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 Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:24 pm
Wolframite had been given a sort of leave of absence to heal and to get back to working condition. No one really expected him to turn in quota and he felt that he probably could have not done any patrols for a lot longer. However, even when he was still bandaged and bruised, he had been out. He left his apartment on his own, though at the time not knowing he was being watched over by Billy who would follow him, and fight. However, despite the routine, things were not the same. He wasn’t the same, and even senshi he never knew had told him that. Before, when he went after a civilian who called him crazy before he took their starseed, he just chalked it up to fear. Now, it hit harder because he felt there was truth in it.
Despite working, he felt himself waiting. Hoping. Searching. Looking for the BMC members. Looking for some sense of normalcy that he had before. Well, as normal went for a Negaverser. At the end of the day, he’d have a handful of energy orbs, sometimes starseeds, and nothing else.
Sometimes he’d eat them to help recover, and mostly to avoid turning them in. Ever since the event that was the rescue, he hadn’t seen Aree. He hadn’t visited her at Lina’s apartment to see how she was doing. He didn’t text her. The last he saw of her was when she changed into the General Queen, having felt as if he lost her forever. Then, when he felt safe that she was alive and well, he went home and rested. He went home and started thinking and he started to feel guilty.
Now he was looking better, and there was no reason to eat the handful of energy orbs in his hand. He would have handed them to Bismuthite with some excuse that he was too tired or didn’t feel up to it and knew that, as faithful and helpful as he had been during his recovery, he would take them without too much questioning. Yet, he knew it wouldn’t last forever. At some point, Billy would ask why he wasn’t turning in his orbs himself.
Breathing deep, Wolframite stood atop the roof and closed his eyes, teleporting to the Headquarters that made the sanctuary of the Negaverse. The dark hallways of swirling, purplish light and torches. The echoing growls of youma that would slink here and there, looking up at the presence of energy and moving away to see it was already in the hands of an officer.
He wondered what would be worse. Turning his quota to Beryl, the Queen he failed, or to Tanzanite, the friend he let down.
His heels clicked as he headed to the throne room.
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:53 pm
Tanzanite hated that damn throne, and it showed in the way she stared quietly at it. Where Beryl was she neither knew nor cared. Their failure of a Queen had abandoned her soldiers to the mercy of the Blood Moon Court, an offense which Tanzanite could never forgive. While they suffered, she had lounged there on that throne and polished her nails, knowing all long where they'd been. What they had endured Beryl alone would have had the power to summon them out, to spare them the torture and pain, and yet she hadn't.
She'd never even had the courtesy to give a good reason why the hell not.
Still, she was Metallia's chosen ruler, and that alone kept Tanzanite from trying to rip the vile woman limb from limb. She wanted nothing more than to tear that throne apart and remove the symbol of Beryl's power, but had no choice. While she no longer served Beryl, she was required to serve Metallia alongside her. Unlike their vain Queen, Tanzanite's place was not in a throne room. She was not a planner or a monarch. She was a fighter, and she would serve alongside their soldiers in the one place she truly felt alive anymore.
The battlefield.
Wolframite's appearance drew her attention, and the Youma Queen looked back quietly to the entrance. There was a sadness etched in those pale features that spoke of some lingering humanity. A ghost of a girl, trapped inside the Black Phoenix's new body. While the youma could not comprehend such emotions, that ghostly remnant was burdened with guilt. Guilt for the deaths of the ones she had led into battle, and for the suffering that had left the boy she'd often considered a protege damaged and withdrawn.
What did you say to someone who had been tortured, forced to watch his comrades brutally slaughtered, and nearly been kill himself all because she hadn't had the foresight to predict an ambush?
“Ladon,” she said finally in a quiet greeting.
She couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze.
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Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:10 pm
Even with ‘Queen’ in her title, he had thought Aree would be elsewhere. At home, or where home had last been when Ladon had once lectured her to eat, rest, and crashed on Lina’s couch. Back then, he had been comfortable waving a wooden spoon at the girl to eat his soup, but now he couldn’t even look at far as her chin, and even then his eyes darted about. He had been wondering why she was in the throne room, and wishing he had picked another time in the day. But it was very late at night and that made him think everyone would be asleep. He could have crept in, dropped the orbs off, and slinked away again.
Looking anywhere but Tanzanite, he searched to see that the room was vacant. No Queen. No one here, but them, and the privacy was both comforting in that he could say anything he wanted, but heavy in that he didn’t know what to say. What did you tell someone who you failed to give backup to, who you heard scream for days down a small corridor, and who you hadn’t seen till the end of it? What did you say when you all saw someone die, someone that clearly meant a lot to Tanzanite, and who’s song, foreign as it was, still came up to him like an old tune on the radio that he couldn’t shake? He’d sometimes hum it, not knowing until he actually listened and remembered where it was from. Only hummed because he didn’t know the words. Her last words that he couldn’t even translate. What a crime. One among many.
His searching slowed, catching the hard armor of Tanzanite’s booths, the tips of ruffling wings, and an exposed, human stomach that seemed too tender and soft to be among that much heavy armor. More and more of her looked like a youma, and slowly, he looked up for just a moment. Her face was still Aree, but the horns worried him. How far in was the youma now? Did she even eat? Did anyone keep tabs on her to make sure she was well?
“Hello…Aree.” His eyes dropped again, and he fingered the orbs in his pocket, moving them about as he looked to his tip of his shoes. “…You look well.” His stomach felt tight.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:58 pm
Aree.
It was a not a name she recognized as her own, and it sounded almost foreign as it came from the Captain's mouth. It was like being dubbed 'goose' in some childhood game. You knew who they meant. You were even possibly expecting it. Still, it always felt a little forced and strange to be called by a name so far from your own.
She was Tanzanite now. The Black Phoenix, too, if people wanted to get technical.
A slight laugh escaped her throat at his words. It was not mocking, but somewhat sad. A sound to fill the awkward pauses between them. She wished that laugh could tell him how sorry she was for what had happened, for she no longer seemed capable of stringing those words together on her own.
Instead, she said quietly: “As well as can be expected.”
She didn't eat anymore. She didn't sleep. What little, if anything, was left of Aree Cadence had been entirely eclipsed by the Black Phoenix the moment it had been freed. A Greater Youma trapped in a human body, far more monster than woman. But she was, in her own way... well. There was a peace that had come when she had been torn apart and pieced back together by Metallia. An understanding of her cause and her purpose, and the knowledge that she existed only to fight for it.
Life became significantly easier the less you were able to feel, as it turned out. It also became a lot lonelier.
Turning towards him, the Youma Queen took a few more steps, and dark fingers brushed along the short hair at his temple. It had been the same fire that had burned the both of them, wielded by the insufferable Sailor Gunn. Many in the Negaverse had reason to hate the senshi, but few had ever been exposed to the true wickedness of their very nature.
Wolframite had.
“It's growing back,” she said with a small smile.
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 5:31 pm
He didn’t know why she was laughing, and he wondered if she thought his reluctance to speak was comical. That or she really didn’t look as good as she should be. If that was the case, he would have started advising her to eat something better, rest more, and maybe see about getting out in the sun more often. The negaverse was nothing but cold stone and looming shadows. Sometimes, if he stayed here long enough, he felt he’d forget what the sky, trees, and grass looked like. Sometimes, when the hallways echoed, it reminded him of other places from his nightmares. It was the hum of their familiar energy, signatures all around that told him this place was safe.
It did not however, make him feel better.
Maybe she’s laughing because she finds you funny. Like a joke.
He tried not to think about that. What was jab and prodded upon by Ares and the others who tried to pick about what status, rank, and importance (or lack thereof), he really had. Standing before Aree, a General Queen, a creature that radiated power like a small star trapped in a room that was pressing it in, he only felt smaller. His power felt like a small blip in the dark. A flickering candle that was tossed about in a gust, threatened to be snuffed out in the winds of a great, unfurling phoenix. There really was no comparison.
While Tanzanite had found purpose and an easier way of living, Wolframite stood, heavy with tossing emotions that made his throat, chest, and stomach contract too many times that swallowing was a difficult task and one tried not to do in case his forced gulp echoed in the cavernous room. Her death had brought about a new beginning, while Ladon was left to suffer his own, current life, that had only gotten more off track, stranded in the dark and left without focus. His driving force and goals were dissolved, and he lost his direction, his compass, his guide that had shown out brightly and made him sure and dedicated to all that he did. He was only working through the motions now, trying to fit an old glove from the past and just not feeling right in it. A lot had changed, and he wished he could go back. Retrace his steps.
Her fingertips broke him from his thoughts, having been turning the orbs over and over and over in his hand as he was quiet, listening to the last echoes of her laugh bounce down into distant hallways. They were no longer the soft brush of fingertips of the old Aree, but sharp nails that were being brushed aside, delicately, to play with his messy bangs. Despite who this was, such sharp appendages around his brow bothered him, and his first react was to step back – something he regretted and felt guilty for the second he did. He paused one step away, self-consciously touching a lock of his hair on the side. It was now buzzed on each side to balance out the fact one side had been shorter than the other. He looked a lot more normal now. The burn marks were fading thanks to Negaverse healing, rest, and the hair looked like anything a boy his age would get.
“Yeah…it’s looking normal again………like nothing ever happened.” As the saying went, but even that made him feel sick. Thousands of words and apologizes buzzed on the tip of his tongue, but he was quiet. What did he say? Where did he start? Was there even a point in saying anything at all?
Was it better if they forgot and moved on? Would she hate him if he brought it up? Digging up the painful past when the dirt had just been stomped down.
“I never got to say congratulations on….” Was it even a promotion to come back to life like that? “…rising up.” From the dead and in power. “……Congrats. You deserve it. Those senshi…” he paused a moment. Tanzanite and Wolframite knew which ones he was speaking of. “…..they knew to be afraid of you. You can take them all on now.” Without assistance or backup. She was all powerful now, a reward for all that she had accomplished. “You’re perfect for it.” She had had all the traits, ever since he first met her. Seen her fight. Powerful, fearless, skill, loyalty, and the demeanor that commanded respect and envy. …….at least in him.
He pulled out the orbs from his pocket, looking at them with a sense of bitterness, before lifting them up. “Here.” He said, offering them. “I guess I give these to you now too.” The orbs, something that once would make him feel as if he accomplished a worthwhile night’s work, only felt like a joke in his hands. Pennies offered to a parent who was a multimillionaire.
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:38 am
Congratulations.
Of all the words Tanzanite would have imagined, it would not have been among them. Surely Wolframite thought the words to be compliments. Perhaps he thought them comforting, and she could not blame him if so. It must have been as difficult for him to understand her now as it was for her to understand him. How could she explain what it had been like in the moments of that strange transformation? How could he explain to her how it felt to have to live with those memories when one could still fully feel them?
But she could feel it as he stepped suddenly back. That was an emotion she knew all too well. The same thing that had shone in so many human and senshi eyes as she had taken their lives. The same wide-eyed expression that had met her as she had stepped out onto the battlefield, the consequence of the Blood Moon's reckless actions. It was a familiar thing, and one to which Tanzanite could far too easily put a name.
It was fear, and it made her small smile drop suddenly. There was a small flash of rage inside of her. Like a controlled burn of emotion, Tanzanite sequestered the feeling inside of her chest and did not let it reach her solemn expression. The Black Phoenix was a creature of instinct and passion. It did not submit easily to logic, and it took all of the General-Queen's willpower to keep herself from showing its sudden and inexplicable fury.
He's afraid of you, Marthozite's voice hissed in her ear, Does he know how much he should be?
The small orbs of energy dropped into her palm, and like water on cotton, they seemed to absorb easily into her skin. She could channel that energy directly to their source. To the only real all powerful being. Tanzanite smiled her gratitude, but could not seem to make the expression shine in her eyes as it had moments before.
“Thank you, Wolframite, but there are more threats out there than the Blood Moon Court. Without every officer we have, saving this planet would be impossible.”
It was true that she likely could have taken on a majority of that accursed court, but there were far too many senshi awakened in Destiny City. Even now, she could feel them. Small blips of energy that felt like stars above her head, running loose on a planet that was never theirs to claim. Tanzanite looked up, but only the inky black ceiling of the cavern met her gaze.
“I never apologized for what I let happen to you...”
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