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 Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 6:21 pm
This should have been the happiest time in Linarite's young life. A promotion at work, a boy who seemingly truly adored her, and a passel of extraordinarily intelligent and hilarious friends. There were, however, a few problems. Firstly, Queen Beryl had made it quite clear that while she was now a Captain, her Majesty was desperate and had picked the person who would be most successful in taking down Sailor Castor.
Which was the second problem, in and of himself. Castor had claimed that he loved her, but he had just done something so horrible that Lina could barely believe it. Tanzanite was dead...the third problem. Her newest friend, who she'd tried so hard to pull from her overcharged lifestyle had lead a disastrous attack on the Super Senshi of Hail and had been brutally murdered taking a hit for the Queen.
Castor had just stood there and allowed her to die, and that was unforgivable! Never mind that she herself had killed over two dozen, pushing three. Those had been swift deaths, quick reaches into their souls, pulling the life from within. Some were even merciful in that they had never seen her coming. Some weren't. But never, ever had she killed someone who was important! Tanzanite, no - Aree had been important. She'd been a friend.
Now the bluenette was stalking the place where they normally met, where not long ago they had exchanged presents for the worst holiday of the year. Where she'd learned her friend was dead and run from Castor, telling him she didn't want to hear about it. It was her job now to bring his brilliant senshi crystal to her General King, in exchange for her life. Sentiment took a backseat to anger and fear as she had resolved to do just that. Slinking through the shadows, light struck on her newly exposed collar and made the chains around her neck glint in the light. Like her mood, the shadows suited the Negaverse Captain.
It didn't take long outside of the park until she was to the fateful bench that had started so many damn problems. Not far away was a tall and lanky form in the shadows, tracing patterns on the ground with an idle hand. Linarite felt anger well up again in her chest, and decided that this poor human was about to be delivered a hefty dose of the sharp side of her precious new pumps. She was determined to be quick in the manner of death, to reinforce the idea in her mind that truly, the senshi were the cruel ones.
Her voice called out from near the bench, airy as a breeze. "Don't see many people about, this time of night. Better watch out, one of those pesky terrorists might get you!"
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Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:44 pm
Castor and Linarite had used this place to forget. Forget their identities, forget their lives, and forget all of the things that made their love impossible. They used that bench – which had been replaced with another after Tanzanite's body had been thrown through the original – to forget all of the things that pulled them apart. It was a place where they could shed the lives of Linarite and Castor and be, for a brief moment, teenagers in love.
Aree had come there to remember.
The familiar brown-red stains on the concrete told a story that only a few people could read. There was a long, thin skid mark where she'd ground to a painful halt after one of Castor's blows, skinning her shoulder blade nearly to the bone. There were half footprints and several scattered droplets, all leading to one large, dark spread that would be in the pavement until the day they tore it up and laid down new asphalt. It was there, in the pale center of that dark stain, that Aree Cadence had died.
It was there that Captain Tanzanite had come to life.
Even in human clothes, there was nothing of Aree Cadence left in her pale, purple-haired body. She was a puppet, a vehicle driven my a Negaverse agent with a necessity for disguise. She wore the same Converse sneakers she'd been wearing that night, the laces still tinged a rusty color. The Arm, encased in the pale skin of human pretense, drew invisible patterns upon the sidewalk, stroking it affectionately as though knowing that this was where it had all happened.
Aree was numb to the world around her, ignoring even the midnight chill as it crept in through her loose black sweater, when Linarite's voice met her ears. Lost in thought, she didn't take the time to recognize it. Her own voice had changed, slightly lower, slightly darker. She issued a response in a calm, cold tone: “No. You don't.”
She didn't even bother to look back or rise from her crouched position.
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Posted: Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:44 pm
The head didn't even move! Not a bit! Usually this wouldn't have concerned Linarite, as it was much easier to be on top of your victim and have their seed if they weren't paying attention to you. However, tonight, she wanted something messy and violent. The dark stains on the pavement yanked at her guts and her guilt and she was going to take it out on this very convenient fool.
This was no ordinary blood on the sidewalk, no drug deal gone awry. This was the blood of a fallen friend, and this person was just sitting in the center of the dark pool as if it were something common! The clicking of her heels was more like petulant, enraged stomping as Linarite finally looked down at her new toy...and was shocked almost a full step backwards.
It hadn't been easy to see in the shadows, but now up close, it was all unmistakeable. The hair was as wild and violently purple as ever, almost blending into the darkness of the night. But it was impossible, right? She was dead! "Aree?!" The stunned voice opened a doorway to hope, and it welled up inside the teenager as she stared down.
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Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:55 am
Her right hand gently scraped black nails against the sidewalk. She hadn't painted them black, and they didn't gleam with the telltale reflection of hardened polish. They simple were black, thick and opaque as though the Arm had chosen to reserve that small bit of its natural form. Other than the discoloration, everything about it looked perfectly natural. The pale skin was unblemished, free of the scratches and scrapes that covered the other. It ran over the sidewalk like sandpaper, scraping at small specks of crusted blood that still remained.
Aree's eyes rolled upward, and the darkness in them greeted Linarite.
She will never be the same, Charonite had said, and he couldn't have been more correct.
“Lina,” she said softly, though no smile touched her pale lips. She seemed strangely at peace, moreso than she had ever been before the incident that had reshaped the area around them, “You shouldn't be out alone.”
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Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 1:05 am
Oh God, it was her! It was Tanzanite, Aree, her friend and partner in the shameful secret Magic Dancing! Linarite had taken a step forward again, and might have fallen to her eyes and hugged the older girl if the steel of her eyes hadn't pinned the bluenette back. It blew the tears out of the teen's eyes and had her looking just a bit closer at the calm exterior. It was peculiar.
Mentally she'd always referred to Tanzanite as the Amazon of the Negaverse. She'd been fierce and wild in battle and as a human, nervous and almost out of place. This almost cold and quiet greeting, the emotionless gaze after their last meeting...after she thought Tanz had been dead. Relief was slowly coursing through her limbs and soothing the shock that had been housed there, and strangely, a warm rising in her chest that had no name.
Quietly, Lina pulled her mind back from her heart and affixed her normal chipper smile onto her face. "I'm not alone now, am I?" Knees hit the pavement first, then swung to the side as she tried to curl them under herself, thwarted by the pull of her skirt. "And I've...been given a new mission. But that's unimportant, what happened to you?! I..I heard you were dead!" Now she did touch her friend, a light grip on her left arm showing concern and disbelief.
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:07 am
For someone who had been born without so much as a speck of the Negaverse in her, being a human girl had always come difficult to Aree. Even before her corruption, something had always been very wrong in the mind of the young woman who had now been completely consumed by Lieutenant Tanzanite. Whereas Aree Cadence had always seemed out of place and restless, awkward and unsettled, Tanzanite was calm and confident. She was unshakable and strong, and she wore Aree's human skin like a snugly fitting suit.
Tanzanite winced away from Lina's touch, a combat reflex moreso than anything else. It took her only a moment before she was able to recognize that she was safe – safe as she was anywhere outside of the Negaverse – and settle into the touch. Her left arm was still warm and smooth, still human. The right, although it looked normal, was hardened beneath the skin and several degrees cooler. It felt like stone stuffed into skin, compacted and waiting to burst at the seams.
“I guess I was,” she murmured, fanning the fingers of her right hand out in front of her. Well, she did not fan them. They fanned themselves, as though the arm was putting itself on display. Aree smiled, and murmured something inaudible. Somehow, the arm managed to seem offended before dropping back to her side. Aree shook her head, and must have looked absolutely off her rocker by the time she returned her gaze to her friend.
“It happened here, you know,” she whispered, and those black fingernails drummed on the pavement, “She died right here.”
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:24 am
Worry began to rise again in her throat at the strange actions of her companion, and they were reflected in her dark eyes though the rest of her face tried to keep its steely composure. Artifice was something still relatively new to the Captain, and she had a hard time keeping her will in place when she felt strongly about something. Aree Cadence's wellbeing was something she felt overwhelmingly strong about.
"She...Tanzanite?" Confused, she tried to piece together what she knew from what mumbled nonsense Castor had thrown at her before she'd fled like a fool. It was a regret she was constantly reliving, and something she wished desperately could be fixed. Then she wouldn't be in this goddamn situation! Anger rose as her attention shifted, but was quickly recalled when she looked into stormy gray eyes. Something was seriously off.
"So if you died, what happened? I saw the Queen, she was unharmed. As bitchy as ever, in fact, though I know you'll disagree with that assessment." Plain and simple, Aree loved Ursula. Why was a mystery, Ursula was not particularly loveable, in Linarite's mind. But sense was never readily available these days. "And you seem - well you're alive at any rate." Lina was about to throw her arms around her friend and hug her in yet another wash of relief, before pausing midway. The flinch was easily remembered, and though confusing, she didn't care to feel it again.
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 10:25 am
Aree swallowed hard, as though the memory brought a lump to her throat that choked off her words. She touched her fingertips to that dark stain on the pavement, tracing the spiderweb cracks where her body had hit with far too much force. There was only a shimmer across the surface of her skin as she transformed. No sparkles, no twirls, no music. Their transformations were simple, businesslike, a shift into the form they kept so often in hiding. It was difficult to maintain a transformation for extended periods of time, but Tanzanite found it more and more difficult to maintain the human guise with her arm so eager to be free. It was like constantly minding a floodgate, where even the smallest storm of emotion might break down barriers and bring Tanzanite spilling forth.
The monstrous thing, now freed from the tight skin of her human form, turned towards Lina, the spikes at her shoulder laying flat against her neck. It hovered in the air a moment, as though getting a feel for the energy around her, before finally settling upon one of Lina's hands. It rested there, gently stroking the back of her fingertips with one wicked claw.
She would never understand how the damn thing chose who it liked or disliked.
“She brought me back,” Tanzanite said at last, her grey eyes focused on Lina's deep brown. “Kunzite was going to kill her.. and I couldn't let that happen.” Her eyes were wide, almost fearful, as though the very thought of having let such a thing occur was shameful and terrifying. "Without her, we go back to nothing. I can't go back now, Lina. I can never go back now."
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:12 pm
Seeing the arm, Lina drew in a sharp and quick breath of surprise and mild shock before it started to lightly stroke her skin. Her first instinct was to flinch back herself from that unnatural touch, when she looked up into Tanzanite's eyes and was overwhelmed again by a need greater than her own. She did hug the other woman now, pushing in under that great arm to hug her around the shoulders. "You did wonderfully, you know...you're a bit of a hero now." Linarite was all quirky smiles and reassuring glances, happy acceptance in a bottle.
"I don't think I've ever known a hero. Maybe we can convince them to put up a statue or something in the throne room. Come a long way from cleaning it up at least." The new captain leaned her head on the other's shoulder lightly for effect, grinning up at her and then turned her thoughts back on a more serious bent. "So...what's it like?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:40 pm
Tanzanite certainly didn't feel like a hero. What she felt inside was the same thick, bitter loathing for the world she'd known before the Negaverse, sans the brief moments of compassion or joy that had once been borrowed from the teenage girl Charonite had found. When Aree Cadence died, she had taken with her a wide range of emotions, leaving the bitter Lieutenant alone with her anger and an inexplicable loyalty to a Queen who just barely even cared if she lived or died. What she left behind was a woman who was a stones throw away from being outright crazy.
Charonite would have said that the stone had been thrown a hell of a long time ago.
So where the sudden sense of content came from as Linarite set her head on Tanzanite's shoulder, she had no idea. The arm didn't seem to mind, draping itself around Linarite's shoulders. Tanzanite even managed a smile, if a slightly forced one.
“I wouldn't be surprised if he has me cleaning it again in a week,” she mused, smile turning genuine. It really wouldn't have surprised her in the slightest, given her newly developed tendency to toe the line with the General-King. “It's like...” she paused, and stared at the arm that she was only now discovering had coiled around Lina's shoulders, “Like babysitting a really disobedient kid. Except welded to your shoulder.”
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 8:00 pm
Lina, who had been more than delighted at the unexpected return of her friendly and affectionate gestures suddenly looked a bit more suspiciously at both Tanzanite and the arm. Up to Tanz, back again, all the while lightly patting and stroking the strange texture of the monster arm. Then, putting on a face that could only be termed 'hilariously stern', the captain wagged a finger at the arm around her.
"You. Listen up, ok? We can't have you doing things, so you're just going to have to stay right here, okay? I'm going to talk, and you're just going to behave. Capisce?" Really, it was the action of a much younger girl than Linarite, but she was so bamboozled by the whole thing that she was simply going with the first thing that sprang to her mind. Social grace wasn't exactly a skill she'd materialized out of thin air when joining the Negaverse, it was more like she doggie paddled through the waters. With a broken leg. Satisfied that this might work for a whole five minutes, she sighed and started to pick at the hem of her dress. "You know...I'm really happy you're ok, Tanz. When I hadn't heard from you, but knew Castor was alright, it was awful. The queen wouldn't even tell me what had happened to you, he'd just told me you were dead and he couldn't stop it and...I ran." Hands curled into fists and she was biting the inside of her lip to avoid tears.
"I just thought you should know that. I don't know if the Queen felt the same, or Ursula, or whoever the hell she is now. But that's not important. I just...well. I'm really happy you're ok." It was hard, being genuine sometimes. With Pasha, with Castor, with almost anyone it was easy to be carelessly affectionate and honest. They never held her emotions against her, but Tanzanite was such a different person. Restless, mysterious. All Lina could do was hope that her friend hadn't changed overly much from the ordeal and that they could still be friends.
Desperately she needed a friend who understood her secret.
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Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:35 pm
“Castor...” she murmured, but immediately swallowed down the feelings that the name dragged up. It was a bittersweet topic for her. A reminder of failure, but also a reminder of a much simpler time. Back when being Aree Cadence and Lieutenant Tanzanite all at once had still been an option. When Lina spoke, Tanzanite couldn't keep the smile from widening. Linarite, who had once been her babysitter for all intents and purposes, was now lecturing her like a child. It was... cute? Charming? Tanzanite didn't know the right word, but she could think of a few in the ballpark.
“Hey,” she said as Lina looked on the verge of tears, though the word came out much more scornfully and much less comforting than she had intended. The grip of that arm pulled her in a bit closer, a tad more snugly, and held her there, “Have a little faith in me, now.” She was smiling genuinely, looking down at Lina with sad grey eyes that seemed more worried for Lina than for herself. Tanzanite had no reason to fear for her own safety or mental wellbeing. The first was in the hands of the Negaverse, the second was... well, you didn't try to keep pieces of broken glass from getting cracked.
“It's going to take more than a lost limb to kill me. I'm afraid you're just going to have to get used to having me around. And running from Castor,” she snorted, and there was no hiding her contempt for the super senshi, “I'm not going to judge anyone who wants to be a hundred miles away from Admiral Libido.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:42 pm
Really, she was becoming so much more of a weak, weepy idiot by the day anymore! Audrey'd never been a crier. Ever. So for Linarite to be all but swooning over Tanzanite's lap, eyes filled with sparkly little forming tears, it was downright shameful. Shameful, degrading...sigh. If you couldn't actually cry over a potentially dead friend, what the hell could you cry over? The smile, however, reassured all sorts of things in the girl's heart and mind, and she responded radiantly.
"Who needs boys anyway? I mean, we're career women aren't we? Already messed up that train more than once anyway." Lina snorted, thinking of Khaldun with wry amusement. Blue head came back to lean against the roughness of the arm, and she looked up into the sky. "I suppose I'll have to learn to deal with you then, huh? More movie nights or something, until I learn to tolerate you. Man, you're such a problem, Tanz!" The sound accompanying her obvious sarcasm was somewhere between a snort and a giggle. A sniggle might have been the right word, but she'd never utter it. At least, not without incredible enhancements in the way of humor!
Sobering slightly, but a smile still tipping her lips, the captain stretched her own arms out in front of her and stretched somewhat languidly. "Anyway, Castor's my problem now. At this point, it's him or me." Dark honey eyes hardened. "And I'm damn well not going to let it be me."
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Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:36 pm
Who needed boys anyways, indeed.
Tanzanite was charmed. This spoke volumes about Lina's ability to charm a person, because Tanzanite was not the type to be charmed. Or dazzled. Or anything of the sort. Tanzanite was the type to stare blankly at you until you stopped talking and walked away and left her standing there wondering what the hell you were ever going on about in the first place.
In the word of the street, Lina had skillz.
At the idea, the very notion, of it coming down to Lina and Castor, the arm tightened its grip. It was protective, strangely so, but Tanzanite didn't seem to object. In fact, the way her head snapped towards Lina and her grey eyes widened suggested that she and her usually disagreeable limb were finally on the same page. For a long moment she simply sat there with her lips pursed and her jaw clenched, before finally shaking her head.
“It won't be you,” she said with such finality that one might think she actually had some kind of control over the situation, “I would never let it be you.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 2:40 am
Had her hands not already been lightly gripped on the arm to rest and marvel again at the oddity of the thing, she would have probably fallen head-first into Tanzanite's lap. Which would have been awkward, and terrible, and she probably would have died of shame right there and then saving Super Sailor Castor the messy trouble. Shifting her weight under the tight grip, Linarite soothed the claw lightly, looking up to speak and silenced for a moment by the sheer determination in her friend's look.
Eyes met and held for a long moment before the smaller girl dropped hers and smiled a bit brighter again. "That's comforting, it really is. I was half-worried I'd have to have Obsidian or Khaldun at my back. The queen wouldn't lift a finger to help me if I was begging her with my guts on the pavement, but that's my own fault." Blue curls shook with a light tremor as she swallowed and patted the dark skin once more. Looking back up, her tiny size made her look years younger than she actually was, and she bit her lip. "Do...do you think it'll come to that? I mean, I'm a Captain now just for this but...I admit that he scares me. I don't know why. I'm normally never afraid!" If Tanz had noticed she'd shifted her weight even closer, leaning against the stronger woman, it wasn't commented on.
Dispatching Castor should be swift and as painless as possible, for both their sakes. Maybe for everyone's sake. Her messy entanglement had done as much damage as it could by now, hadn't it? Desperately, she hoped so.
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