lucetilogs | I've been chillin' out on a star with my 5 star view

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I've been chillin' out on a star with my 5 star view

Who: All draftees
What: The space battle commences
When: After 3PM on the 19th to the 23rd
Where: In Space! On the Moon!
Summary: The battle finally begins! First there's asteroids to take down, then we finally arrive!
Rating: SPACE

MORE SPACE

All the details you need are here, so read up on it. This didn't get mentioned before, but you can tag the cultists instead of killing them. Details on this are on a previous draft post. Using the scanners are optional!

There will be a thread for interacting with NPCs, but they may not all go up at once, so keep an eye out for them.

Note: A log for the events in the village will go up on the 21st, in time for the hurricane and droid incursion.

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Her very own. And how was she treating him?

"I...I have to try. I can't not try. The General is out there," she tasted the non-name and it tasted like ash and iron. Like that same hot August day. "And I should be out there, too."

But first there was the matter of the locket.

"And me? I've had an extraordinary thought. I negotiate with him. Me. Captain Jack Sparrow."

The locket was safely tucked inside his space suit. Skin tight. Almost good enough for exotic dancing in zero G.

"That? That is never going to happen."

She wouldn't allow it. Because he'd be torn limb from limb and all those charcoal feathers plucked and...great. After everyone else had done it for her, it was her own turn to put visions of Jack's death into her mind. Wonderful.

Buffy reached beyond him -- but only to lean her weapon against that ship's hull. "He and me have business. He..." has a reason to listen to me. "The chance might not ever come up again. I've waited years for this."

"And he an' me have business as well, eh? I've negotiated far tricksier things, Buffy. Let me try first."

She remained close.

"No. Nuh-uh. He killed Derek to...send a message. I don't wanna be the recipient of a Jack-o-gram, too."

Buffy didn't reach for Jack's hand but she did flatten her palm against his side. She would've gone for his chest but -- knowing where the locket was likely to be, she didn't want to spook him into running.

Edited 2012-06-20 10:09 (UTC)

And Jack did not want to be the recipient of a Buffy-o-gram. He wasn't sure if he could live with something like that, not at all at all.

But then there was the other side of the coin. Angelica he had stopped -- had saved -- through a trick. She would never forgive him and he had very safely marooned her. Jack didn't think he would survive non-forgiveness from Buffy Summers. Not now.

"Funny, isn't it? Wasn't expecting him this round. Not in space."

"Two surprises for the price of one. And it's not like I'm actually keen about either..."

It was half a lie. Buffy didn't like being in space -- she had made that abundantly clear back on the Liberator. It made her more nervous than being at sea. But she wasn't exactly unkeen for the General's arrival. It wasn't so much something she'd wanted and hoped for but more like the wait had been such a strain. The suspense. The denied conclusion. All that unfinished business.

"It's just a job," she tried to tell him. A vain attempt, really. Only a handful of people knew Buffy well enough to understand just how far beyond work this was -- or how even being the Slayer wasn't so much a job as a way of life (and death).

Slowly Jack pulled the charm from beneath his tight-fitting suit and unclasped it from his neck.

Her breath caught again at the sight of it, all-too-gleaming under these artificial lights. Her fingers may have stiffened at his side and her mouth may have tightened into a severe line but she made no sudden movements.

Trust him, she thought. Let him keep his promise. He will, he will, he must.

"It's only because I love you," he remarked, letting it dangle between them -- for once not admiring the sight of gold. It was far more precious to him, this thing, as much as he hated the sight of it. Symbolic.

"Because I love you. And I cannot stop you."

"You're right. You can't."

She reached -- with her free hand, not the one still anchoring her to him -- to close the dangling charm up in her palm. To secure her fingers around it. To claim it. Her trophy. Her life, to do with it as she would. As it should be.

"Thank you," she whispered as she tugged the chain free.

She should run. Race. Hurry. But he'd kept his end of the bargain and she was grateful. Only Buffy wasn't sure she could make good on her portion. He'd asked her to knock him out, afterwards.

She didn't want to.

She would have to, because he was set to follow her. In fact, without responding to that thank you, Sparrow pushed away from the transport shuttle and became all business.

"Right. Where is the giant feathery bastard?" And he set off walking toward the eastern part of the sector where the breach had occurred. Smoke was rising. Refugees were still fleeing from that direction. And there were ominous explosions.

She whirled. No. This would not do. Buffy took up her scythe and caught up to him -- forced to also turn entirely to business.

"You? You were doing good things here. Keep doing them. You have no place in this fight."

She didn't put the locket on. She simple held it.

"You, love of my life, are not going without me. I'll do all the buggered good things later."

"Jack. You don't understand."

Pike understood. In Vegas. And that's why he-- "If you go..."

"If I go, I can be your luck."

And a great distraction for the General if things went sour. A perfect, annoying target.

She hauled back on his shoulder -- forcefully twisting him to face her. Holding him there.

"If you go, you'll get me killed."

Pike said it, once. And years later, Buffy had repeated the sentiment to Joyce.

The pirate swallowed, hard. He saw it. He wasn't blind to it. She would never run. Never ever. Maybe he had just needed to hear it.

"You're not dying for me," he said harshly. Not for his secondhand soul, she wasn't.

"You don't get to choose..." what I die for. "Look. It's simple math. Me, you, and the General. I can't kill the last while also looking after the first two."

If Jack was in play? She would have to put more effort into preserving herself just to preserve him. It wouldn't even be a conscious decision -- guts would lead her there. But if she were alone...

"Please. Don't make me hit you. I really, really don't want to hit you. You really don't want me to hit you. Being hit by me isn't a pleasant experience."

"I know that already," Jack snapped. "Remember?"

"Of course I remember," she spat in return. "God, I remember it so often I..."

Guilt. Darkness. All of it, fighting to climb up her throat. In a relationship where she felt unprecedentedly okay with what or who she was and with what she occasionally needed to be, she still did not like recalling the feel of his jaw under her knuckles.

"I don't want to hurt you. Not again." Other words, now. Ones she'd said to Willow, once upon a time. "Doesn't mean that I won't. So go back. Let me take care of this."

She'd said it, once: at least he wouldn't run. Speaking of Spike, she was. Jack's strategy, usually, was centered on running. It had taken very serious threats against his way of life to convince him not to after returning from death. Elizabeth had been persuasive.

As he turned away, Jack didn't bother telling Buffy that there could be things in the near future that would hurt far, far worse than her knuckles, and that right now they seemed inevitable.

"Take care of it."

There were a hundred million options open to her and each spidered out from her fingertips. Possibilities. She could chase him and they could find an abandoned corner of a building and avoid every last scrap of the fighting. Or she could fight elsewhere. Or -- Heaven forfend -- she could allow him to fight with her. But none of those possibilities appeared possible to Buffy Summers.

Brusquely, she fumbled with the locket. She clumsily worked its clasp and secured its chain around her neck. It wasn't simply her life, now. It was more than that. It was a future.

"I'll see you on the other side," she said. Voice raised. What she ought to do is pull him back and beg him for a good luck kiss. A hug. Anything. But she was scared that any amount of tenderness -- Jack's gentleness -- would undo her as it always did and ruin every notion of what she was supposed to do.

And so the Slayer turned away as well.

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all7seas - 2012-06-20 11:57 (UTC) - Expand

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