Welcome to Gaia! ::

He hadn't been lying.

Aree had replayed the moment over and over again in her mind, studying her memories of Castor's face as he had revealed Linarite's most dreaded secret. She was so familiar with Castor's taunts, so well-versed in his ways, that she felt certain that he had not been baiting her. If that hadn't been enough, Audrey's face had said it all. Guilt had been etched on her brow, shame set in the corners of her mouth. It had been enough to strike right through Tanzanite and into whatever bit of her heart remained human.

That blow, though it had not left even a scratch, had been more devastating than any of the injuries she had suffered that day. While the wounds Castor had inflicted had healed, the bruises faded to a dingy yellow, that one still remained as raw as ever. And with that knock, knock, knock, Audrey seemed dead set on rubbing salt in it.

Aree picked herself up from the couch, tossing the half-empty carton of ice cream on the coffee table. Remaining in human form was a struggle those days, but she found ding mundane things like eating real food and watching documentaries on famous serial killers – what, you expected Teletubbies? - soothed the ache inside of her. Her blackened fingertips, tarnished now even as a human, twisted the knob and pulled the door open. Dressed in simple black pajamas and an equally simple black tank top, she looked remarkably average. If one ignored her height and the deceptively pretty face, she could have passed as a normal twenty-one year old woman.

“What,” she answered flatly, showing no more emotion than her alter-ego might have when speaking to a senshi.

Since their last fight, in which Linarite had made it clear that rank took precedence over their petty and personal feuds, Aree had not been hesitant about obeying Audrey's orders. She had been nothing short of a picture-perfect inferior in the days that followed, keeping her professionalism even after Castor had dropped that emotional bomb upon them both. Cold professionalism, but it was there nevertheless. She bowed when bowing was required, went silent when the General spoke, and had carried out every command without argument or hesitation. Aree had never differentiated between their human and Negaverse identities, and now was no exception. She inclined her head slightly as Audrey entered.

The only difference was in what Audrey had yet to figure out.

Aree closed the door, not without some extra force, but the sound was not loud enough to drown out the caustic comment. Aree turned with the same stuff and ungracious manner with which she had slammed the door, and spent a long moment simply staring at Audrey. She looked pretty. Aree didn't want her to look so pretty. Not right then.

She couldn't help but wonder if she had looked so pretty writhing beneath Castor. The image seared across her thoughts, and all the self control in the world could not keep a slight hint of disgust from her features.

“I apologize,” she said flatly, her utterly dry sense of humor serving her as well as it ever had, “I'm afraid I'm not quite as good at bending over as you seem to be.”

Of all the things Aree had come to be known for, holding back had never been one of them.

“Ah, yes,” Aree snapped back, her voice little more than a hiss, “I do recall that kissing a boy and drunken vandalism as a brand new Lieutenant is the same thing as a General of the ******** Negaverse blowing the Eternal senshi who almost killed our ******** Queen. Oh- right. ********. Not blowing. <********>!”

Surely no words had ever been spat with such deliberate hurtfulness as those which flooded out of the pale woman's mouth. Every syllable was a sting, her mouth forming around the slurs as though they had an unpleasant taste. Those pretty features were twisted in annoyance, her cheeks reddening slightly.

“Abandon you?” A hand flung out to gesture at Audrey, the other clenched in agitation, “She will kill you, Audrey. If Queen Beryl ever finds out, it the General-Kings or Laurelite ever find out? They will kill you and they will have us watch it to learn a lesson, do you understand that? You did that, knowing that she would never allow it, and I am abandoning you?” Her jaw clamped shut like a vice, a knee jerk reaction by her more sensible side telling her that now would be a good time to shut the hell up.

Only after several slow, deep breaths did she speak again, “Get out of my apartment, Audrey. Get out before this becomes a fight.”

From the tone of her voice, strained though it was, the words were clearly not a request. They were a warning.

Aree listened, her arms folded across her chest as Audrey explained her situation. Grey eyes rolled to the ceiling in disbelief, her breath escaping in a short hmph. It was clear now that Audrey had just lost her damn mind, as far as Aree was concerned. Still, she heard Audrey out, just watching as the bluenette lay there on the couch for a moment while she collected her thoughts.

When she finally spoke, her tone was surprisingly calm, “You're misguided, Audrey. Our Queen is merciful, she is understanding of those who are devoted to her. I am alive because of that mercy. I am – we are – stronger because of her. Without her we would still be out there, ignorant to the war going on around us. Unable to defend ourselves. You can still redeem yourself if you would just stop wasting your second chance!”

There were many things that Aree Cadence could overlook, but such blind ignorance was not on that list. Aree crossed the room in just a few long strides, reaching down to tangle her fingers in those long blue locks. There was no hesitation as she pulled, trying to physically drag the bluenette to her feet and towards the door.

“Get out, Audrey. We are not discussing this.”

Aree was suddenly unable to drag the bluenette behind her, and she didn't need the power signature to tell her that she now had the hair of a Negaverse General tangled between her fingers. She stopped abruptly, tearing her hand away and dropping Linarite to the floor as she took a step back. That staff could be in Linarite's hand in the blink of an eye, and she wasn't about to stand in range of it. Not after the last time.

Even in what should have been simple conversation, Aree seemed to think only in strategy. She did not power up, but simply stood there in her pajamas and stared the General down. Her gaze was suddenly contemptuous as she looked down at Linarite, certain that the General had somehow lost her way. So that was how she wanted to play it? To use what she thought was her unfair advantage? Aree sneered, “You care?

Ha.

If you cared you would not betray your Queen. If you cared you would not betray the Negaverse.”

She did not say what she truly meant: If you cared, you would not betray me.

“If you care you will leave this apartment and never, ever mention this again. Get out or I will throw you out. I will not say it again.”

They will never wake up.

The words struck Aree to the core, froze her in place as her mind conjured up the image of the crystal that encased them. Both the man who had corrupted her and the woman who had kept her sane for so long. She remembered seeing them there for the first time, asking Beryl if they would ever wake up. Aree had known Ursula before Beryl had returned, and known them both when they had shared Nealite's body. When at last they had separated, Ursula had not been there to catch her. It had been Beryl who filled that role, and thus twisted Tanzanite's loyalty firmly around her finger.

“They chose their fate when they chose love over their duty,” Aree was all but screaming her coping mechanism, the twisted way in which she viewed the world in order to make some kind of sense of it, “They betrayed us all and she punished them accordingly. It is her power that made us all, not theirs. Not Charonite's. What right did they ever have to command your loyalty?

“I will never understand,” she spat the words, “how you could do that? How you could-” Aree paused, her jaw clenched as though trying to force down a sudden wave of rage. She couldn't even say it now. Just thinking it made her stomach knot up. Aree no longer had to call upon the power of the Negaverse to power up. Instead, it was quite the opposite. As a human she had to constantly hold onto the thin leash that kept Tanzanite bound up inside. The slightest lapse in willpower was all that was needed, and Tanzanite came tearing out of her human skin with a fury.

It was not Tanzanite as Lina knew her; the constantly divided, broken Captain that Linarite had so brutally defeated. Her skeletally thin frame had filled out, her previously bared legs now covered in armor plating. The blackened fingers stretched and mutated into thick claws, the skin of her arm darkening into an inky black. Where before there had been leathery black skin, thick scales and ridges now shielded the youma. The scales now stretched up her neck, crawling just along her jaw before giving way to the pale white skin. Her eyes were darker, that bright silver polluted by the youma's presence.

The two halves of Captain Tanzanite had somehow finally struck their balance. They had merged under General-King Marthozite's power, and from it had come the woman who now stared down on Linarite with something that looked like... pity. The brightly colored feathers they had once woven into her hair were black as pitch, and the fingers of her human hand fared no better. The corruption, it seemed, had eaten through to her very heart. When she spoke, her voice was an echo, that familiar feminine voice over the low, harsh rasp of the youma.

“Lina, you just don't understand,” she moved with surprising speed, darting to grab Linarite by the hair and pull her close. She had to understand. She had to be punished. If Tanzanite could only make her see how wrong she was, then maybe Beryl would spare her sorry life.

“Let me help you understand,” Tanzanite whispered softly, just before putting all of her strength into quite literally throwing Linarite from the room.

Tanzanite lived a lie, but it was a well-crafted and solid lie. There were no seams through which reality might crawl, no holes to expose her dark little world to the light of truth. In her eyes she had always walked the righteous path, and that was exactly what she was doing now. Linarite didn't understand what Beryl could do to her, what it was like to have the Negaverse woven into every fiber of your being. To be irrevocably tied to and forced to rely upon some dark power that you could never even come close to comprehending. There was surely a price worse than death that Beryl could make Linarite pay for her treachery, but Tanzanite was going to make certain that she would never have to know it.

Before, the youma arm had displayed a certain fondness for Linarite, even to the point of shying away from her in their all too frequent confrontations. Now, there was no division between the woman and the monster to hold Tanzanite back.

“Charonite's vision was to bring Beryl back,” Tanzanite said flatly, the youma's voice rasping beneath her own, “Nealite's vision was only ever Charonite. It didn't matter what we were doing or why we were doing it, Linarite, only that he was commanding us. She would have followed that man into Hell.”

And perhaps she had.

“When Charonite completed his vision, it became Queen Beryl's right to command us. You would fight for him? You would risk your life for him, but not for her? She made him, you stupid girl!”

Unlike Linarite, Tanzanite had long ago given up any chance of having someone to keep her anchored. The moment she'd accepted Beryl's gift, her second chance at life, she had given up on Aree Cadence once and for all. Now that name was only a disguise, a mask to get her through whatever brief and painful hours she might have to spend in her unpowered form. She existed only in nightmares and brief shudders of guilt, but never quite found the strength to resurface entirely.

“You will thank me for this,” Tanzanite said as she stepped through the gap in the drywall, her body lunging forward a moment later. The monstrous arm went before her, graabbing for the staff as Tanzanite aimed her other shoulder at Linarite's stomach.