hard to think of without feeling sick and hungry - Lete's. But surely he couldn't be having his third run-in with a girl whose magic made him halfway want to drop to a knee and propose marriage on the spot. It was probably fine.
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 11:37 pm
Her eyes widened a moment and her foot stopped its swaying. "Wait, like, with my magic?" She frowned briefly, glancing down toward her hands. Surely it would be okay... every other time she had used it had been pretty weak. "I mean, I can try if that's what you want. I just want to be sure before I just go for it."
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 11:38 pm
"I mean," he said amiably, "unless your magic is drop-you-dead-on-the-spot magic, and I don't think it is or you wouldn't need to be asking my help. I can take it," he added. I hope, he added inwardly.
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Eight rolled 1 20-sided dice:
8
Total: 8 (1-20)
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Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2026 11:45 pm
"Well no, it's not like that. It's just unpleasant is all." She removed her gloves as she explained this, tucking them in the waistband of her bow and dragging the foot that had been swinging back behind her for balance. Green eyes quickly scanned him up and down, her lips twisting in a concerned look. He was very, very covered up. And her magic was very specific. At least as far as she knew. Oh, but maybe if she tried to take off his gloves? She nodded to herself, bouncing briefly on her toes once or twice to get a bit of momentum before she pushed off toward him. Andromeda jumped, positioning herself to use one of her legs to carry herself in a twirl as if to kick him, but perhaps her instinct was more trained for her to be caught in this moment as she attempted to move behind Maus and make a grab at him. She stumbled a moment, catching herself quickly as she reached for his hair to try and press her fingertips and palm against his scalp, calling out " Andromeda's Sting!" while her other hand tried to make a sneaky grab for one of his gloves. Quote: Andromeda's Sting! When using her magic, Sailor Andromeda's body becomes as dangerous as a jellyfish's tendrils. Touching exposed skin will feel like a nasty sting for as long as contact is made. The longer a target is held, the more uncomfortable, and painful, the sensation will grow until subsiding on its own. This can be done to as many enemies as she is able to make physical contact with until the magic ends. While not much of an actual fighter; Andromeda's Sting is best used to incapacitate, she holds and someone else punches so to speak. This magic lasts for 30 seconds and can be used 3 times per battle. Players can choose to take lasting damage in the form of residual stings or rashes if they choose.
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2026 3:06 pm
Maus being a man with the muscle memory of a decade and a half of bar fights in him - even if the actual memory was gone - would need to be caught much more flat-footed than he was for a grab at his hands to get very far, and he'd snapped his free hand to his staff so quickly that there wasn't much room to get a glove anyway. What he was not expecting was the grab for his hair - or at least that's what he thought it was - despite having just cracked a joke about that exact move. He did not outwardly react to the surge of pain besides a little jolt running through him - no noise of pain or intake of air - but he reacted in his usual way, at least. This was a friendly meeting, and she was presumably only doing what she'd been asked to do, but there was no time like the present to get a lesson in about not taking anything for granted. Not that he was consciously considering this at the moment. What he was consciously considering was ow ow ******** ow s**t ow. Being close and mostly behind him was not useful for leveraging his staff, so he didn't. Trying to yank himself away might result in losing a fistful of hair, so he didn't do that either. He planted the staff and flung a little magic her way while he made a not-very-graceful attempt to ankle swipe her. Quote: Knight Weapon: An elaborately carved staff. Smacking the staff against someone or something releases a cloud of naturally toxic spores while he is channeling his magic. Hostile characters in a 15 foot radius are subjected to intense nausea which may be debilitating, as well as visual and auditory hallucinations similar to a bad trip, and may specifically imagine that any signs of nature nearby, be it plants or animals, are suddenly sinister or dangerous. Characters may experience lasting nausea, paranoia, and/or stomach pain at their player’s discretion. Maus can channel for approximately 45 seconds at this stage.
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2026 4:11 pm
That felt like enough demonstration. He just wanted to see what she had, right? As quickly as she'd grabbed him, Andromeda cut herself off and released him, giving a shake of her hands as if to shake the magic away and-- "Ohshit!" She hadn't been paying attention, and so his staff caught her and swept her feet out from under her, sending the girl to the ground. What... the... ********? She groaned and rubbed the back of her head as she slowly pushed herself to sit up a bit, the world spinning around her and... why did Maus look like that? Her head bobbed subconsciously as she followed the way Maus' head wobbled. Was his head always that big? Why-- " Ohgod." She wrapped her arms around her stomach and rolled onto her side, curling up on her side and bringing her knees up to her chest. She dry heaved where she laid, though thankfully nothing came up. When she opened her eyes everything was the wrong color. The grass was purple, then blue, then orange, then purple, then red. The night sky was a bright yellow and pink, and it had her squinting and closing her eyes again. She dry heaved again, and clamped a hand over her mouth.
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2026 7:32 pm
It was over as soon as it had served its purpose, wisping away in an instant. "Well," he said, in a voice that attempted to walk the line between apologetic and instructive, "if I'd known you were gonna take it that bad I might have warned you first. Guessing you're a bit of a clean-living sort of person all around or it might not have hit you like that." "Normally," he added, jerking his chin at the hand he'd just extended to help her up, "this bit is a trick to teach you to stay on your guard, but I think you've had enough of that for now. So I won't do that if you promise not to try and get my gloves off." And then, belatedly, scrubbing at his hair and leaving it in a bit of disarray, in a tone almost of praise, impressed: "Ow."
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2026 7:48 pm
It was gone in an instant, though her head swam an extra moment as she adjusted to being okay. Her eyes were a little wild as she slowly sat up again, one hand supporting her and the other rubbing at her throat. "Clean liv--oh.. uh... yeah no I... too scared I'd lose my job if I did something stupid or ******** my body up..." She blinked a few times, cleared her throat, and then accepted the hand up to rise back to her feet.
Andromeda was brushing herself off as he spoke, but she was listening. "Sorry, you're just like really covered up, and I need bare skin, as you saw.." She gestured vaguely to her own head, looking apologetic. "I can't really control its effectiveness right now. Tempesti said I have to do some sort of ritual on my homeworld for that. Stay on my guard. Right." She idly hopped from one foot to the other, then relaxed. "Are the gloves a personal issues or like a taboo or something?" It was interesting that he asked for a specific promise. "Won't happen again though, yeah."
She frowned a moment and then looked again to Maus. "Well, you can see now why I need to get up close and stuff. I can't entirely rely on that if I come across someone covered up like you. There was a guy I encountered who had long sleeves but an exposed abdomen, it was really awkward."
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2026 8:04 pm
"The gloves," he said frankly and a bit wryly, "are so you don't zap me again, Cattle Prod." He affixed these last two words in a way that made it clear he had mentally assigned her a nickname. "Once was enough. Not that I'd hold it against you if you got one over on me during a spar. Good reminder for me to be on my guard, if you did. I did ask for it, after all." He was still absently scrubbing at his head, scrunching up his face in a thoughtful expression. "Hell of a limitation to have," he said. "I don't know if you can like - find a way to strengthen yourself out of needing that, but it might be worth asking around. Unfortunately most of what I know is coming from the Knight side of things, and we have other ways of maneuvering around that s**t. Maybe you need to talk to one of those goddamned cats," he added vaguely, in a way that suggested he had personal history with them. "You're gonna wanna find someone that can teach you grappling. I'd offer, but it's never been my strong suit. More of a ******** type of guy, myself." He had dropped his hand, only for it to materialize, of all things, an orange lollipop, which he began unwrapping in a contemplative fashion as he spoke. He now popped it into his mouth. "I think you're gonna have to learn to aim for people's faces, but you already know that, so I'm not telling you anything useful," he said, chewing on the stick for a second. "At least you've got the height for it."
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Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2026 8:21 pm
"Cattle Prod?" Andromeda repeatedly flatly, looking unimpressed. Her hands settled at her hips and she tilted her head to one side. She relaxed quickly, falling into the role of listening student again. She wouldn't do it again, he wasn't someone she was trying to hurt, so there was no need. They could just pretend, like in fencing training or something when they wear the suits and masks and stuff.
Strengthen it, huh? Could that be an option? "I could ask Creedence... not a cat guy?" She asked with a chuckle. "Do you know anyone who's good with grappling? I'd still appreciate help with the ******** type of stuff, but grappling is likely gonna be something I'll definitely need."
There was a moment where Andromeda enviously eyed the lollipop, looking about ready to ask for one until he spoke up again. She hummed and looked down, hopping briefly onto her toes and back down again. "... Hold on a second," she muttered as she plopped down gracefully to sit on the ground. She reached back behind herself and then brought forward a pair of pointe shoes. They didn't look new, they very much looked like an "in case of emergency" pair, but didn't look like they were falling apart. They had darning around the toe box, and a small embroidered 'VL' in pink thread that was just barely visible against the pale color of the shoes. The heels were untied and tossed aside in favor of the pointe shoes she quickly pulled on and settled into, tying them with practiced ease around her ankles and then standing back up.
She hopped up on her toes again, this time looking far more balanced on proper footwear for that kind of thing. "I mean..." She looked thoughtful as she brought up one foot and then hopped, bringing that foot down to land on it and bring up the other one. "What if, like... fighting's kind of like dancing, right?"
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