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 Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:08 pm
Super Sailor Leto took a deep breath as she stared at the mirror in front of her. She was still unsure of the reflection that stared back at her- her fuku's white color now replaced with black. Her honey colored eyes now looked back at her a deep pink. She turned around slowly, admiring her flowy camoflage fuku as she spun. And then she frowned as she looked down at the skirt. She genuinely hoped that she'd still have shorts on when she powered up; unfortunately that wasn't the case.
With that thought, she took several steps back so she was at the other side of the room. She had been practicing mirror-walking with Ares and Gaia since she had been changed into a Dark Mirror Senshi a few nights before. She still royally sucked at it, quite frankly. The worst part was the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach when she lingered in mirrorspace.
She took off into a run and ran directly into the tall mirror, her body being absorbed into the glass as she went right through it. Since she had started off at a run, she came out running on the other side in her apartment. Well, what was her apartment. She knew very well that she would never be Kathryn Callaghan again- she would never see her parents, or her friends. She would be a complete stranger to every single one of them. When she came through the other side running, she immediately crashed into the wall on the other side of Kathryn's room and fell backwards onto her a**. Apparently becoming a Dark Mirror Senshi didn't make her any less clumsy.
She shook her head quickly and groaned as she pushed herself up to her feet as quietly as she could. She hoped more than anything that Tallulah wouldn't be home- or that if she was, she hadn't heard her come crashing into Kathryn's bedroom. She clutched her stomach as that sick feeling sat in the pit of it, her right hand clamping over her mouth as she tried not to vomit.
She just wanted to collect a few important things and be on her way to start her new life. She hoped that Tallulah wasn't too worried- although there wasn't a doubt in her mind that her cousin would be incredibly concerned that it had been days since Kathryn had been home.
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:28 pm
It was not Tallulah Cowden's finest hour, but then how would you expect it to be? It was after nine o' clock on a Sunday night and her cousin was missing. The natural response was, of course, to panic - Kat wasn't answering her phone, hadn't been home in days - but with not enough caffeine and rising blood pressure, that panic had been channelled into a nervous energy that left her capable of little more than sitting on the couch in her underwear and an overlarge tee-shirt watching Law and Order reruns and waiting for the phone to ring.
When she heard the crash, her immediate thought was that there was a burglar. Tallulah sprang to her feet and groped around the living room for the heaviest thing she could find - in this case, a copy of the Complete Works of Shakespeare. It wouldn't protect her nearly as well as her henshin pen probably would have, but she'd watch one too many episodes of SVU to be thinking like that.
"Kat?" she called uncertainly, approaching the bedroom. Think, Tallulah! she chided. Be reasonable! Kat was Leto. Leto had probably come in through the window. A few day's absence? Senshi stuff. No reason to think there was anyone in the apartment who shouldn't be there.
But that crash had her worried. Senshi were typically graceful - what if Leto was injured?
"Kat," Talllulah called, rapping on the door. "Kat, I'm coming in-"
She tucked the Complete Works under her arm, keeping it as a precaution (it was too late to henshin, and it would be silly to if it was just Kat), and gave the door a nudge. It swung open, and it took Tallulah a moment to fully grasp what was going on. While her mind whirled around the implications of black fuku and red eyes and how she didn't see any gaping holes and the short hair was kind of odd, she just blurted: "What the ********, Kat?"
Given all the facts of the situation, her cousin certainly looked Corrupted, but Tallulah knew Corrupted Senshi, and there was something strange about this one.
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:47 pm
Leto stood in her ridiculous position of one hand on her belly and the other clamped over her mouth as she stared at Tallulah when she swung the door open. Shitshitshit.
She looked down at herself, then back up at Tallulah, her hands dropping to her sides as she straightened up. Her eyes met Tallulah's as she held her breath to see what the other girl would say.
"... I don't know what you're talking about." Leto smiled at Tallulah as she played dumb with her cousin.
She looked around the room to get an idea of what she needed to take with her. Only the essentials, she told herself. Get in and get out- no lingering.
She wasn't Kathryn anymore, she had to remind herself mentally. She had to figure out a way to avoid this conversation with Tallulah and just get out of here.
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 9:07 pm
"Kat," repeated Tallulah, wrapping a hand around the doorknob for support. "Leto," she added, because this was just ridiculous. Super Leto? But this wasn't just an upgrade, an upgrade didn't make your uniform turn black and completely change styles, or turn your eyes red. Something had happened to Leto, something dark and twisty that she couldn't get a proper sense of because one hand was on the doorknob and the other hand was on the Complete works of Shakespeare and her henshin pen was in her purse where it wasn't doing anyone a whole lot of good at the moment.
"What happened to you?" she asked, trying to run through some complicated mental calisthenics. A negaverse corruption looked completely different - she'd met enough of theirs to know that the aesthetic Leto was sporting was completely wrong for a run of the mill corrupted senshi. The obvious answer was that Leto was something new - but where had it come from?
Tallulah took a cautious step into the room, shifting both hands onto the book. It was true that in the event of a full on attack from a corrupt senshi, the words of an Elizabethan playwright were probably not going to save her life, but having something to hold onto made this situation a little bit easier. Never mind that she wasn't wearing pants - she spent most of her nights running around the city not wearing pants. That part didn't bother her at all.
Leto's change of fashion, however, did. "Who happened to you?" she asked, cocking her head to one side. That was the real question, of course - if this was something new and dangerous, where had it come from? "Who did this?"
That, Tallulah was willing to bet, was the million dollar question.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:04 pm
Sailor Leto shook her head slowly. "I'm not Kat. I don't know what you're talking about. My name is Sailor Leto, Senshi of the Dark Mirror." Her smile remained plastered on her face, a darkness filling her eyes.
"Servant of Chaos." She took a few steps backwards towards the full-length mirror that she had come in through.
Her fingers ran across the small bag of mirror shards she carried with her. She stared at her cousin, torn between her being family ... sorta, and doing what she is trained to do and collect energy for Ares. She would be an easy target- all she had with her was a stupid book. She shook her head quickly to rid herself of the thought of draining Tallulah and she quickly grabbed her laptop and a few other essential items strewn across Kat's room.
And then Leto realized Tallulah wasn't wearing pants and she couldn't help but laugh. Considering the potentially seriousness of the situation, Tallulah looked absolutely ridiculous.
"I think it would be a good idea for you to back out of the room and close the door. And pretend I was never here."
She narrowed her eyes as she threatened the other girl. Maybe if she used threats Tallulah would leave so she could get what she needed and never return.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:17 pm
It was true that Tallulah felt a flicker of fear run town her spine right then. This strange impostor had a darkness about her that she was almost glad she couldn't sense in this form, because it would probably only make her vomit. The girl clutched the book in front of her chest, like something that might hold back a vampire or a demon. "I know who you are - were," she faltered.
Lyra hadn't recognized her. Who was to say Leto hadn't had something broken inside of her? That all the things that made Kat Kat hadn't been sucked out and replaced? With that thought, the fear turned to anger.
"I asked you who did this to you," she repeated, voice trembling a little. She needed to know, so she could find them and punish them. Lock them in a room full of their worst nightmares and never let them out. She could do that, she thought. She would find a way. She needed a name. She needed to know who this dark doppelganger of Leto served.
She needed to know who had stolen her cousin.
But then, a more quiet voice prevailed - not Europa, but Tallulah. Not the senshi bent on defeating the forces of darkness, but the young woman receiving a condolence notice. "What am I going to tell my parents?" she asked. "What am I going to tell your parents."
Kat? Kat? Are you in there?
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:45 pm
"You don't know a thing about me," she spat at the other girl, a low growl deep in her throat.
Rather than continuing to back up towards to the mirror, closer to her one escape route, Leto grew frustrated with the other girl and took a few angry steps closer. Her right hand gripped the small bag that hung at her side. Control your anger, she told herself. It won't be worth it. You're someone different now but she was once family.
She shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts that clouded her mind.
"You need to stop prying into business that it not yours..." she hissed and stepped closer still. "I kindly asked you to leave. I suggest you do so before I change my mind about draining you of your energy."
She stopped moving forward at the mention of her parents. She absolutely could not show any emotion at the mention of them- her face remained cold and hard as ice.
"Do you really think a civillian like yourself has a chance in hell at fighting back with nothing but a book?" she laughed mockingly at her.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:03 pm
Tallulah searched Kat's expression for any kind of recognition - any kind of awareness that Tallulah wasn't just a civilian, that she was about to pick a fight with someone potentially far stronger than herself. But there was nothing there. It was all just cold crimson. Whoever had called red a warm color was sorely mistaken - they had no idea how icy a shade it could be.
She kept the book between them and took a step back towards the door. "You didn't do this to yourself," she challenged. No senshi would corrupt themselves, Tallulah thought. It went against everything they stood for! The darkness had to be planted. The negaverse made their corrupted senshi. Someone must have done the same to Leto, even if she was answering to some so-called Dark Mirror.
"Tell me who did this to you," said Tallulah, pausing just inside the doorway. "Tell me their name, and I'll let you go." It wasn't a happy compromise, or even one she wanted to make, but if she did this - the information would be valuable. Ever the strategist. It didn't cross Tallulah's mind that the information wouldn't be worth much to her dead.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:29 pm
"Let me go?" she burst into laughter. "Do you realize how absolutely ridiculous that sounds?"
She stepped closer to Tallulah, so she was now looming over her shorter cousin.
"Of course I didn't do this to myself," she smirked. "I don't have that kind of power. But Ares...." she trailed off, her mind flashing back to the fresh memory of being thrown into a mirror and being reborn. Leto momentarily looked spaced-out or distracted in that moment.
Snapping back to reality, she smiled at Tallulah again. "But Ares," she repeated, "Princess Ares has power that people only dream about."
"And if you continue to push my buttons and threaten me, sweetheart, I will make damn sure that the rest of the Dark Mirror Court hears about it."
She took a step back and motioned to the room around her. "I do know where you live, remember?"
Her ice cold stare softened to look almost friendly. She grasped the edges of her over-skirt in her hands and curtsied to the other girl.
"Have a nice evening," she said as she looked up at her while she bowed.
"Goodbye Tallulah," she whispered under her breath as she grabbed what she needed from Kathryn's room and stepped back against the mirror propped on the wall and fell through it, disappearing from her cousin's life- leaving everything she'd ever known as Kathryn behind.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:40 pm
Tallulah stood trembling for several minutes after Leto vanished through the mirror. She had the acrid taste of bile in her mouth, surging up from some basal place in her body, and it was screaming that she was all wrong. She hadn't just talked down a predator - all she had done was made herself look more like prey.
She swallowed down the urge to cry. There was no time for moping anymore. No time to sit on the couch and watch SVU. Tallulah needed backup, she needed to tell someone about this- But first-
She sent the Complete works of Shakespeare flying across the room. The book smashed into the full-length mirror, which shattered. Leto had made it clear enough that she wouldn't be returning, but Tallulah wanted to be sure. She did not have a full length mirror in her own bedroom, and the one in the bathroom was small - still, she did not feel safe leaving it alone, and at the very least decided to drape a towel over it until she could figure out the extent of the mirrorwalking.
"Ares," she said quietly, trying the name. It tasted ashy and sour and also familiar. Ares was the senshi from the Parallel moon.
Tallulah felt a sick knot of deja vu slide down her throat. The Parallels had been false prophets after all, and they had stolen away something of hers and there was no way to get it back.
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