Post by Empty on Oct 8, 2010 21:38:18 GMT -8
~ 1933: Marking Time ~
Learning: Gel Verdopplung (Gel Duplication)
Training: Reishi/Hollow Technique Proficiency
Loki had once more returned to gaze upon Big Ben, the London landmark had caught his attention three months earlier and ever since then Loki had been sure to come see the amazing engineering feet at least once a week. As they walked out of the tower Loki immediately spied a speciality clock store; no doubt seeking to capitalise on their proximity to Big Ben, the store had set itself up nearby, offering a wide range of time pieces ranging from pocket watches to grandfather clocks.
He was mesmerised by the display, especially of the pocket watches – which were somehow able to provide the same functionality as the grand clock in the tower above. He opened up his senses and used Mirada que Revela to examine them; though each was slightly different, Loki was quickly beginning to understand just how the individual pieces fit together, and the timing of the intricate movements. He was inspired by the prowess of the clock maker who had crafted each of the pieces by hand and was determined to see if he himself could rise to the challenge.
Sitting there carefully perched atop the lamp post to avoid pedestrians, Loki began by creating the tiny, delicate gears within; each was needed to fit together just right, so the attention to detail in reproducing each individual piece was paramount. As soon as he had finished shaping the individual gears he began to move them together, attempting to duplicate the precise emplacement of the gears within the store display. Finally he had managed to put them together in what he felt was a fair copy of the original, but as he wound the newly created gel pocket watch he saw that it was ticking over several dozen times too quickly.
Annoyed, Loki examined the gel watch with Revealing Gaze, using the same attention to detail that he had used on the original. Side by side as they were, Loki could see that while the overall working might appear similar, there were nearly a dozen of the gears that were slightly different in their positioning, reducing the amount of contact with the other gears by the tiniest of margins – yet the cumulative effect seemed disastrous. Again and again Loki reshaped the watch, even creating new ones to put side by side for comparison as he went about making hundreds upon hundreds of fine adjustments. In his trials he noticed while the gears being too far away was a problem, so too was an issue if they were too close together, for then the gears would grate against each-other and slow down, even stop.
Finally Loki was holding a delicate appearing golden coloured pocket-watch with a design of a tree surrounded by a wreath of leaves, the face of the watch was covered by a golden gel cover that opened on one side – more impressive than it's physical appearance though was the fact that nearly ten minutes later it still seemed to be keeping time with the one in the display. Despite his initial concerns, rather than the crafting of the small pieces that made up the watch, the most difficult component to get right was ensuring that they were correctly composed was more tasking. Though replicating the exact characteristics of the entities he had examined was important, what was more critical was understanding how the system as a whole functioned.
What he had noticed in the making of the clocks though, was that the difference may not be readily apparent – the differences might be so slight that it would take time to notice any deviation. So after hours of crafting the time pieces, Loki decided to spend another few hours simply waiting to see if the gel copy was indeed keeping the same time as the original. 'So we are just going to stay wait here for hours? So boring.' Samantha complained bitterly at the very prospect of the wait, though they had already spent hours at the site, at least they had their attention diverted by the task at hand.
In truth Loki himself was not so fond of waiting as all that, but it was important that they find out whether or not the watch was keeping time properly – not so much because the clock was vitally important but rather because it would show that Loki had been able to put together the small intricate components of the mechanism to work properly as a complete system.
'Well we don't have to wait here,' Loki conceded, 'why don't we have a look around the city?' Loki suggested, much to Samantha's delight. Tony the former sneak thief had grown up around the area and directed Loki towards the square, where street performances were almost daily affairs.
As Verlassen arrived into the square, true to form there were nearly a dozen groups of people clustered around the various musicians, jugglers and acrobats, a fortunate teller and more. The buskers were drawing people by the throngs and Loki moved from one group to another as he gripped the sides of the surrounding buildings and leapt from one wall to another to change his vantage point.
The most curious thing he saw was the work of a magician, the slight of hand and card tricks the man was performing were beautifully done and Loki could not help but use his Revealing Gaze to attempt to work out how it was being done. The performance continued and Loki and the other souls simply revelled in the moment, forgetting their worries and troubles as they looked at the talented performer's act.
Moving to the next group of people, Loki found them to be clustered around a fire breathing acrobat – the woman had lain an extremely long, thin streamer in a spiral around herself and was flipping around while she held a bottle of spirits in one hand and a stick with a lit rag on the other. Suddenly she lit the far end of the spiral with a mouthful of spirits, she spat it out as she flipped sideways through the air, lighting the liquid as it left her mouth; there was a whooshing sound as the high around and as the potent alcohol caught light.
As the streamer burned it sparked intermittently, bouts of red and orange flame, vibrant hues, like nothing natural. Loki was amazed at the gorgeous performance as the woman continued her amazing acrobatic display amongst the plumes of fanciful smoke which gave her entire show a distinctly mysterious air.
It was that very mystery that drove Loki to once more use their Revealing Gaze to work out how the strange flames were being produced. As he looked at the streamer he noticed that there were hundreds of minute disks of what appeared to be metal covered with powder. When the flames reached the metal they would burst into an incredibly bright flame and flare up quickly, this then set fire to the powder which produced the colourful smoke. He was amazed at the ingenuity of the woman.
After a couple of hours the buskers had worn themselves out and were calling it a night, Loki retreated to the rooftop with a few small slivers of the metal he had managed to salvage when no one was looking. 'She had finished with the show anyway,' he reasoned – or perhaps he was merely providing justifications, 'so it wasn't stealing.'
As he looked so very carefully at the metal it was the Shinto Priest Jun who supplied the name for it, 'Magnesium,' it seemed that the priest had been reluctant to explain the trick while everyone was enjoying the show, yet now that it was over he was willing to talk, 'it is a metal that is very combustive, we used it at the shrine for fireworks on major occasions.'
Loki examined the small, unimpressive strip of metal using Revealing gaze, it had a quality to it that Loki could not quite place, even at the very smallest level the material seemed poised to do action. Lighting the strip proved easily enough thanks to the abundance of street lamps, which despite being electric proved to generate enough heat to light the magnesium should the strip be pressed against them; for a time Loki amused himself with the trick before they began to run out of the pieces.
Upset that their enjoyment might be prematurely ended, Loki looked to find the woman again, yet she had enough time to pack up her things and leave the square. Instead Loki was left with only three pieces left, he sighed slightly bitter at how quickly he had used the other pieces, he wished he had more.
It was then that the idea struck him to attempt to use his gel to create more. After all he was able to make the gel harder or softer, stronger or weaker, able to change the shape and even colour; with his new understanding of his gel and even of the small piece of metal before him, why couldn't he simply use Infusion to copy the desired characteristics?
As Loki created a small strip from his gel, he began infusing the strip with his energy, imaging that same volatility, the combustive nature of the magnesium and willing the reiatsu to act in the same manner as he seeped it into the gel shape. As he finished, Loki attempted to light the gel in the same way, yet he could feel the energy within the shape resisting the heat energy, unlike the magnesium, the Gel was putting up more of a 'fight' refusing to burst into flame. Carefully, Loki suppressed the energy that was within the gel even as he was infusing it with the volatility he desired, attempting to reshape the gel in greater faithfulness to the original. This time as Loki attempted to light it, the gel instead burst into tiny fragments as it exploded rather than erupting into flames. The small explosion was barely enough to burst the light bulb, yet Loki quickly changed locations – keen to avoid the notice of any who might take heed of the strange noises.
He frowned in irritation, unable to place the reason for the failure to copy the characteristics of the magnesium, Loki used his Revealing Gaze to examine the original once more. The metal was made of minute pieces, at the smallest level it gave Loki the impression of something like a mesh, like the compressed reiatsu he had made during his training. On the other hand, when Loki examined the Gel he had made it appeared more like a cloud of sluggishly moving particles, bound together in a shape, yet far more fluid in it's composition.
This time as Loki began to create the energy he wished to infuse into the gel, he concentrated on attempting to match the internal structure of the Magnesium rather than simply attempting to obtain the flammable effect. As the energy and the gel began to overlap the gel resisted the efforts, as the shape began to distort before Loki forced the two to merge. As he attempted to light the gel this time it began to smoulder fiercely but still there was no flame.
Again Loki tried and again, little by little his efforts to alter the nature of the Gel began to bear fruit, however instead of merely adopting the combustive property of the magnesium, the tiny particles of reishi within the Gel, aligned themselves in the same way as the matter in the strip of Magnesium did. This time as he infused it with energy, imagining the same combustive properties as the magnesium had exhibited, the Gel readily soaked in the energy not needing Loki to drive the change as forcefully.
Touching the strip of gel towards the lamp, Loki gasped and dropped it as flame suddenly flared licking at their fingers as it consumed the altered strip of gel. However unlike the magnesium altered gel, their fingers had not been harmed; creating another strip Loki quickly attempted to duplicate the result, yet this time as the fire burst out, Loki instead held on to it grimly. Though the momentary heat was intense it quickly burned out and the worst of the damage to Loki's gel hand was a faint melted patch on the palm, much as would have been burned had it been held with a real hand.
Loki had managed to duplicate the combustive properties of the Magnesium, but what was more important was that he had understood that the characteristics could be infused by altering the underlying structure of the Gel to mimic the structures of the targeted entity. In the same way it should be possible to mimic the properties of other substances and change the way that the Gel was able to react with the world around them. Because the underlying issue was the structure of the Gel rather than the energy it meant that there was no need to Infuse the gel with reiatsu, instead he merely needed to shape the gel more effectively.
Loki tried again, yet instead of forming the standard Gel and then shaping it into the desired shape before infusing it with energy to change its properties, Loki this time looked to create the Gel with the altered properties right from the start. He focused on producing Gel with the same structure that he had felt through the Revealing Gaze, painstakingly mimicking the gel fabrication to match it's magnesium counterpart. This time as Loki held it to the lamp post it instantly burst into a bright white flame before it was consumed; he grinned in satisfaction.
In the distance, Loki could here the tolling of a great bell and instantly recalled the task he had set himself. Filled with chagrin, beneath their mask Loki blushed – he had completely forgotten about the watch that he had wait several hours before checking against the original in the store display. Casting his eyes about Loki quickly located the giant figure of Big Ben as it dominated the London skies, hurrying in that direction it was not long before Loki once more spotted the watchmaker's store and stopped it front of the display.
The time on the intricate golden pocket watch was thirty seven minutes and sixteen seconds past eleven o'clock, in comparison, the gel watch that he quickly flicked open was some three seconds faster. Loki grimaced slightly, he had come very far indeed, yet it seemed that there would continue to be room for improvement.
~ Keepsake ~
Learning: Raptar (Abduct)
Training: Reiatsu/Reishi Proficiency
Loki opened a pathway to Huecco Mundo by ripping open the fabric of space to reveal a torrent of dark, swirling energy. The tunnel like formation would lead him to the white deserts of what passed for their 'home', from the Kishi based human world they would pass into the Reishi based land of the hollows.
As he went to move through he felt a strong resistance from somewhere near his waist, it felt like he was attempting to wade through stone – the instant the gel by his waist came into contact with the garganta opening he was unable to push it through. Looking downwards in consternation Loki attempted to locate the source of the problem, after a moment he realised that it was the small golden pocket watch that he had created from Gel that seemed to be causing an issue. When he attempted to push it through cover first, it stopped after a mere instant, barely allowing the cover alone through the opening; on the other hand were he to turn it over and attempt to push the rear of the watch through it passed almost completely through the opening, until just more than the cover protruded.
Perplexed, Loki pulled the watch back out, turning it over and over before deciding to open the cover. Inside were two strips of the magnesium which he had placed inside earlier and had forgotten. Removing the metal, Loki attempted once more to push the pocket watch through the open gateway and it went through without any sign of resistance; pulling their arm back, Loki tried to push just the small metallic strips through the opening, only to have the air feel like solid steel.
'So do you remember anything?' Loki recalled that he had experienced something similar once before, when he had been a regular hollow he had needed to send the soul of a young plus soul back to the human realm from Huecco Mundo, to do so he had been forced to use whatever tools had been at hand – that had been the first time he had met Tony, as a blue slug creature that was crossed with a clam; after beating the hollow within an inch of it's life Loki had threatened it with destruction if the soul had not assisted. It was soon after that when each of the souls within Verlassen came together, to fuse into a Gillian.
'Eh the tricks I had before?'Tony however was less than helpful, Loki could feel the disembodied soul shaking what passed for it's head (a sort of self perception of the soul's body), 'Lost all that long ago. All I can think of is that I had ta spread some of ma energy across the lad.'
Loki thought back on when George and he had escorted the young boy back to the human world, the hollow had been holding onto the lad – perhaps it was then that the creature had shared it's energy. Loki placed one of the strips on his left palm while he held the other in his right hand with the watch. As Loki pushing his left hand palm upwards through the rift, the hand continued through the rift while the metal held it's position, nearly being pushed off the hand as a result. This time Loki began to infuse it ever so slightly with a small portion of his own energy – the instant his reaitsu began to seep into the metallic strip it ceased slipping on Loki's palm and instead passed through the gateway as if nothing was wrong. An instant later though, Loki felt the small rectangular strip dart forwards and to the side, slipping of his palm at great speed while within Garganta.
He swore harshly and retracted their hand, as he had suspected the magnesium was gone. 'Gotta hold onta it ya damn Gorilla.' Tony swore, equally annoyed. When the two had made the trip to the human realm, Loki had been gripping Tony's head, ready to crush it to a pulp; Tony on the other hand had been holding onto the boy's wrist, firmly to ensure that precisely this had not occurred. Loki placed the remaining magnesium strip into their left and and closed it around the object firmly, this time as he pushed it through the entry, he could feel the material being tugged this way and that, but it was far from being enough to pull free from their grasp. As they pulled their hand free from garganta Loki opened their fingers and glanced the strip before closing their fist once again; striding straight through the rift.
Emerging upon the white sands in the ever-constant darkness, Loki opened their palm, then flicked the strip of magnesium into the air, catching it adroitly.