First part here
Second part here
Third part here
Fourth part here.
Fifth part here.

All Leo lines in this story are as-written by inventrix in the roleplay that sparked this

There were sparks of electricity flying around the air. The grass beneath their feet was damp, too early yet for it to be a fire risk, but Luke still worried. Lightning could burn down a forest, after all, and he would not forgive himself – even if Cynara did – if he caused Leo to scorch the fields outside her city.

He waited, taking the time to get himself under control, watching the sparks subside as Leo’s breathing evened and calmed. He didn’t say anything else. He wasn’t sure there was anything he could say that wouldn’t make everything worse. And he’d already done enough of that. Mike would probably say far more than enough.

“I believe you were watching.” Leo’s voice was calm again. Luke wondered how much it was hiding. “But that doesn’t mean you know everything about us.”

Luke nodded infinitesimally, all he trusted himself with at the moment. Cya spent decades… He should have known. Zita and I spent decades… He should have seen. He’d been looking. It’d been his job to look.

Leo exhaled and looked down at the ground. “I apologize for that outburst.” Luke didn’t answer: for one, there was nothing to say. For another, Leo wasn’t done. “However. I still don’t see what you expect to happen due to this.” He looked up again as he touched his collar.

It was a good question. He’d been so angry when he came here. He’d been worried, and he had to admit he still was.

He’d expected, what, Cynara to go off the rails without Leo to balance her? He could still remember a young Cynara, just past her first year into school. “I want to kill them all. I want to make them bleed, and hurt, and then I want to end them. But Leo wouldn’t like it and Howard would be uncomfortable.”

There had been no doubt in his mind that she meant it completely. The only question Luke had ever had was how many people constituted “them all?”

He took a breath. He wasn’t going to tell Leo that part.

“I didn’t expect you to be happy about a collar, for one.” He managed to sound calm now. That was an improvement.

It got a small and rueful-looking smile out of Leo, which was probably even more of an improvement. “You and everyone else.”

Luke felt a bit vindicated by that. At least he hadn’t been the only one blindsided by this. He wondered if he was the only one completely confused by it. “Why’d you do it?” He’d flown all this way, and he didn’t really want to leave without knowing.

Leo hesitated before answering. Luke tried not to flap impatiently. “You won’t be happy with ‘because I wanted to’, will you.”

“I’ll be surprised. All right. Why did she do it?”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1066533.html. You can comment here or there.

First part here
Second part here
Third part here
Fourth part here

All Leo lines in this story are as-written by inventrix in the roleplay that sparked this

They didn’t want a war. Luke took a few breaths and tried to rein in his temper. It wasn’t working.

…avoid making unfounded accusations against my crew, Leo had snarled, as if his crew wasn’t the problem. Luke took another breath. Mike would want him to be calm.

“Your crew was a lot easier to ignore when I knew you were acting as a balance on her.”

Somewhere in Luke’s mind, Mike was putting his face in his hands. He couldn’t bring himself to care. They had been arguing about Boom and crews like Boom for far too long.

Leo narrowed his eyes. Luke wondered if he’d pushed him too far.

There were sparks of electricity jumping from the ground. That was either a very good sign or a very bad sign. Leo was angry. He still could be angry.

“Tell me honestly,” Leo began. Luke shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. “Of the four of us, individually, do you believe Red Doomsday is the most dangerous?”

Luke rolled back onto his heels. “Honestly?” He found his wings stilling. “Right now, yes.” He knew this answer, and he knew exactly how he’d reached it. “Howard stays on his ranch. You’re the most deadly in a fight, with Zita close behind. But Doomsday builds things.”

“What are you afraid she’s going to build?”

It was a good question. Still, he hesitated.

“What is she building now?” It was clear she was building something. The Foundations were going up outside of Cloverleaf – Not on the side Leo had led him to, Luke noted. What was a very important question though.

“A school. A university,” he adds. “A town, for the school to live. Society can’t grow if the only people with knowledge are those of us from before the war.”

Luke had never seen Leo so serious, or so angry. He began to wonder if the anger was covering something, and he began to wonder if he ought to stop pushing Leo.

But he had to know.

“And she’s building a power base.” The idea was just as nerve-wracking as it had been fifty years ago. “Shit, Leo, what were you thinking?”

He’d pushed too far. He was nearly shouting. And Leo was glaring at him, which was probably fair.

“Right now, I’m thinking about how little you know us.”

Luke shifted his weight. His wings rustled irritably. Of anyone from Addergoole for Leo to say that to… “I’ve been watching you for decades.” Especially when Regine was worried or when Drake thought something was wrong or their kids or their grandkids came to Addergoole and left again, different, changed. He’d been watching them more than anyone else had.

“Have you.” Leo’s shift in weight was tiny, but Luke was looking for it. “So you know all about how Cya spent decades picking up the pieces of students from your school. Or how Zita and I spent decades fighting – killing – monsters, or people, because if we ever stopped we would wind up killing ourselves. Or how Howard stays at the Ranch with people who care about him because if he doesn’t, he’ll try to kill you all and die in the process. Or how—.” He cut himself off. There were sparks of electricity everywhere.

Luke unfurled his wings, fighting a protective urge to take all of them, adults grown and sometimes-potential-enemies, under his wing and protect them. Leo’s words kept repeating in his head. Picks up the pieces…. If we ever stopped… he’d try to kill you all…

He knew his face showed horror. He knew he was proving Leo right – he hadn’t been paying enough attention. He hadn’t seen. He didn’t care. How had he missed that?

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First part here
Second part here
Third part here.

All Leo lines in this story are as-written by inventrix in the roleplay that sparked this

Leo stared levelly at Luke, taking his time about answering. Luke wondered if he was working around an order. Cynara always had been thorough about that sort of thing with her Kept.

“Outside the outer walls,” he finally came up with, “if you want to be completely certain.”

That was a lovely place for a trap. “Good.” It was also inarguably outside of Cynara’s domain. “Let’s go there.”

He stalked behind a silent Leo all the way to the gate. People stared. He didn’t mind. He was a Mara, after all. He was supposed to be frightening.

Leo was not the least bit frightened. They stood on the grassy plain outside of Cloverleaf, Leo returning Luke’s glare calmly. “Now that we’re safe,” he began, with more sarcasm than Luke had known Leo was capable of, “maybe you can explain why you’re here unannounced?”

Luke grabbed for words. I was worried sounded too weak, too stupid. You were an idiot was a matter of course for cy’Luca, sadly. If he visited every former student who’d been stupid, he’d never have time to teach.

“What happened?” he snarled. Leo knew why he was here. He was just wasting time.

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

No, he was taunting Luke, playing with him.

“Don’t give me that shit.” What sort of game was he playing? What was Cynara playing at? “Mike comes back from one of his little ‘field trips’, and there you are on the front page of this place’s newspaper, collared.

“So?” The little shit looked smug.

Luke reminded himself that punching someone else’s Kept was a crime, and that he really did not want to get in a war with Boom. He took several calming breaths and counted to ten in his head. “Leo. Who collared you?”

Either it hadn’t been the question Leo had been expecting, or Luke had hit a nerve. Leo’s smile was tight and humorless. “Cya, obviously. I thought you already figured that out.”

“Why in hell would you allow something like that to happen?” Was he stuck? Did he need help getting out of the situation? “Did she fuck with your head?”

Mike, he realized, would be yelling at him about his level of tact (or lack thereof) right now. Luke didn’t care. This was his Student.

His Student who was about as impressed with him right now as Mike would be. Leo was not shouting at Luke, but even he could tell the boy was close.

“No. She did not. I would appreciate it if you would avoid making unfounded accusations against my crew.”

It’s your crew that’s the problem. Luke barely managed to not say it. He counted to ten again and tried to calm himself down. They didn’t want a war. They didn’t want a war.

Next: soon

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1062426.html. You can comment here or there.

First part here
Second part here.

It follows the Apollo/Boom stuff you can find on top on the Boom tag by about 2 years.

There were students everywhere in Leo’s dojo, and yet everything seemed both calm and happy. Leo was in his normal kimono and pants, the gold of the collar even more glaringly obvious in real life than it had been in the picture. He was in the middle of instructing a young student; several others were sparring or working on forms with each other.

Another student was being held off at the end of Luke’s outstretched arm, and two more were trying to stop him from entering and failing completely. He moved them out of the way as gently as he could.

Leo looked up, noticing Luke’s entrance. “sa’Hunting Hawk.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

You should have been.

“I imagine you weren’t,” he growled instead. Leo never thought ahead. Cynara had probably been expecting him.

“And definitely not expecting you to come frighten our students. Maybe we should talk somewhere else?” Leo glanced around the room.

Luke followed his glance. Some of the students looked frightened. A lot of them – this was a dojo, after all – looked ready to fight. Luke tamped down the part of him that wanted to fight all of them, just to take a little of the edge off.

“Sounds lovely.” It came out as a snarl. That was fine. He felt like snarling, and he wanted Leo to know exactly how pissed he was.

“Just a second, then.” He stalled, calling over one of his students and giving him instructions. The student’s eyes moved between Leo and Luke and back again, but Leo didn’t seem to notice.

Luke shifted his weight. He was in the heart of what might be enemy territory. It made his back itch. It made him want back-up.

He reminded himself forcefully that the reason he had come was to be certain Cloverleaf weren’t becoming enemies. If he’d brought back-up, it would have been seen as aggression.

Leo took the time to gather his shoes, then and only then gesturing to the door. “After you, sir.”

Somehow, telling himself to calm down just made Luke more on edge. “Where can we talk that isn’t hers?”

It was rude. It was against protocol. And if it was going to start a fight, he’d rather know now than later.

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after this.

It follows the Apollo/Boom stuff you can find on top on the Boom tag by about 2 years.

Luke knew he wasn’t thinking straight. He was flying erratically. He was having trouble controlling his wing movements when not in flight. His fists were clenching and unclenching. He hadn’t been this stressed, this worried, in decades.

There were groups the Addergoole teachers and staff monitored, most but not all of them Addergoole grads. Boom had always been Drake and Luke’s purview, because they were the two teachers least likely to be sent away.

Luke knew, more than anyone else outside the crew, how Boom was balanced, and how precarious that balance was. If Cya had just thrown that whole balance out of whack – for whatever reason – he was looking at chaos, disaster, and the possibility of World War Four.

He landed with a thump far enough outside the city to not worry their guards. Cloverleaf had an efficient police force. He’d always assumed they needed such a force to deal with the threats of this post-apocalypse world: dragons and Nedetakai, lawless humans and the few remaining returned gods. He’d counted their numbers and wondered what would happen if he had to attack Cloverleaf, or if Cloverleaf attacked Addergoole, but he’d kept his concerns secret. Regine didn’t need to know. Mike would draw his own conclusions.

Cynara balanced by the rest of her crew would not go to war with Addergoole. The rest of the crew balanced by Cynara would not go to war with Addergoole. He’d watched them and run the numbers. He’d talked it over quietly with Shira and Laurel; he’d decided they weren’t a threat.

And now, now when he’d gotten everything calm, when he’d gotten used to the stability of Cloverleaf on his border, when everything had been normal for fifty years, now Cynara had to go and screw everything up.

Why? He stomped through the city, not minding that he was making a scene. He’d been visiting enough that they were comfortable with him now – guards, runners, shopkeepers. He’d been here enough that he was comfortable here.

He wondered if that had been part of Cynara’s plan. He’d been thinking of her as sort of a mini-Regine, and Regine wouldn’t have thought of calming down the opposing Mara. But Regine was a scientifically-minded super-genius Grigori (if that wasn’t saying the same thing three times), and Cynara hadn’t even gone to college.

What was she up to, and why now? He stomped into Leo’s dojo, ignoring the students who tried to stop him.

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1059494.html

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