Japan: Tokyo

The image of Saho had faded away. Virgie reached out for him but no, he was gone. Replaced was... something was wrong with this man, she could sense it.

Virgilia took a deep breath and, her voice firmly assuming her original below-the-Dixie-line accent, calmly tells him, "Get out." Important, my left foot. She got up from her seat and walked towards the stairs to the second floor. This was her dream; she still has control over it, right? From the tiny table bearing a modest jar of flowers on it, she pulls out a black marker from it. If this man intruded her rest for a fight, well darlin', a fight's what you're gonna get.

She sniffs a little more, trying not to sob. "I didn't mean to..." All she had wanted to do was play. So far, hoomun land wasn't as fun as she thought it would be. It was almost as bad as Ogre Island! She reached down and picked at some rubble on the ground sadly, contemplating just running away from the mean hoomun.

Simply staring at her as she goes, the man's eyes dip to the floor for a moment before glancing back up at her; as she lifts her head up from retrieving the marker, he'd...be there. In the same position, right in front of her. Pushing himself up with a distinct amount of grace, the smile is gone from his face; I...it's hard to remember it being there in the first place.

"Yes, I'm sure you'd like for me to leave, but there's something important we need to discuss about you, and your spellcraft. Namely, how you seem to be set on killing yourself over it."

Ugh, that...voice. Did he drink pure gasoline as a kid, or something? It just...it reverberated, everywhere. So deep...guh. Man.

Beginning to move around the room, he doesn't actually look at her; he sets his attention on a potted plant in the corner, seeming to mock taking his attention away from her for a moment. Still, something is...wrong. She's still being watched.

"Your death hardly concerns me; you'd just be another person to die. The flexing of your power in terms of magic, however, does. So, we're going to talk. Put down the marker, Ms. Balentine; we both know how little you'll be able to do."

"It doesn't matter what you meant to do or not, all that matters in this world is your actions. Your actions were awful. You attempted to kill several people; you broke many things. You caused a large amount of destruction for no reason but your own personal stupidity; why do you think this was alright, 'little' girl?"

His arms remain crossed, and his stern stare stays fixed on her. Man, he really seems set on just making her cry her way back to Ogre island, doesn't he?

Virg kept silent and began to step back; as this was her dream and someone was invading it, she imagined her old 19th century dress replaced with her modern-day wear... but nothing happened. Thinking harder... nothing still. Goddamn, who IS this guy?

Still she doesn't put down her marker. As a matter of fact, she uncaps it and throws the cap away, eyeing the wall to her immediate right. She wonders which symbol would be most useful here: Mars to set his good-for-nothing self on fire or Neptune to just wash this whole place out and drown him. How little she'll be able to do? Bullshit, this is HER head (maybe), if she wanted to sink the whole place in a horrific earthquake... could she? Was she still in her head? Virgie wasn't sure.

"Try me."

She gets up now, sniffling yet further. She'd had about enough of this hoomun being mean to her. She hadn't meant to harm anything or anyone, and she came to hoomun land to do whatever she want. So she wouldn't have to listen to anybody. So, she'd certainly had enough of THIS. She was here to have fun, not get yelled at.

"I'm not hurting anybody and I don't have to listen to you! You aren't my dad!" Hefting up her club onto her shoulder, she turned to stomp out of the city, still taking special care to look at where she was planting her feet.

Stepping forward towards her, he sighs; very headstrong, of course.

She wouldn't allow herself to be talked to so easily, no-dreams were private, a place where she could make everyone like her. This dream especially, being back home, where she was still loved by everyone. Where those suitors still came. Where everyone didn't hate her.

"Isn't that right, Ms. Balentine? Or have I missed the mark? Wasn't it always about vanity? A...deal with the devil?"

The thoughts had reverberated in her head like a church bell; he continues towards her, attempting to place his hand just above hers, almost touching her knuckles.

"I've always found that to be silly, haven't you? Deal with the devil. Why would the devil require souls? As if someone could own a soul."

Virgie stepped further back, drawing her hand back with her and with a loud squeak the first line was already drawn on the wall. Okay, that simultaneously removes a lot of signs she could use and brings up a couple of others. His voice now echoing in her head... ugh, get it OUT. Virgie shook her head, soft curls bouncing off of her face.

Oh sure, maybe he was right, and this was all about vanity. But so what? A dream's a dream and intruders need to get out. "What do you want?" She keeps her hand prepped, ready to draw the tip of Mars' spear and his shield. Yeah, she was definitely gonna go with fire first. "Who are you?" A third question bounced around in her head: 'Please leave me alone?' She really just wanted to make good use of this rest, and with Saho no less.

But no. It's all fun and games until someone wants a piece of your magic.

Tracking her hand with his eyes, he pulls his hand back from her knuckles, motioning towards the wall with it and tilting his head to the side. Hardly seeming to feel...anything at all, really, about her apparent intentions to fling fire at him, he just stands there and continues speaking.

"I want to talk to you about your habits. About over-exerting yourself. About how you have accessed a very powerful magic that requires very little knowledge of how magic works, and how that is dangerous."

Stepping back and widening his stand, slightly, he simply stares at her and waits for her next action.

"Finish the drawing, if you're convinced it will have any effect."

"As I'm sure you're not related to me, you can trod right off back from whence you came. Who are you to tell me how my own powers work?"

She kept thinking, thinking, thinking of the sign of Mars... but her hand finished the line by creating a hybrid PL. The wall crumbled away seconds after Virgie focused on it and, after quickly doodling Mercury's sign and dragging it onto her feet, she runs and jumps out of the hole made in the wall. Fuck you, whoever you are, I do what I want.

"Actually, you can tell me when I'll start giving a damn."

Virgie hits the ground running and... owwww, it really hurts like all hell to run in heels, but she's ran in worse wear and under worse conditions. She's already beginning to get exhausted; perfect, just perfect. The one time she'd hope to be left in peace to recover and here's this guy wanting to... lecture her? No, of course he's here for another reason. Why else would he be here? Also of note: running while wearing a flowing dress is a bad idea. She trips, skidding on the hard ground and dirt below her. This sort of pain, even in REM sleep, would have woken her up already. And yet... it didn't?

What the hell is even going on.

Even as the wall falls into ashes and she jumps out of it, he does little but look at her; he watches her jump, and run, going faster than any normal human can. Watching her fly forward as though her feet were themselves mercurial; and he stands there, doing nothing.

As she looks up to see where she is, she'd find him again...standing there, doing nothing. Kneeling down to get closer to her, his eyes stare into hers, and he shakes his head.

"From whence I came is the source of creation, and a place I would distinctly rather not go back to. I am, for your question, someone with far more knowledge of magic than you can ever know, no matter how much you ply at those human tomes. As for when you'll begin caring..."

Bringing his hand towards her head, he instead brings it back; she'd feel a horrifying pain jolt her for a split second. Nothing lasting, but...enough to get her attention.

"Now. Stop trying to run and talk."

The source of creation? As in...?

The slap jolts her attention awake, but she merely glares up at him and says, "Blasphemous piece of..." As she moved, pain jolted through every inch of her body. Signal had a term for this, right? Back when she was still Coin Girl. 'Drawing from your own stamina,' right. "Well thanks but no thanks, I don't need a lecture on how you're more powerful than me." As she stands up, or tries to, her legs buckle and she collapses to the ground.

"I'm reminded of that every goddamn day of my life by everyone I've ever met."

Continuing to kneel down over her, his eyes set themselves distinctly on the back of her head, and he simply continues speaking.

"Yes; well. Blasphemy seems only proper, doesn't it? Speaking out against a ruler who finds himself to be totalitarian-so totalitarian that he cannot even bring himself to allow you human will. None of you have it, did you know? Every word you say is written. The entirety of humanity is known to Him. I find it funny that you play at American values, the decency of democracy, and then offer yourselves up to a single one as a monarch as though it were any different; but my speeches upon human hypocrisy are far too many to quantify or quote to you. Let's, instead, talk about how you need to understand your magics. You need to understand that bringing too much power to bear is a poor idea, because magic...allows other things to occur. It allows other things in, unless you know how to keep them out. So, I'm going to tell you now that you're going to keep yourself in check. No passing out, no trying to ascend in power. I will drag you down myself, if I find your attempts to be reaching."

"That... that is a LIE." The story goes, Adam and Eve ate from the Fruit of Knowledge and got cast out of Eden, their mortality becoming their and humanity's ultimate punishment. "And you have... urg, NO business in what I do, whoever it is you are. Fuck, this hurts..." Virg tries to stand up once more, though for now she settles on sitting upright. Now she won't even bother to look at this mysterious man.

"If you don't like how I'm using my magic, as I've said, you can trod off. Maybe even to Hell, if what you're saying is true." She draws ⚕ in the ground and slams her hand on the symbol. A staff of earth is pulled out; actions like these require very little magic compared to running or corroding walls, but it still hurts like hell to stand up even with a crutch in her hands. "And if I die, well..."

She thought of her cousin for a moment. She saw how weak she could be, but also how powerful she was. And in that point, she saw... a back-up plan.

"You can try to take me away."

"I would like you to think of Adam and Eve; of the very concept at which He tore with that story. Why would he bother forbidding humanity from anything? At what point did that become His goal, to force humanity away from grace? God is omniscient, correct? I sometimes wonder myself, but no; it's true enough. All of this creation is under his command, he knows all that will happen-and so why allow entropy into it? Why allow death? To shift blame from himself by engineering a fall for Eve was cowardice; he knew it would come when he forbade the fruit. It was known to him as was everything else; God gave you mortality, and yet you blame yourselves. You may claim this to be a lie, but I have no use for lies; the only thing I need do is tell you the truth, and you will find your own way to hell."

Not moving at all as he stares at her, his hand raises, and he waves her away.

"All things die. That's just how it's written."

At the wave of his hands and these words, she's gone-just a dream...? No, she...she's not where she was supposed to be. Where was she?

The pain in her body is replaced by general lethargy, and without the crutch underneath her hands. Wait a minute.

Virgie's in the city. But she was in the forest before, right?


Signal makes several rounds before returning to where O-Girl and Zealot was, but... she sensed another blip on her kinda-sorta Thoughts RADAR. That's Virgie. But wasn't she...?

She flies down to meet a slumped over Virgilia, asking what's wrong.

"Forest..." she mumbles.

"Back to the forest? But..."

"Go..."

"..." Signal silently shrugs, slings Virgie over her shoulders, and flies off back to where the forest should be. She knows because as she gets near she senses a very distant, faded blip of thought. Who was this? Closer and closer, she lands on the ground at the edge of the forest. Considering that a rather large tree was torn from its roots, it wasn't hard to find the spot.

And sleeping by a tree is Saho Mange.

"...so this is what you meant." Signal walks over to Saho, puts Virg down next to him, and runs off to fly back to the city. Weird; how did she get to the city, and so quickly with her... lack of energy? What is even going on with this chick?

Saho stretched and yawned, man, how long had he slept?

"I dunno, how long was the timeskip?" Stop doing that; you know too much sometimes.

"Still, I feel....good. Hopeful; you know? Like things are going to go great." Ha...HA....HAHAHAHA, really?

"....What?" Oh nothing; just....nothing. It's just funny how you think you'll have a happy ending.

"...." Hey look, Siggy is next to you.

"....You don't call people by my nicknames..." If you keep talking to yourself; she'll start to notice....and besides. Isn't there something you need to talk to her about?

"Oh right, Siggy, you up?" He kneels down, shaking her a bit, hahaha...Mange. A vampire lord was only the beginning.

It takes a while, but Virgie stirs from her sleep. She looks around to see that, yes, Saho is still here. Thank goodness.

"...hm...ah, yes, yes I'm awake. I had such a terrible dream, too. Hmm...I was positive that sign would work, but..." But it doesn't explain how you ended up in the city.

Virgilia hugs Saho tightly. She really didn't want to have another nightmare like that again. Or, what seemed like a combination of nightmares and sleepwalking. (Sleepflying?)

"Yes, Siggy, I know my mysterious and dark persona is very difficult to resist, but we'll have time to imply we did that offscreen later" Yes, yes. Ask her. Get to it. Mange glares at her seriously, holding her an arm's length away with his hands on his shoulders. With the angle that the sun's at; his hood does a wonderful job of sending a shadow to obscure his face; not to mention it blocking a lot of his face as it is. It almost looks like staring down into a pit.

"...How do your powers work, and where did you get them?" Finally at meat of it then? What you saw her use against the Vampire Lord....very easy to abuse. What you saw now? Crazy. She could potentially be one of the most powerful entities alive. The only question is are you more scared of her than you are worried for her?

"...ah, right. I was going to explain that." Virgie broke away from the hug to clear her throat.

"My magic is the kind that you could channel through artifacts. For example, I could take a small branch from one of these trees and fashion it into a wand for use. A bigger branch, and maybe a staff. But no, I channel my magic through symbols, signs, sigils... however, the power I use is not from the sign itself; it comes from what the sign is associated with. For example..."

Virgie idly draws ⊕ in the dirt with her finger, soon tapping it thrice. She digs her hand into the ground where the sign was drawn and she pulls out a lumpy vase. "What I just drew in the ground is the symbol for Earth, based on the Roman goddess of the Earth... Terra, I think her name is. I can do a variety of stuff with this sign, but it all depends on several things, such as intention, location, and power. Intention means: 'What do I want to do with this sign?' Location means where you draw or place the sign. Power means how much magic you channel into it. So, if I had enough power, and if I really wanted to, I could move the tectonic plates and cause constant earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions... but that'd be silly because I'd die due to what would follow."

Virgie places the jar on the ground and then sketches ♆ on the dirt. This time she only taps it once, dragging a visage of the symbol up on her finger with her. She flicks it into the opening of the vase and Virgie grabs it, tipping the mouth towards the bottom... and water pours out. And pours and pours and pours and holy shit this jar's got no bottom as to how much water is inside. Having proven her point, she tips the jar back upright.

"I can only do that because ♆ is associated with Neptune and therefore the sea, and ⊕ being associated with Earth. As to where I got my powers, well..."

Virgie sighs. "The Tome was passed down from my mother and her mother before her. In fact, somewhere along the line, one of those mothers was a legitimate witch from Salem. Apparently, she, uh... she was the one that sparked the Trials in the first place." She puts the jar down and rubs her head in disappointment. "But she didn't have the same KIND of magic I did. Hers was more... general. Potions, hexes, charms, that classic sort of stuff. Supposedly."

".....any symbol?" Mange backed away, into the shadows of a tree; trying to play up that whole 'spooky cloak and hood' thing, huh?

"No...I'm just...that's ridiculous. Impossible; almost..." It's magic.

"Ugh, magic. There's no such thing as magic. Just science we haven't figured out yet." If you say so-oh, by the way...

"So, there's a book? A book, that goes around giving people nearly infinite power?....where is it? Is it hidden?....it's burned, right? You burned it?" Mange continues her questioning. It seems he's reached a similar conclusion as our pitch-fork wielding friend did: Sigil is dangerous. It's different when you can think, right? When you're not quite as tired? When you have time to take in what's been happening.

"Not any symbol. Again, the symbol needs to carry a certain... association, a meaning, a definition to it. Something to... to solidify, so to speak, to make real. And you can say that all you like, but how do you explain me living for two centuries without aging a day?"

He was getting nervous. Frantic. Paranoid. Just like everyone else. Was Saho really different after all, or...?

"You can ASK for infinite power, but be prepared to carry an equally infinite punishment on your shoulders. Ask for all the strength in the world, be prepared to become gruesomely deformed or have everyone ELSE sapped of their strength for you to have it all. Ask for infinite knowledge or wisdom, be prepared to be treated like Cassandra... or worse. Ask for eternal youth and beauty? Well... let's just say that I wanted to be a golden apple and everyone ends up fighting and becoming fearful thanks to me. Kallisti." Virgie looks up into the treetops and sighs.

"The Tome is somewhere in Vegas still. The basement may be exposed, along with all the books I've ever stolen, but somewhere in there is a secret compartment, and it's locked with my magic... the same magic you have to use to open it. If you wanted immortality... well, I can't grant THAT, but I can continually extend your life. I'd have to reapply the sign every few years or so, but it gets the job done."

"Symbols with meanings, huh?" Just vague enough to abuse. Hell, how many things can YOU think of and you haven't even tried to look into it. Scary, huh Mange? Maybe her 'curse' doesn't affect you...but your's works just fine. She's powerful, crazy powerful. And the worst part? She could make more. That's a threat right? That's-

"So...ironic punishment?...still too dangerous. We should burn it." Isn't it tempting though? Think of what you could do WITH powers...

"No. It's too dangerous. For me, or for anyone. It's too dangerous to even consider." It isn't though. You could be fixed, you could be helped. You could succeed in that promise you made earlier, you could-

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" No mind tricks this time; just you and your own thoughts. Oh look, you're still crazy. Guess all that 'love will save me' crap didn't help as much as thought it did, huh? You need to decide if you're going to kill her or use her. Or if she'll kill you, or everyone else for that matter. She's dangerous. Too dangerous. As powerful as she can imagine, and IMMORTAL to boot. So you'll-

"Saho walks up to Siggy, and hugs her again." That again? I'm not any different, not Val, just your own thoughts. You don't need to drown me out; but fine. Saho does as he says. Then what?

"...I need to tell you something." Oh no. Don't you fucking dare, Mange. You want to bring all that up again? Feel it all again? Really?! For what?! You were starting to get over it. LET IT DIE.

"...When I was kid..." Saho retells his own life story to her, in some stupid attempt to better himself. Thinking it'll help. It'll make them closer; it'll somehow make things better. It won't. She's still dangerous. What are you gonna do about that? You'll see. Someday. Nobody can be trusted with that sort of power, sure, maybe she did well for 200 years but you wanna risk the next 200? Eventually, she'll lose control, and when she does...remember you didn't kill her so you could tell her all about how awful mommy was.

She ignored the fact that Saho was talking to himself again and returned his embrace. Virgilia listened to Saho's story; as he finished, all she had to say was, "...goodness. That... is certainly a life of torment. To survive it is not an easy task, and I'm sure neither is talking about it."

Virg wanted to tell him about her story as well, but... to remember and condense 229 years worth of memories would not be an easy task. So instead, she said this:

"But just know, you're not alone. You never will be if you don't want it."

There were so many things she wanted to tell him, so many wondrous and horrible things... but she opted to cry instead. Maybe the words couldn't come out, Virg didn't know for sure.

Touching down onto the ground next to them, Zealot now hold-...Zealot is holding an ice cream cone. Well, that's just...alright, that's neat. I don't really know.

"Hey, guys. I made this gigantic 10 year old cry, then I went and got ice cream. Did yo-oh, you guys are crying. Huh."

He'd heard everything. He can hear anything on Earth, of course he heard what was just said; I think he might just be being a dick. Wait-yeah, no, he's definitely just being a dick. Moving back and scanning the air for Signal, he shrugs.

"So, I'm going home. Y'know, my apartment. Enjoy the whole...emotional bonding thing."

Flying off into the air and attempting to find Signal so as to just grab her and fly back to New York, Zealot goes.