poly_chromatic | ♦ ♦ 18th Contract

[ The device snaps on to the foreshortened view of a spartan livingroom. In the corner, a wire-mesh cage with a brightly-patterned iguana is visible. The occupant stirs sluggishly across the interior, tail flicking. Closer to the screen, on the coffee-table, rests a crystal center-piece. ]

[ Someone's frigid little heart is on display for the whole City. ]

[ In the periphery, footsteps rustle. A voice, too flat and monotonous to be 'Li's, mutters, ]

So now the City's getting metaphorical on me.

Pretentious. As always.

[ Belatedly, the speaker notices the blinking device. With an irritable tch, a hand reaches to click off the feed. It won't be near midnight until the device switches itself back on. At a different spot, but with the ice-heart still in view. By that time, it'll have metamorphosed into a new shape. The blue glow it radiates is actually a spark of concentrated heat. Melting the ice from inside-out. ]

[ Hopefully it won't set the coffee-table on fire. ]

Options for Run Ins:

♠ At Home (Li/Hei): With impatient jerky movements -- almost pulling off the cabinet doors as he yanks them -- he'll be assembling lunch in the kitchen, though (for once) he isn't hungry. But he's no mood to look at that over-dramatic frozen heart. Teammates or friends are welcome to drop by and bug him!

☀ Shopping (Li): He leaves the stupid heart -- and inevitable questions via the Network device -- at home. At a supermarket, pushing a grocery cart, he feels better. After that tiresome 'revolt', he's glad to wander around and take care of mindless, not unpleasant tasks. You'll find him contemplating shelves of little fruity yogurt pots. Almond midnight mocha, juicy peach tart or blue lychee dream? Hmmmm.

∅ Recon (Reaper): Under the black sky of late night, he'll be near the City limits and the Underground, surveying the revolt's residual destruction. By now, in the groove of his routine, he's almost forgotten about the curse. The stars above are clear, and there's a pale slice of moon. He drifts from checkpoint to checkpoint, feeding an unexpected new habit of wandering around, not exactly patrolling, but getting lost. Staying lost.

[ OOC: Too cold to pierce, too hot to handle? Thawing and mellowing? Eating itself alive? Interpretations are up to you xD (Massively backtag friendly!!!!) ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ The shriek signifies that he's managed to injure her. But it's clearly not a debilitating blow -- one moment she's in his line of fire, the next she's gone. For a moment he suspects she's retreated, but his synapses are already firing a warning Move move move. ]

[ Except it's not fast enough. He feels her materialize like a limpet clinging to his back -- and though he manages to torque his body into an approximation of an Ogoshi hip-throw, electricity sparking under his skin -- it's too late. In his homeworld, the child-Contractor, Parcel, had a similar ability. This stirs the same sensations, everything around him smearing into nonexistent colors and then pure nothingness. ]

[ Shit. A thousand times shit. ]

[ Berthier had, of course, anticipated she might need to one day keep a prisoner. She's been in the business of cruelty and conquest since she and her sisters were young. And their powers afford them the wonderful architectural option of providing no door to their dungeons. ]

[ The room that she drops him into is cold. Marbled, the surfaces faintly reflective but not full mirrors. There are thin beams of light from above, just enough for her eyes: used to the endless black of space. Certainly he can see as well. ]

[ She watches him hit the floor, floating above in one corner. ]

Shall I let you starve?

[ Hei admits the ease, the pragmatism, of teleportation. It's always useful to have an ally who can carry you from point to point in an eyeblink during battles -- he's learnt that with Parcel, an excellent asset, and with other teammates in Heaven's War. But he's never liked it. The after-effects are disorienting when you never know your next location. ]

[ And this? ]

[ Case in fucking point. ]

[ The room he drops into, where the air is so chill that he almost immediately goes from feeling pleasantly cool to half-numbed, is unfamiliar. Like the inside of a prism, mirrored surfaces and smooth planes. It's dark, but it takes only a moment for his vision to readjust. He's no superhuman but his sensory faculties are sharp for the purpose each serves in his survival. ]

[ Even as part of him maps out the interior as a whole -- doors? windows? ledges? corridors? -- his attention is fixed on Berthier. He doesn't acknowledge her taunt. His internal stressers are going haywire, but it isn't fear (he's learn as a child to feel it and move past it and never never let it paralyze him.) It's anger. ]

[ In the dimness, he exudes a pale blue bioluminescence. Bethier may see the lines of his body twist ever-so-slightly as he moves -- stock-still one instant, flinging a set of spring-loaded shivs from his sleeve at her the next. ]

[ If he can nail her down, he can beat the exit route out of her. ]

[ No. Absolutely not, Mr. Reaper. She disappears entirely, but her voice continues to float in from somewhere: ]

I guess I will~

[ Hei's head whips left and right, trying to determine the source of her voice. Under his coat, the bodysuit is thermal, so it'll be a while before the frigid temperatures are a problem. Even then, his ability to manipulate electrons in the air around him guarantees that he can stay sufficiently warm. But that's not his objective right now. ]

[ It's escaping this ice fortress. ]

[ Once more, he ignores Berthier's taunt. Sets off trying to study the layout of his prison. ]

[ Unfortunately, it's just a square. No ins and no outs, and even should he smash that marble there's nothing but miles and miles of earth on the other side. ]

[ He lets fly a zap of electricity against the closet wall. It's caught and amplified in the mirrored surfaces around him, so bright and dazzling and right in his eyes. But despite the scorch-marks left in its wake, marble is too much of an insulator for his tastes. It's not impossible to break through -- but that would take hours he isn't prepared to waste. ]

[ This is essentially a box. A box buried in the ground. He needs to claw himself out. A vague sub-thought, a few rungs below Important in his brain, says, Eliminate the box, and you eliminate the problem. Which makes no sense at first. Except... ]

[ Except it does. ]

[ --the months are nothing as his mind takes a quantum leap back to Tokyo. The building is blurring and everything zings with ozone. His thoughts funnel out into white-noise and everyone and everything disappears in a flash of white and stillness--

[ Abruptly, Hei backs away from the wall. His sense that something enormous is starting up doesn't jibe with his body's tiredness, or with the turmoil of his thoughts. He needs to settle down. He needs to focus. Forcing himself to the center of the room, a position he's been trained never to keep to, he folds himself crosslegged, fingers linked together in his lap. In his temples, his pulse buzzes. His palms grow moist and hot despite the cool air, but he doesn't move his hands. Fidgeting just makes concentrating harder. ]

[ Still. He will be still. ]

[ She leaves him be, in the dark to his thoughts, for a little while. But he is a toy and she cannot help but play with him. She'll be back, eventually, indeterminably later, to prickle him with icicles and laughter. ]

[ Hei knows she'll be back. They always return, to rattle the bars of the cage. Everything he's seen about Berthier suggests an idle mind, so of course she won't pass up on the chance to pleasantly occupy herself with a new plaything. ]

[ It doesn't matter. He'll deal with the fallout once it happens. ]

[ Eyes closed, he can practically feel Pai in the rigidity of his spine. She seems to hover behind him, within him. But like a sliver of iceberg, he's experiencing only the barest tip of that buzzing energy she wielded so easily, manifesting in his own skin. ]

[ Come on. ]

[ Focus. ]

♦ ♦ 18th Contract

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