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 Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:16 pm
The barrier was holding fast against a blizzard when they arrived, and there was no immediate sign that bringing Spinel to his wonder had broken anything. “Come on,” Babylon said to the senshi, pulling him along. He wanted to get a look at that cut on his hand, and since the return trip would take them to the same place that they’d left from, they needed to stay gone for a while. Give Avalon time to clear out, look for them, and realize they were nowhere to be found.
He bustled Spinel into the knight’s study and gestured for him to sit. The first-aid kit he’d brought in when he lit the lamps was still in the cabinet where he’d left it, and the knight cleared the worktable of documents and bits of glass to make room. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me, like, so, so much,” he said to the senshi, reaching for his cut hand. “And I don’t know how I can make it up to you, but I’m going to try.”
The cut looked nasty, and even if there were no longer actual ice crystals of blood surrounding it, the skin was puffy and inflamed. “This is really classic frostnip,” he said. “We need to warm it up before I can treat anything else.” Luckily, Spinel had picked the guy with far-North survival skills to get injured on account of. There were instant-warm packs in the kit, and Babylon snapped into one and wrapped it in a gauze pad. “Hold this on it. Let me know when the numbness clears, and then I’ll clean out that cut and - seal it up somehow.” The palm of the hand was a bad place for bandages, and it looked deep.
“Did she get you anywhere else?” he asked, as he dug through the kit and placed hydrogen peroxide, liquid stitches, and antibiotic ointment on the table. “Man,” he sighed. He still felt cold in his chest, but there wasn’t much he could do for that. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did back there. She’s gonna be pissed, but thank you. Man, it’s a ******** miracle we’re even having this conversation.”
Babylon got up and returned with two bottles of water from his ration stores. He offered one to Spinel. “Sorry it’s nothing stronger. Your girlfriend - she’s a lucky girl to have you, that’s for sure.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:35 pm
Spinel knew about space. He’d been to Alkaid twice, piloted a youma with a Negaverse officer--seen the inside of Virgo Outpost--but this was another level entirely. He was not on a planet that seemed to welcome his Chaos-warped starseed; he felt distinctly… unwelcome, actually, like the bright blue flames of this place were leaning in to watch him for treachery. He wanted to explain that he’d done the right thing to them, for some reason. He wanted to talk, and it was terrifying, because talking was the last thing he should do--he should be writing his ******** last will and testament…
More than anything, more than dread or terror, he felt numb. Things were… things were out of his hands, now, there wasn’t a way back or a way to make it better, no amount of punishment would be enough because he’d attacked a General not once, but twice. Could Generals summon you from another planet? Could a General-King? He held the warm pack because he was told to, put pressure on the wound because he didn’t want to lose a hand. “I’m in my last month of med school,” he said, finally. “You don’t have to. I can take care of it later, and nothing major is cut, so it’s not urgent.”
All of Babylon’s thank yous rankled, like being told he was a decent person for doing what Spinel knew was right. What Spinel knew was right had very much signed, if not a death warrant, an eventual execution order for Tallulah--who was a civilian, helpless. He wanted to tell Babylon her name and ask him to look out for her, but. But? He couldn’t think of a convincing reason not to. But he wouldn’t. That felt more personal and private than the things he’d told Babylon the last time he’d seen the Knight.
“She’s going to kill me,” said Spinel, and when those words came out of his mouth, they crystallized, became real--and he knew it was true. “Maybe she won’t today, but she’ll ask permission and get it and then I’m going to die.” At least she might be too pissed at him to think of Tallulah. She might also just take a page from the Negaverse book of punishments and make him corrupt his girlfriend. Probably to the Negaverse, to replace him when they murdered him.
He took a deep breath and stared studiously at his hands.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:35 pm
Babylon sighed. Wilderness certifications couldn’t make up for a nearly-complete medical degree, and if Spinel didn’t want treatment then there wasn’t anything he could really do. “I’m training to be a park ranger,” he said, reaching for the bottle of hydrogen peroxide anyway. “I’m CPR and First-Aid certified and I did a winter on ski patrol in Alaska. Things like this are the only thing I’m really qualified to fix. And I’d feel a lot better if you at least let me clean it and dress it.”
But he’d understand if he didn’t. Self-flagellation was nothing out of the ordinary for him, and refusing treatment for an injury was just as much a valid form of it as actually self-harming. He had a prominent facial scar as a reminder of that, after all. Deep in thought, he stared at the senshi’s hands. Spinel had gone above and beyond what Babylon should have expected of him, and he wasn’t ready to pay for his own life with the senshi’s. There was a way out. There had to be.
“I know a princess,” he said. “Iris. I’d met her before, but I only found out for certain that she’s a princess a day ago. I can write to her, arrange a meeting. You saved my life. You burned every bridge that you have with the negaverse, and if you want to purify then I don’t see any way that anyone would turn you down.” Senshi did not easily throw willing converts to the wolves - or at least he hoped they didn’t.
“We should stay here for a while, anyway,” he said, trying to compose a first draft in his head. Hey, remember me…? Not the best introduction. “Give Avalon time to clear out. She won’t know where we’ve gone when she wakes up. If that’s alright with you.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:36 pm
Spinel sighed. He could understand wanting to be useful, and wanting to pay down a debt. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll let you know when feeling comes back to it.”
The idea of purifying, though. Having to live with what he had done? Forever? It would save his life but to know that hundreds of people had given him starseeds, energy--hadn’t he already thrown it away? Hadn’t he already given all that up? The moment he knocked Avalon unconscious against the bakery’s brick wall, he’d ruined any chance of those deaths meaning anything. He’d done it to save his own life and now he was going to ******** die.
“That would work,” he said. “If you would be so kind.” He didn’t want to purify so much as he wanted to just… stop. He wanted everything, everything, to just stop. It wasn’t an impossibility to arrange for, but at the same time, there was Tallulah to think of. He could, as long as he lasted before Avalon called him before a General-King and cut off his head, protect her. So there was that. “Actually…”
He fidgeted with the gauze, wiggled his fingers and winced at the flex of torn skin. Maybe, he thought, a tendon had been cut--he couldn’t really move his thumb at all--but all the same, it wasn’t anything major. “My girlfriend. Her name is Tallulah Cowden--in case this purification doesn’t work, or doesn’t work fast enough, would you--would you look out for her? She was sick recently, and I… I really don’t want them to hurt her.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:36 pm
Babylon knew that name. He tried to keep his face impartial, as to not give anything away, but things were sliding into place. How, he wondered, Would Spinel react, if he knew that Tallulah was more than capable of taking care of herself? The knight got up, found paper and a pen and a bottle of ink after a few moments of digging through the cabinets. Things were sliding into place in his head - he’d met Tallulah’s boyfriend, not four months ago. But he couldn’t quite reconcile the identities. The glamour insisted, they look nothing alike. “I have a few friends back on Earth who should be checking their mail tonight,” he explained, returning to the table. “I’ll send word, have someone post a guard and take her to ground. We’ll keep her safe.” What he actually did was hunch over the paper and write: Europa-
Your civilian safety is compromised. Tallulah needs to disappear for a while. I’m spending the night on Mercury with a refugee from the Negaverse. We’ll explain everything in person - I’ll send you another message with rendezvous details. Avoid Avalon.
-Babylon With a quick stamp of his ring, the message disappeared into the ether. “There. Europa should be good for this.” Which was as much honesty as he could risk without giving away the entire game. Babylon pulled a second sheet of paper towards himself, and contemplated what he would say to Princess Iris. It had certainly been a while since he’d last made her acquaintance. The letter would keep for a while, at least. If Iris kept a regular patrol schedule, then he had a few more hours to catch her powered up. And it wasn’t like they were going to risk going back to Destiny City any time soon. “How’s your hand?” he asked. “Are you hungry? I’ve got a camping stove. I can heat up some soup.” Babylon still felt like there was ice in his chest. Personally, soup sounded like an incredible idea.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:37 pm
“You’re going to trust that to the postal service,” asked Spinel, in a tone that would have been incredulous if it hadn’t also been so flat. Perhaps it was flatly incredulous? But--he zipped his lips and watched Babylon hunch over the paper, though Spinel could no more make out the words than he could blow things up with his mind. When the paper disappeared, he’d only had enough time looking at the page to determine the name Europa.
“I’ve fought her before,” he said. “You didn’t tell her about me, did you?” He didn’t think that Europa would be that spiteful--she’d saved him as a civilian not two weeks ago. Tallulah’s life was not worth that risk, though. “I think I brained a senshi she was training. The girl lived, though. I think. Maybe.”
He hated that he wasn’t sure.
The feeling had returned to his hand, and he peeled back the gauze to look at it. “It’s not bad,” he said. It would… probably scar. He wasn’t hungry, but that was more likely shock than an actual lack of need for food. So he shrugged, and said, “That sounds alright. You’ve stocked this place up, I guess?... Where is this?”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:38 pm
“The magical postal service,” said Babylon, mildly chuffed in both the positive and negative sense at the same time. “If she’s powered up, she’ll get it. And trust me, she is.” Not even a nearly-fatal wasting disease could stop Sailor Europa, and he was pretty sure she didn’t know the meaning of moderation. Like, at all. “I told her I was with a refugee from the Negaverse,” he said. “I didn’t tell her who you are.” In more ways than one. That was going to have to wait.
He’d… ease them both into that information. Somehow. Preferably in a way that did not end in tears. He’d think of one. Eventually.
s**t, Babylon thought, exhaling deeply. He was in way, way over his head. He got up and prepped the camp stove, set a can of tomato soup on to heat, and dug out a roll of saltene crackers, because at least it was something to keep him busy for a little bit. “The is the ancient city of Babylon, on Mercury,” he explained over his shoulder as he worked. “It’s my Wonder. I’m its custodian. It’s where my power comes from. All those negaverse officers you know? They’re knights, like me, only infected with Chaos. Anyway, I stocked it up because I need to be here for a few days at a time sometimes, but it’s a good safehouse in a pinch.”
He guessed. He’d never used it like that before. Laughing awkwardly, Babylon poured the hot soup into mugs and returned to the table. “Let me put peroxide and some neosporin on that and then I promise I’ll stop momming you,” he said. Because he was pretty sure that if he got everyone through the next week alive, then Tallulah would never, ever forgive him if her boyfriend lost a hand to gangrene.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:38 pm
No one had ever mentioned magical postal service in Spinel’s hearing, not even Avalon, who had been a knight and ought to know; it was either a new development or Avalon just hated him. Both were very, very plausible. He decided it didn’t matter and someone would fill him in if it ever became important, and then he remembered he was probably going to die in the next week and his head suddenly stopped weighing enough and he swayed, visibly, where he sat.
“Babylon, hanging gardens of,” asked Spinel skeptically, because he had seen no gardens. He had seen a s**t ton of snow, though. Maybe it was winter on Mercury. (He was on Mercury.) While Babylon doctored his hand, Spinel used his other hand to pull the bronze metal clip free of his hair. Corrupts had such long hair and he almost looked forward to being without it--he could just--
The clip clunked to the table, a heavy metallic noise. “Avalon was a knight like you,” he said to the table. “I get the impression that you know something she wants to know dearly. She’d probably leave you alone if you just told her whatever it is.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:38 pm
“Babylon, how many miles to,” the knight replied, wrapping fresh gauze around Spinel’s hand. That was as good a fix as he was going to do here, given he was pretty sure Spinel thought the liquid stitches were overkill. “If your heels be nimble and light, you may get there by candle-light.” Of course, it could also be the hanging gardens sort of Babylon - he still had things to explore.
He watched the clip settle on the table, and then reached for his mug of soup. “I know who she used to be,” he said hollowly. “Before she corrupted. She doesn’t remember anything about it, but she remembers me. She remembers that we were friends.” More than friends, he thought, but how could he explain that it hadn’t been a sexual closeness, or even a romantic closeness? He could. “Best friends,” he sighed, dissatisfied with the phrase.
“She won’t stop just because I tell her who she was,” he said. That was wildly idealistic, and it missed the point of Avalon’s obsession. “She wants me, but more than that, she wants us. The way we were. Together in chaos.” He nudged the roll of saltines towards Spinel. “Cracker?” he asked. “Anyway, she won’t stop until I’m either dead or standing loyally beside her, and I’m not going to do either, so this is just going to drag out forever.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:39 pm
It wasn’t a familiar rhyme, but Spinel got the point. He picked up his head and sipped at his soup, took a few crackers and broke them into pieces to eat them. “Seems like a lot of anger and want for just friends,” said Spinel neutrally. Hey, he was going to die for this information and this relationship, he at least wanted to know why. The more he knew, though, the more unnerved the thought of Avalon made him--would that have been his fate, if he hadn’t had such a long history of the Negaverse ignoring him, abusing his gifts, trying to scare him into line without sharing what they knew? Would he have become obsessed with Vivianite or Tallulah standing beside him in the shadow of Chaos?
“Irresistable force, immovable object,” he said, because it was easier to just keep talking than it was for him to consider his own impending doom or what might have been. It all seemed so perverse, so… not what he bargained for. The Negaverse had seemed so… harmless. He’d never had a choice between joining and not joining, not really. He could’ve died four years ago or he could’ve lived and that was no actual choice at all.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:39 pm
Babylon licked his lips, trying again to parse the relationship. “I say just friends because - we weren’t dating. We weren’t sleeping together. We weren’t a couple.” There’d never been even the mildest hint of sexual tension between the two of them, and they’d gotten by just fine on that - as friends, but also, more. “But we were - it was love. Not romantic or sexual, but we depended on each other. We lived together. Like, imagine two pieces of nylon rope tied in a knot, and over time the pieces of rope fuse together so they’re just one piece of rope, stuck in a knot. That’s us.” Maybe the metaphor would get the point across. Babylon hoped so, because the next step was overly-sentimental cliches about soulmates, and he really didn’t want to go there. Instead, he reached for another sheet of paper and composed his letter to Princess Iris. Princess Iris-
So, it’s been a while. Remember the toilet youma? This is that guy. I’m lying low on Mercury with Corrupt Super Sailor Spinel, and he’s burned just about every bridge there is to burn with the Negaverse and is ready to purify. General Avalon is ready to kill both of us and I was hoping to arrange a meeting with you before things get any worse than they are now. More details in person, I promise - write back via the nearest convenient knight if you’d like to suggest another time, otherwise we’ll meet you behind the Museum of Earth and Space at 1 AM.
-Babylon of Mercury
With a stamp of his ring, he sent it off. “We’ll meet with her later tonight, see how she wants to handle this. I told her we’re in pretty dire straights, so hopefully - hopefully this doesn’t drag out too long.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:40 pm
Spinel fell quiet, because he could hear--this was important to Babylon. This meant something to him. And he couldn’t imagine the pain that Avalon was putting Babylon through, by being a corrupted version of someone he’d cared about. He couldn’t imagine having to look at Tallulah that way. Couldn’t imagine Tallulah looking at him that way. “That’s… I’m sorry,” he said, which was all he could say.
His hand was starting to ache.
“How much time until we have to go? I don’t have a watch,” he said.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:41 pm
Babylon, luckily, had thought to put a travel alarm clock in his first aid kit, and he checked it right then. “We’ve got about twenty minutes,” he said, glancing at his mug of soup. He picked it up and chugged the rest. “I’ll just put things away here and we can go.” The study was disorganized enough without his first aid kit left out willy-nilly, or the camp stove in the middle of the table.
He packed everything up and turned to the senshi once more, offering him a hand. “For better or for worse,” said Babylon, “We’ve got to head back now.”
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