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 Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:46 pm
The night was long and brutal to her. Kallichore barely escaped with her life after the return and sudden ascension of the one senshi she really looked up to. She idolized Ares in the way a younger sibling does to the older. It was Ares' drive for perfection that fueled Kallichore's growth and training. Once she joined the ranks of the Blood Moon, all seemed well. Kallichore thought she found her place, only for her leader to disappear. The senshi of madness trudged on as best she could only to find nothing but hate and darkness and betrayal at the end of the tunnel she worked so hard to find.
She was trying to rebuild.
It was perhaps a week? maybe two? since Ares became a princess - a royal Kallichore thought the Blood Moon didn't even believe in. But what did it matter then? Ares now towered over the rest of the remaining Court and was snatching them up left and right to baptize them in unholy glass. Kallichore was lucky she escaped with her life, but now had nowhere to go. She found herself sitting on the lip of the fountain where Ares and Albali first tested her and found her worthy to join the ranks of the Blood Moon. Why did she return here? Even she had no idea, but there was an odd comfort in the fountain's familiarity.
The super senshi raised one knee and wrapped her arms around it, resting her chin on the top. She was weary, but adrenaline kept her heart racing. She felt pins and needles all over her skin and wondered who else managed to escape the carnage with their lives. Did Birhan? Did Albali? Sirius? Nemesis? Who else was left uncorrupted?
"....why? Why did you have to fall so far?" she whispered to herself. She had no idea what triggered the change - only that she hated it.
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:46 pm
The energy signature of the parallel princess shimmered into existence in a flash. Just as quickly, Ares was standing at the base of the tower, glancing up at the super senshi perched on its peak. "You're talking to yourself, Sailor," she said coolly. "Did you accidentally catch backlash from your own attack?" She didn't smile. Her hand tightened on the staff balanced lightly in her palm. For a brief moment, the strange eye on it appeared to blink.
So long as the number of the dark parallels remained small, Princess Ares would need to pull in her own energy. It was like building a corporation. She might be the CEO one day, but in its first year, Ares would be slinging hash and hauling boxes just like everyone else. The moon was out, and so she was too. It was fate that she stumbled across the member of her former court.
"This was the place where I changed your life once before," Ares said. She dragged the point of the staff across the cement beneath her feet. It crackled and squeaked. "Are you here because you are ready for me to change it once again?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:05 pm
Her power was intense. It filled the heart and mind and every fiber of the senshi that sat on the edge of the fountain. As soon as Ares' signature permeated the area, Kallichore was on high alert. The super senshi's power paled in comparison to an eternal, much less a princess. She jumped to her feet and stood at the ready. She had no real option other than to run and hope Ares couldn't follow her if she powered down in a crowded area. But at this time of night? She'd have to risk outright sprinting and hoping and praying that she wouldn't be caught.
"I wondered if you caught backlash from my attack, Ares. You're clearly not in your right mind." came an even reply. Kallichore's brown eyes narrowed at the princess, almost overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of her energy alone. She'd never before been in the presence of royalty and hoped that the rest of them didn't have such a choking aura. The senshi of madness tried desperately to hold her ground and not appear frightened.
The princess' comments about the fountain were disheartening to say the least. Ares clearly remembered the time they spent testing her and training her - making sure Kallichore was worthy to bear the Blood Moon name. But now? Now Ares had lost what was left of her mind and was but a smoking shadow of her former self. There was no respect between the two of them anymore. "I once admired you, Ares. You had strength, determination, an iron will. Your power made me push myself into becoming stronger, faster and smarter than the average senshi." With a shake of her head, Kallichore drew another breath. "But I see how you've allowed hate and anger and loneliness to consume you, and I pity you. Even with all your mirrors, you can't see what you've become."
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Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:03 pm
Princess Ares seemed in no hurry to interrupt Kallichore. She let the girl continue, the blank look on her face never lifting. Even when the other senshi stopped talking, the Senshi of Smoke let the silence go on, giving it a few pregnant, empty beats before she replied, "Do you feel better now? It feels better to say things out loud like that. Rage, resentment, disappointment." She flashed her eyes up to meet Kallichore's. "Fear."
Her free hand lifted to rest gently lower down on the staff. "I don't expect you to understand, not immediately. I know what it is like to be so sure of your convictions that you block out all else." Amusement crept into Ares' face. It didn't seem like she was taunting the girl, not really, and yet the more they spoke, the more that strange look of pleasant satisfaction began to creep across her face.
"There is so much more to this universe than you could possibly understand, Kallichore. I have seen endless planets and multiple universes. I have seen varying planes of existence and loops in space and time. You know this city, and perhaps the celestial body where you get your name from," she said, voice slow and casual. "You're just a child."
The smile widened, as if Ares was in on a private joke. Party of one.
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 5:36 am
Kallichore clenched a fist by her side. Of course Ares would try and convince her with that knowledge that had tempted the senshi before. Looking back, the super senshi could clearly remember the admiration she had for Ares, especially when the parallel had saved her life. Taught her what it was to be in the war, what had happened and how to stay alive. At the time, she was infinitely grateful. Now that knowledge, she thought, was part of the reason for Ares' descent into madness. Utter insanity.
No one in their right mind would corrupt themselves.
"A child? Compared to you? Maybe." Kallichore did think of herself as uneducated when it came to the multiple timelines and existences that other senshi hailed from. She was fine with admitting that. "Better a child than a madwoman. Tell me Ares, if you can, why did you corrupt yourself? What good has this done for you?" Kallichore thought back to all those meetings she attended without Ares. Was this where the eternal was? Floating in a sea of despair, the likes of which she created on her own? Did she seek out the Negaverse? How did this all happen?
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 7:53 pm
Ares shook her head slowly. "It is not corruption," she said. "It is correction. It is evolution." The words were neat, clipped. She spoke them plainly, as if trying to tell a kindergartener why the sky was blue. It just was. The details did not matter.
The staff dragged across the ground as the princess shifted it to the other side of her body. There was nothing casual about the gesture. "I will bring the senshi to a world where we don't have to die fighting over a single planet. Earth. Such a tiny, useless thing in the grand scheme. The universe is so endless, so vast -- and yet we squabble over this one thing. Why? I used to think that battling for ownership was important. I thought that watching senshi die in pursuit of that goal was a good and worthwhile thing." Faces flashed through her head, faces of the fallen.
Ares took a slow step toward the fountain. "But do you know what I realized, Kallichore?" She stopped. "It wasn't worth it. We were children in a sandbox squabbling over a toy train when there was an entire unused playground all around us. Earth is not what matters." She twirled her staff once. "Space is."
A breeze picked up across the ground, stirring the hair at the back of Ares' neck. She smiled softly at her own thoughts and then searched for the eyes of the senshi perched on the fountain. "There will come a day when all the senshi on this dying rock will realize the same truth that I did. I will not have to throw people through mirrors, Kallichore. They will line up and pass through themselves." Her gaze hardened. "I could save you tonight. Your new life could begin now. I can do that for you." Princess Ares waited silently.
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Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 5:02 pm
The super senshi made a face as if to say, you honestly believe the bullshit you're spewing? Her eyes narrowed as Ares explained her stance. The princess wanted to drag every senshi she could, kicking and screaming if she had to, through her damned unholy mirrors just to have a court to run around with. Ares was clearly beyond delusional and had no idea how incredible insane she sounded right now. The Negaverse, or Chaos itself or whatever it was sunk its claws deep into her and she wasn't about to fight it off.
"Someone once told me," she started, never once relaxing even for a bit. Kallichore knew her chances of fighting Ares off were slim to non-existent. She simply didn't have the fire power necessary to bring down an eternal, let alone a damned princess. "that people choose the easy way out because doing the right thing is harder." Ganymede may have been proud that he left that kind of impression on her. It took the great Ares' fall from grace for the senshi of madness to step back and analyze what she'd been doing since she awakened. Now, her previous path was no longer the right one and she was determined to correct it.
She frowned at Ares' offer of salvation. "If space is so important and this dying rock means nothing to you, then why are you still here? You have a court now. Why not just leap into space and be done with it, Ares? Why are you sticking around in our little sandbox?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:59 am
Ares hadn't known Kallichore for particularly long. She hadn't even really fought beside her. Still, she appreciated the girl's tenacity, even if it made her foolhardy. With such a difference in power between them, the Princess of Smoke was only amused. She reeked of confidence, utter confidence, that there would be no way for Kallichore or any senshi who ever stood against her to win.
Cinnamon hair flowed in the air, a complex tangles of curls and pins and braids. One hand slipped free from her staff and brushed a few strands away while Kallichore spoke. Ares looked bored, glanced behind her. There was energy to be drained, senshi to be changed.
"Kallichore," she began, "there will come a time when you are begging for your life at the hands of an enemy. You will be hopeless, crushed, defeated. You will be staring into the long corridor of death and emptiness and wondering if any of it mattered. And in that moment, I will save you. Not now, not when you are so confused. I will wait until you ask for this." One hand waved to indicate the staff at her hand.
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Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 11:57 am
"You'll be waiting a very long time, then Ares." came a cold reply.
She looked bored, and rightfully so - Ares knew the senshi that stood before her didn't stand a chance at all in combat. It was like she was a candle in the middle of a windstorm. It was hopeless. Kallichore wasn't sorry she didn't chose to be 'saved', not once. She had other people to turn to now, ones that would not betray her the way the princess did. If anything, the super senshi was incredibly disappointed that someone as strong as Ares could break as easily as she did.
It meant growth for the senshi of madness - a reminder of what not to do. What never to do. And she strove to keep it that way.
Now that Ares admitted she wouldn't try to change Kallichore that night, the senshi found herself an opportunity to leave relatively unscathed. Ares would never know about the Jovians, not from Kallichore's lips. She wanted to keep her new Court as safe as possible from the demons the gray haired girl was keeping at bay. Leaping from the fountain, the senshi in red made to leave as quickly as she could. The longer she stayed alive, the longer she could help the others. "I hope we never meet again, Ares." She then turned and ran, finding herself unable to even bear to call Ares by her new title - princess. It should never have been.
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 10:05 am
Ares watched Kallichore run off, eyes hardening.
"We will," she said coolly.
And then the Princess of the new Dark Mirrors disappeared into the dark of the night.
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