Welcome to Gaia! ::

Backdated to November 10th

The luxury mall.

Delilah stood in front of it, feeling the chill breeze through her hair as she looked at how dead the parking lot was. It was a couple of hours after the close; it had been enough time for most people to clear out except for security workers and closing employees.

The location had been purposeful.

When she was initially corrupted, one of the first emotions she felt besides confusion and dismay and sorrow was envy. Envy of people who had their lives together. Envy of people who had memories. Envy of people who had things. Envy of people who had families. Envy of people who had friends. Envy of schools. Envy of children. Envy of knowledge. Envy of things. Expensive things. Good things. Fancy things.

When she had collected energy, when she took starseeds, when she took things -- she took them from here.

In this area.

How many bodies had she left behind?

There were moments where Delilah didn't quite know if she deserved what she had desired. Stillwaterite had not abided the Negaverse as long as she did. Cybele didn't, either. It had been since 2018 that she wore the black outfits and the cracks that gave access to her starseed and felt like they might have been choking her. Perhaps it had been too long.

But if she believed half the villain-to-hero stories she read, it was never too late to apologize.

She looked over her shoulder and offered a hopeful smile when she remembered she wasn't quite alone.

Cybele couldn't shake the nerves.

It was a dangerous situation. There was no getting around that. There was a target on her back in the best of times, and right now she was nursing an injury while she spent the evening with someone about to be marked a traitor.

Her steps were uneven as she made her way to the luxury mall. Her breath caught every time she jostled her stitches, which happened no matter how slowly she went. She walked anyway, one foot in front of the other. It was other people pushing through unpleasantness to reach out that had gotten her out of the Negaverse.

It was other people spending time with her and being there for her that had gotten her to where she was now, feeling alive again.

"I'm here," she reminded Nembus from a few feet behind her as the she seemed to be taking in the area.

She didn't know the other senshi, Phaethon, but he had made the decision to be here, as well, and so Cybele's smile to him was warm.

It was a sign of how jumpy Phaethon was that he instinctively feared that Cybele was someone discovering them, that the ‘jig was up’. He shoved his heart back down from where it’d lodged himself in his throat, and he returned Cybele’s smile.

Immediately, to Nembus, trying to ignore the way her presence made his skin crawl, “of course.” He hadn’t missed the way Cybele was walking. At the very least, he could help her get away if everything went south.

He took a deep breath. “Hopefully this doesn’t take too long.”

Phaethon looked like he might have been about to empty his bladder--

It eased back as he smiled at Cybele, though she worried it might spike up again. She was stronger than him, and he had never seemed to like the way Chaos felt when it was beside him, crawling into him, snaking its way through his uniform and making him laugh more like an evil clown from a movie she might have seen in some life. Nembus couldn't blame him.

There was a comfort in the concept of a backup plan, though she certainly feared it. The longer it took, the more likely she would get whisked away before she had a chance to do anything about it. The more likely General Faustite would expect her to do at least one last report. The more likely General-Sovereign Axinite would call her in and start assigning her things. The more likely that she would be discovered and done away with before she could question things any louder--

"Right. Just gotta hope I don't get busted before then." She appreciated the reassurance, even if her smile was weak. Her gaze shifted to Phaethon, "and if I do, you gotta do what I told you to do with all the things I gave you."

But it was still a backup plan.

"Is it as intense as staging up?" her tone was wry. The most recent promotion hadn't hurt quite as much as her one to super, and she expected it had been all the Chaos infesting the field. The Chaos that had felt more familiar, more like home, easier to thrive and survive in and celebrate-- "Though I suppose I'm going to demote in the process, so."

"You haven't hit the bottom yet."

She supposed that was no longer true.

As Phaethon said, she hoped it wouldn't take too long. But Cybele said it was quick. Quick provided they could get in contact, anyway.

"Enough dawdling, right?" Nembus wrung her hands. "Right? Kurma said all I need to do is accept my homeworld again, I--"

She wrung her hands harder.

She closed her eyes.

Didn't know what she was supposed to be doing. Didn't know if it was really that easy to let it go. Didn't know if it would be quick. Didn't know if this would be the answer. Still didn't quite know if this was ultimately the right decision, even though she knew in her heart it was the only decision she could make. Couldn't abide it. Couldn't stay there. She had never asked to be in the Negaverse. Never had wanted to be in the Negaverse. Never wanted to be part of an organization that made more people like her, more people with torn minds and torn hearts and lives ripped asunder, never to be found or discovered or known again. Never wanted to meet another person who felt like a baby in an adult's body, new to the world and new to the concepts of existence.

Never.

And even if she could only be away from it for ten minutes--

The shooting star was beautiful.

The woman, who Cybele assumed was Cosmos from rumors she'd heard during the process of their negotiations with Lyndin, was achingly familiar, although that was neither here nor there. This wasn't about her.

Her smile at Nembus only widened. "It worked," she whispered, trying to keep her voice low enough that their visitor would not know that they'd been doubting her a few minutes before.

Something unclenched inside of her chest to hear that Nembus's starseed itself had been calling out for help. She hadn't wanted to think that this was a trap, she really hadn't, but after all of the things that the Negaverse had tried with her lately, it had been hard to banish the last of the doubts until this moment.

She kept silent, though, and took half a step back. The question that Cosmos asked was one that Nembus alone could answer.

Nembus felt the strange energy in the air.

She felt the way it prickled along her arms, made her hairs stand on end, made her feel like she was floating in a sea of --

The light caught her attention, and she followed it until it became a rainbow, and followed it until there was a pulse of energy in front of her that felt more deeply wrong than anything she had ever felt, and yet, all she wanted to do was run toward it. She heard Cybele's words and nodded toward her with the ghost of a smile. She felt Phaethon go very quiet, and glanced toward him too, for a moment.

It worked.

She turned back toward Cosmos, taking in the question that she was asked.

"There has to be a way out." Phaethon had been so insistent. "A bunch of people have done it before."

"Let go of Chaos," Kurma had said, "And let it embrace you again."

"It was a weight lifted off my soul and mind," said Sedna, and she had heard similar echoed from Cybele, "When I purified, it was like a weight had been lifted."

Just let go. She had the source right here in front of her to just let go.

"Yes," blurted Nembus, her thoughts summing themselves into a succinct point. "They forced me here. I never asked for it. It doesn't excuse anything I've done for nearly four years, but I didn't ask for Chaos. I don't want to abide it anymore. Kurma said all I need to do is accept my planet again. My friends," she looked to Cybele and Phaethon, "are here to support me and," she swallowed, "vouch for me, to a degree. Can I be -- can I be freed?"

She started wringing her hands before she even noticed, so hard that they began turning all sorts of pinks and reds.

"Please. I can't-- I can't stay here. They're forcing more people like me. They're losing their lives. I--,"

This person had really heard her starseed.

And now she was all but begging.

The hand laid over her twisting and winding ones grabbed her attention, and she looked from them up to their source, tears welling up in her eyes that she couldn't have controlled even if she wanted to.

The winding and wrenching and twisting stopped as she looked into Cosmos' eyes, as she listened to the words that came off to her as near ethereal, as she listed to what felt like the message of a priestess or a goddess -- anyone can be freed. She could be. Her way to get out and be free was standing right in front of her, with her hands over hers, telling her that she could leave. That she needed to breathe. That she needn't blame herself, no matter what she had done in the name of Metallia, by Metallia, abided by in the name of Metallia and in the name of her team--

Oh, her team, the concept of leaving them to themselves still twisted at her but she knew she couldn't stay --

Nembus tried to breathe. It rattled.

"Okay," she tried, as she breathed out. "Okay."

It would be unpleasant, but brief.

She could do this.

She had to do this.

The hand on her chest felt so warm. It didn't push, it didn't force, it didn't tell her that Chaos was the way and that she should fall into it and let it fill her every crevice until she lost her soul again. It told her that it was there. It told her that she could be free. It told her she could be free on her own time.

On her own time.

The concept of a choice was still one she couldn't understand; the concept that she could make this decision on her own without outside influence galvanized and burned her perhaps more than the edges of the energy did and the push of just how different Cosmos' energy was compared to the energy she had been swimming in for her functional whole life. There was no other option, and yet there was. She could leave, if she wanted to. She could teleport away and abandon Phaethon and Cybele, if she wanted to. She could return to the Negaverse and Chaos, if she wanted to.

But why would she return to a place where she would never be her own?

But why would she return to a place where they would keep doing this to others, and she would have to keep being okay with it?

"I'm ready," she whispered, letting the energy seep into her.

It hurt. It burned. She felt her own energy push into it and join and wipe away what had lengthened her hair and darkened her uniform and cracked her chest and heart open. She felt it weaken her knees. She felt the way the power sapped away from her, the way the wings on her back faded and vanished in a pop she couldn't quite process among the gift and the song of the freedom.

But the power didn't matter.

What mattered was the weight off her shoulders.

What mattered was the strength anew.



Nembus gasped, stumbling toward Cosmos as she attempted to rebalance herself.

She breathed.

She breathed again.

And then, all she managed was, "I'm free."

Phaethon watched Cybele go to Nembus and realized he had been holding his breath since Cosmos had approached her, realized that he had taken a step toward her when she had stumbled forward. He forced himself to stay where he was, not wanting to crowd her. The two of them had an experience in common that he did not share, his brief quasi-corruption--and the nightmares it still gave him--or no.

That did not stop the smile that had spread across his own face when he saw the dark of her uniform give way to lighter colours. Phaethon stepped closer, though not as close as Cybele, choosing instead to hover nearby. Cosmos was, for the moment, forgotten in lieu of the thoughts that Cybele's question conjured up.

Would Nembus know who they were?

Would she remember them?

A small, selfish part of him, a part that he quashed down, wondered if she'd remember him, thinking back to the box sitting on his dresser at home--

He anxiously waited for Nembus' answer.