What We Fight For
1304 Words [SOLO12]
Fluorite had waited a long time do to this. It had to be exactly the right moment, exactly the right time. Everything was planned for this night, and this night was the one.
Fluorite wasn't exactly the best at waiting. She was impatient as best – but this was important. So she had forced herself to wait. The timing had to be right – she knew it wasn't something light that she had to reveal.
“Where are we going ?” Alunite was nervous, and she couldn't really blame him. She was nervous, too. Coming here always made her nervous.
“Shh.” She answered him, and continued on her way, making sure his aura was in her range at all tim, and that no 'light' aura was following them. It reminded her of things she had seen that no one should have seen, even less so the fresh-eyed lieutenant that she had been. She was still a lieutenant, but no longer as wide-eyed as she had been. She had learned what she had been fighting for, that night.
Now it was Alunite's turn, through. But what if the Blood Moon Court had returned there ? Would she be able to feel them ? When coming here, she hadn't initially been able to feel them at all... Would they be that foolish ? More importantly, what could she do if they had ? She couldn't teleport. Alunite might have been able to do so – she heard that the chosen senshi could – but he had never done it, and neither had he showed the knowledge that he, in fact, could.
She would deal with it if it came, she decided. It was important that he saw this. Important that everyone who had not been there to see it saw it. Was someone showing this to the new recruits ? She hoped so.
The clearing where Tanzanite had fought as a great youma soon came into view, and she stopped for a moment, overcome by her own memories. She could still see the black phoenix perched on that building, recovering as the senshi continued their relentless assaults on it. No one had bothered to repair the damage – everything remained just as it was when they all had left.
“What... What happened here, Fluorite ?” Alunite asked, and it brought her out of her memories. She turned to look at him.
“A battle, Alunite.” She said, softly, turning to walk up the hill, knowing her brother would follow. “The first major battle than I have been a part of – and not the last. I hadn't been in the Negaverse long when it happened, and the cataclyst to it happened before I even was. Agents were taken by the Blood Moon Count, kidnapped.”
“I heard some about that...” Ah ? Well, this was a good thing. It meant that the memory had been perpetuated in some way, by someone who hadn't been her. She didn't keep track of every little thing Alunite did, or everyone he met – that would just be silly. She hoped, through, that she would figure out who had told him about this, and that she would be able to thank them for it.
“Did they tell you.” She started. “That we came to save our own, right here ? That there was a huge battle right here, with nearly every one of us, against so many senshi that they were impossible to count ?” It was perhaps an exaggeration – but it had certainly felt that way to Fluorite.
“Some of it... but not what had happened in the fight.”
“Then, let me tell you.” She said, softly. “At first we split in two teams, each tackling one entrance to that building, here.” The young girl turned and pointed. “They used their magic relentlessly against us – nearly drowned some of us.” Alunite's eyes were wide – she saw no need to specify that she had been one of these. “We managed trough each of their traps, and got to the end. In one room, was Captain Wolframite.” Who had been beaten and broken beyond any kind of sense, but yet still alive.
“In the other... Alunite, not everyone survived those events, or the fight that followed it.”
She stopped at the clearing. There was a neat line of make-shift gravestones there, all lined up. They had been left undisturbed – she had been glad for that.
The youma came toward her – a small phoenix, miniature replica of the large one that had flown over the field below. It seemed to recognize her – chirped some as she reached to pat the top of it's head. It gave a bit of a dirty look at Alunite, but did no move toward the negaverse senshi.
“After we got out, the Blood Moon Court, along with more senshi and us, fought in that clearing. General Tanzanite became something known as a great youma.” How and why, she had not known. She had not known that Lina Knight had once been Linarite. She hadn't been good enough at feeling auras to feel a knight among all these auras, back then. “We did out best to protect her, but our best was not enough. The Black Phoenix was slain... and then reborn as General Queen Tanzanite.”
“But...” She faced the graves again as the small phoenix flew off to continue it's endless patrol. “Not everyone was that lucky.”
She stepped in front of the graves, and named them, one by one. “Lieutenant Helicase. Who was in the room opposite of Wolframite. I was the one to find him.” Her expression was grim, but it was easy to see tears starting to gather in her eyes. “Lieutenant Primase. Captain Dioptase. General King Marthozite.”
At the last one, Alunite's eyes went extremely wide. She could understand the surprise. “There were more... but we have never found the bodies to lay them to earth. I saw all this with my own eyes, but you don't have to. What I need you to understand, Alunite, is that you need to be careful. They may look weak – they may look kind, even. They may say that they fight for good, but Alunite... As you can see, now, the senshi will stop at nothing to get what they want. I have no idea what the officers trapped in there for weeks have truly endured. But I do know that they were tortured. Their bodies were left broken and bruised, to say nothing of their minds... If they survived. We may kill them as we need, Alunite, but I have never heard of one of us torturing a senshi. All of the deaths I heard of were clean deaths, quick deaths – not long, drawn out agony that they reserved for our own. They call us monster, but they are the one who slice down still-alive people into ribbons, Alunite.”
The shock on her brother's face made her feel guilty, but she knew that it was needed. It was a lot to take it, but he needed to know this. He needed to understand. Understand what he had almost became, and thus never become it. Her brother would kill, but her brother would never torture. She would make sure of it.
“And this, Alunite.” she stared at the graves again, then finally knelt. “Is why we fight. Do you understand ?”
Still in shock, her brother followed suit – knelt right beside her. “I... Understand.”
“Perhaps not completely.” She answered. “But it will come.”
The mis-matched siblings knelt there for what seemed like forever, silent, until they finally rose back to their feet and left.
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