The drive to the station had been short; now, Kade and Dawn had finally arrived in the inner city. The feeling of peace and restfulness hit the two when the ordeal with Kurt had ended.
Not necessarily the aftermath that the incident had caused, but the feeling of threat, danger, and death that had been above the two's heads had somewhat faded. The winter solstice would, of course, occur in about three weeks, and then they would feel that same sense of wakefulness of peril.
But right now, Kade found himself embraced in a warm shower, within the embraces of the police department that Jet had chosen for the duo, granted a small rest to fix himself up before she started asking questions.
He didn't like getting interrogated much, if at all. His life was his own to know, and he would rather someone else find out for themselves than try to rip it out of him. But who knows? Maybe the government was better at their job than he thought possible.
They could simply know everything they had to about him. Kade doubted such a possibility, but even in peace, he shouldn't allow himself to be reckless. Making mistakes created opportunities and, if bad enough, quite a lot of stress.
Flicking the shower set the heat to null; Kade let the temperature soothe his temperament with its cold. Bringing clarity. 'I am now a sleeper; there will be people far more powerful than me at any given time. I can't just punch my way out of things.'
It was such a shame; that was his normal way of solving problems; it was by far the more enjoyable option at times. Fighting was like an art, a story of such; feeling other people will drive into real power inspired him, and he melded himself with the fury he saw scattered in the outskirts.
And now was a sculpture of their rage, their defiance, their disappointment, and their envy. Instead of wallowing in those emotions like his colleagues, he learnt to grow with them and meld the good with the bad, finding joy in what others would consider.
He thrived with the confusion and muddled state of reality, extorted onto the world as he saw fit, splattering colour onto the bleak muddled state that he saw in life, to something more desirable.
'I guess that's what the spell sees of me.'
[Heart of Chaos], he would say it's a fitting name. Of course, after further investigation into the wondrous world of the network. And he picked up some things about the spell he hadn't really known before.
One of them was that true names are based on the past, present, and future apparently, not just on who the spell thought you were, but on what the spell would think of you to be. It was a bit trippy to think about, but it made one thing clear.
Despite entering the world of the awakened, his shenanigans would very much continue; he didn't know the future; however, he knew himself. It didn't seem out of the ballpark. He'd crash into this new world like always, armed with old knowledge and whatever chaos he'd pick up along the way.
Exiting the shower, Kade wrapped himself in a clean towel, pausing at the spotless mirror above the sink—luxuries he hadn't known back in the crumbling excuse of a home he used to squat in; it was more of a crack house that he had raided for himself.
Seemingly abandoned because who made the crack in modern-day NQC? It was an old-world drug; they had found other things to spark their interest, and the greed and the sloth of evolving addicts would forever evolve with new chemicals to spice up the life they so desperately avoided living.
Nonetheless, being clean was something that he had truthfully never been; his mother had already died from his birth to bath him of any sort, and his dipshit of a father never tried. He was just a little brat that would grow into someone he could leech off of.
Now though, Kade found his skin flawless, for his standards of course; nearly every inch of his body was littered with battle scars, from tiny to large, nearly nothing was left untouched by the tales of scrapes, brawls, and wars that he had started, joined, or ended.
Nay say for his eyes and hidden weapon, those he had managed to keep safe. Kade had managed that with his skill and alertness; he didn't have to join the ranks of the poor bastards who could never have children or the unluckier few who couldn't participate in mindless depravity.
Even so, his skin shone more than he would have thought, along with his face structure seeming... different. It was too small to tell any difference, but it seemed that the tiny little flaws it had assumed in them. He looked a little more dashing in a sense.
He still had the same scraggly long brown hair and amber irises, not to mention the little prickles and scratches among a small spot of freckles. Thank the dead gods that the spell had taste.
More than he thought himself normally, 'Beauty resonates with power in some senses; the spell therefore makes an awakened more "pretty".' Yet the flaws one had were what made them unique; it was a bit alarming for an entity/machine or sentient magic sickness to decide what sharpened his visage.
If he ever rose further and it decided to clear his beautiful collection of scars, he would deny that fate and carve them back into his skin, all the stories that they told were too brilliant to discard, the memories he had experienced in his teens.
Giving himself one last picturesque peek in the mirror, Kade brushed his teeth furiously, shook his wet hair like a dog, shot into his new police-issued tracksuit, and bolted out of the bathroom, giving a quick knock to Dawn's assigned room before getting to his own.
Hitting the bed like a bag of rocks, Kade drifted into a well-earned slumber.
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Dawn received the hurried knocks on her door, forcing herself to rise from the oh-so-comfortable bed and up to turn the lock. She glanced tiredly for Kade, yet he had rushed off to his own room like a kid on a sugar high.
'He really is one kooky character; it's like life beat hell into him, and he just laughed it off.' Not that she saw him as a fool or a clown; quite the opposite. She herself needed to learn how to roll past things like what she shortly saw of him.
Yet she could feel that there was something deeper under this layer of emotion and gauze that he assumed over himself. A seriousness and strength that truly allowed him to fight for so long against a world that had abandoned him.
It was nice to know him, someone that had the purest of intentions from what she could tell, if any. Kade seemed to dive in first and see how he felt later rather than explore what he felt before the moment of action.
Undressing and turning the shower to a jittering cold, Dawn forced alertness in her tired body, gaining clarity of the mind and more insight in the reflection.
He was a brutal criminal, really, one who had put the fear of God into his peers by beating the literal shit out of them on repeat. Not taking the fights or conflicts like mistakes or ways he could have improved himself to avoid them but just obstacles for him to overcome.
It didn't make sense for Dawn to find an ally in someone so chaotic and heartlessly ruthless; no matter what bright grin or cocky gesture he made, he was a criminal. Someone who had learnt to betray for no one but himself.
She didn't feel any of it, though; it was logic that tried to bind itself to Kade, and she figured that making sense of the guy would take a lot more time. Either way, she was glad to have a powerful ally that she could relate to somewhat.
The mental image of her falling to sleep beside him in the car emerged; she chuckled at the thought, slightly wistful that she couldn't be aware of what had happened while she was off dreaming. She didn't really care; all that mattered was the contact, yet she imagined that her father would have fainted at the sight.
Her mood starting to sour at the reminder, she hadn't seen him in weeks; her overprotective father would've been hovering over her by now, despite being busy working under Song like he was.
The lack of his familiar voice hurt; she didn't know where Song had taken him or if he was even alive for that matter. There wasn't much she could do anyway.
Either to live her life with her own joy, like her dad would want, or to grow powerful enough to snatch him from the disgusting, traitorous hands of the legacy clan itself.
Feeling her own strength hidden in her grasp, she understood which one she preferred. The sensation of pulling the trigger haunted her, but it reminded her of one thing.
What power was – it was the strength to choose who to shoot, where to aim, and when to fire.
It was control one could insert upon destiny, a delivery of their desires onto reality.
She clearly had much more of it she could experience, and she hungered for it.
Dawn checked her soul and opened up her runes.
The faint shimmers of light danced across the tile floor.
Name: Dawn Ruiz
True Name:--
Rank: Dreamer
Soul Core: Dormant
Soul Fragments: 0/1000
Memories: [Origin], [Solemn Gown], [Half Pipe], [Air Conditioner], [Little Prick], [Pretty Boys Pocket Pistol],[Lady Death]
Echoes: __
Attributes: [True Sight], [Memory Bank], [Soul Body]
[True Sight]
Attribute Description: [The archive seeks the truth and falsehood of what reality has to offer to ensure that the scriptures of its mind stay forever accurate. Allowing one to see Truth in the deceptions and bias of the mind]
[Memory Bank]
Attribute Description: [You cannot forget; to not recall an event is to fail as a living archive.]
[Soul Body]
Attribute Description: [Your body was modified by the divine sorcerers to live beyond what mortals could offer. The living archive is unable to succumb to age.
Aspect: [Living Archive]
Aspect Description: [The gods have lived through millennia and beyond; existence passes days for the divine and centuries for the mortals; memory fades with time, and the divine creatures still tied to the past hoisted up mortals to entertain as banks of knowledge, burdened to be a living archive that remembered all existence had to offer.]
Aspect Rank: [Supreme]
Innate Ability: [Reconstruction]
Innate Ability Description: [Memories do not fade in the hands of the archive easily; if even the slightest shard of a memory lies in their hands, the living archive can reconstruct it.]
Aspect Ability: [Integrate]
Aspect Ability Description: [The archive is not held to just what it knows but to what it can, making the mundane special in a way that transcends time, into an object that can be safekept for aeons in the archive's possession.]
Flaw: [Connected Vessel]
Flaw Description: [Your body and mind are considered one collected whole; the two traits of existence go further beyond in your speciality; damage to either is damage to the other.]
Dawn read over the runes in the silence, the sensation of the cold water raining onto her body, before turning the valve and enjoying the temperature to a warm feeling that comforted her.
'There is much I can do with this aspect; I just have to experiment, is all.' From there she would grasp power, and with power she would grasp her destiny, away from the chaotic life that had altered it so much.
A lofty goal indeed, but one she could follow in the upcoming weeks, months, years? Dawn wasn't sure, honestly; the future was something unknown to her, and she would welcome it with open arms.
Retreating out of the shower, she covered herself up and left for the bed, back to the untied experience of dreams.
Dawn drifting off into her own unknown.