Okay! Time to get down to the nitty gritty, my love!

The muted slap of a gloved hand across her face, making her head snap. She couldn’t see who it was anymore, although the echos of someone’s voice, more sounds than any form given words, drifted in and around her; it sounded like a man.

Yes, you are something of a superhero.

The snapping of bone resonated louder in her ears. It took her too long to realize the bones being broken were her own. She could not scream. She could not move.

Just like a superhero, there is an evil out there that you have been awoken to fight.

There was a monster on top of her, heavy and too warm, making her sweat. Its teeth, burning like fire, broke through her shell and sank into the flesh of her arm. Again. She could not scream. She could not move.

Sailor Senshi like you are all over the city… powering up as you did to defend the general populace from the forces of the Negaverse, who are ruled by the power of Chaos.

A senshi slapping Ganymede across the face.

Another strike across her own face from a man whose face she could not remember.

The monster atop her blowing a plume of fire.

“You made a mistake, wanting to play hero. It's not your job -- it's our job to protect the citizens of Earth. It has been our job for millennia. You are simply on the wrong side of this war. That's all."

She felt so small.

It can be something of a scary thought.

There was amusement in his eyes as he snapped more bone, twisting her into the image he desired.

A hand sinking into her chest, pressing down on her very soul.

Fire spread through it. She arched against her bindings, but still lacked a voice, lacked the capacity to scream as she threw herself back, desperately wanting to break away from the prying, violating hands. But there was nowhere for her to go.

She couldn’t do anything.

Had she ever been able to?

But I want to assure you that you aren’t alone in this fight.

A hand, unwanted, on her face slid down, down, down, until it was hovering ever so slightly on her collarbone, over the starseed that laid deep within her chest. Did his fingers slip in, too? It was still burning with fire unseen. "I would say it was a pity to kill you, but seeing as you've no friends, or family within the order that'll miss you, I'd be lying."

There were hands grasping at her, pulling her, hitting her, voices screaming nothing into her ears.

“Help me…”

She could see them, people she did and didn’t know. Ganymede. Hvergelmir. Valhalla. They were among them.

They did not hear her.

"Help me!” Finally, her voice broke through. “Don't let them take me! Please! For the love of god, anyone! I'M RIGHT HERE, HELP ME!"

But no one could hear her.

Or no one wanted to.

"…Nobody came. Is anybody even looking? Doesn't anyone even care?"

“Don’t let them take me, please! Please! Don’t do this!”

I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful senshi!

She couldn’t do anything. Nothing that mattered. She couldn’t stop it - she couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe - A cat-like smile. Alone, alone, alone -- A press of fingers. A surge of pain.

-------------------------------

Desdemona woke, snapping herself half up in bed, stiff as a board and drenched in sweat, a strangled cry of wordless agony slipping from her before she slapped her hands over her mouth, all but clawing at her own face as she rocked. She sucked ragged breaths in and out of her nose, her eyes squeezed shut tight as she fought to remember herself.

It wasn’t working. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and put her head in her hands, fingers digging harshly into her own hair, biting down hard at her lower lip, enough to break skin and draw traces of blood into her mouth. She tried counting down from ten, slowly, reminding herself again and again that it had been a nightmare. Something she should have been past by now. But no matter how hard she trained, no matter how she threw herself into her work, no matter how much she knew she was not the same girl she had been before --

Her hand, shaking, slipped from her hair down over her chest, fingers curling where she knew her starseed lay. She caught sight of herself in the mirror from across the room, and looking at herself like this, in the darkness with nothing else but the moonlight coursing in, low and ghostly pale, Desdemona couldn’t help but think to herself that like this, she didn’t seem all that different at all. Weak and small and pathetic. And she knew she wasn’t, she knew she was none of those things anymore, she knew that -

For a split-second, she felt an urge to take something from her bedside table and fling it at the mirror, banishing the reflection that just wasn’t her anymore. Perhaps it said something that it was the thought of Poppy rather than any kind of self-restraint that made her turn away, opting to flick on the light instead.

Her journal occured to her, tucked into her drawer; she’d filled two this year already, and was approaching a third. The dreams - nightmares - they’d been every night at first. They’d slowed. But they still hadn’t stopped, and so the journal seemed almost a moot point by now. Jagged like edges of a life she didn’t all together remember still kept coming back to cut her down in the dead of night.

Some part of her wondered if it would ever stop. Just as some part of her knew she’d made it harder on herself by taking on other senshi to stay with her, girls like Poppy, maybe more to come. But she knew she needed it, she needed to be there for people like herself, she needed to - she needed to take more on, she needed to do more, she needed -

What do I really need?

Power. I need to be stronger.

She eased up out of bed and turned on the light, and the first thing she did was change. Her clothes were too drenched in a cold sweat to be comfortable. Desdemona stood there for a moment, nude, glancing sideways at the mirror again. Like this, she could see the change - she did not look frail. Her body had filled out, and she took a measure of pride in the sight that greeted her, of a girl that was, yes, small, but there were both curves and muscle that made her anything but tiny and breakable. There were traces of stretch marks marring her skin now, more or less faded by the cocoa butter she’d used, but she was still vividly aware of them, equal parts shamed and proud of them. Shamed, because they were a reminder of where she’d been, and remained a flaw now - proud, for the same reason.

Her stance shifted, back arching, chin held higher, chest extended. The proud stance of Amphitrite reflected through her mask, her guise. She smiled, a charming, easy smile that suited her, suited her newfound strength and confidence.

Desdemona dropped it moments later, and felt nothing as she slipped into a fresh set of pajamas.

Her hands were still shaking.

First, she would try for tea, one of Elle’s old teas that had yet to see any use since she’d left. Months ago, Elle would have made the tea for her, would have taken Desdemona’s hands into her own, stroking them soothingly until the shaking stopped.

Elle was not here anymore. But it was fine. Desdemona needed no one to hold her hands anymore. She was the adult now. The caretaker.

She was strong enough.

About halfway through drinking the cup of tea, though, she quickly realized that it was not enough. This was not enough to calm her frayed nerves and put her back to sleep. So she left it abandoned on the table to cool as she simply got up, grabbed her keys, and headed out the door, locking it behind her.

It was only minutes later, after she became Amphitrite again and felt the power of her magic swarming through her veins, that she began to feel anything remotely resembling okay again. And then it was only after she had cornered a target, a man heading home from some work event in the dead of night, deliberately drawing out the draining of his energy to see the look of fear etch itself across his face, reddened by alcohol, that she truly felt like herself.