[R] Finally, someone I can teach! [Grus x Clotho]

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

The day leading up the night had been fun. So fun, that she actually didn't really want to leave. She begged her friends' forgiveness, saying she had something she needed to do, and it was super important. The look she got from Melissa suggested that she had a thought about what that "super important thing" could be.

Castille knew she was wrong. She knew that Melissa was convinced she was spending her nights hanging out with some boy that they didn't know about. Castille denied it, but the fact that she had recently started texting one Nate Darrow didn't help in the slightest. It was just a friendship, but girls love to alk, so Castille was left trying to beat into their heads that there wasn't anything going on.

It was a frustrated Castille that henshined up a couple streets away from her house. Super Sailor Grus decided that a good patrolling would help clear her head of their buzzing questions. They would have to talk because she couldn't very well tell them the truth. That she was some crime fighting super hero in a red and white feathery costume.

She inhaled the night air, smiling. Those were her friends.  

[Madness_insanity]

It had taken almost twenty minutes of pacing for Kala to convince herself that she just had to henshin. It was her duty, whether she wanted it or not. It had been easy to create an alibi for herself, after all, Mr. and Mrs. Cherian were used to their daughters busy social schedule and made no fuss when she said she had plans, throwing out one of her friends names and promising to call later. Perhaps it was the lying that made her sick or the thought of outwardly seeking one of those creatures. No, she wasn’t looking for a fight; she had to tell herself, she was just going to make sure no one was getting hurt. It wasn’t like Kala to show fear, but everyone was afraid of monsters right?

It took only seconds for Kala’s orange dress to be turned into what she could only compare to a figure skater’s costume. She had to at least be grateful it came with some cool boots. Now as Sailor Clotho, she gulped nervously and walked out from behind the tree she had been trampling around. She felt rather empty and alone, no cellphone, no friends and no idea what to do now. Clotho started to walk with no destination, keeping to the trees that lined the streets, afraid to be seen like this. Her footsteps were hesitant but messy and loud as she tried her best to stop the shaking.

“Breathe, the just breathe…..”  

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

It took a while before anything caught Grus's attention. It was a faint ping!, like someone dropping a penny on the street that made her footsteps pause. Here was a signal, though it was too far away for her to be able to sense friend or foe.

She quickly crossed the street and clambered up a dumpster, jumping up and grabbing ahold of the edge of the rooftop. On higher ground, she was able to hone in on the ping, and it took a few more rooftops for her to realize that it was the warm welcoming presence of a senshi. She slipped slightly down a rooftop, crawling over to the edge of the building and poking her head out.

At first, there wasn't anyone. Just a semi-quiet street. It was uneven footsteps that broke the silence. This senshi wasn't much for silence....

"Hey."  

[Madness_insanity]

Clotho thought she was being very watchful, taking it slow, but she was taken buy surprise by welcome. She jumped back, pulling both hands close to her chest. She stopped herself from screaming but her heart was pounding heavy enough she thought it could be heard just as much as a scream could. And yet something calmed her, no not calm, but she felt she was safe.

At first she was quiet and just glanced around, huddled within herself until she looked up. She was pleasantly surprised to see another girl’s face hanging over the edge of the building. She briefly wondered how the girl got up there

“Oh…..Hello. I guess I’m not very good at sneaking around huh?” She smiled to herself, letting her muscles relax. The presence of another person made her feel sooo much better, though she wasn’t sure who she was.  

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

She offered the girl a friendly smile, Grus pushed herself off of the tiles, and jumped from the roof. It didn't hurt to land, one of the perks about being a super hero.

She felt bad for scaring the poor girl, and when she rose from the crouch she had landed in, she waved warmly. "Hello. Sorry if I startled you. Just wasn't sure who was prowling about. One of those things you gotta worry when your dressed like we are."

She gave the girl a quick once over. Her fuku was simple. In fact, it was probably the least adorned fuku she had seen yet. She wondered if it was because she was new, or because her sphere was something vague. Either way, the simplicity made her feel almost gaudy.

"I'm Super Sailor Grus." She said, closing the gap between them and offering a hand. "Nice to meet you!"  

[Madness_insanity]

Clotho’s eyes glittered as the other girl jumped gracefully from the roof. She was so excited to meet Sailor Grus she was about to explode with happiness. Clotho wanted to run through the night, skipping as she went, but she didn’t and she contained her bubbling joy….kind of.

“Oh am I happy to meet someone else! I’m Ka…..Clotho, Sailor Clotho!” Grus looked more…….decorated than she was, but Grus had mentioned they were the same and Clotho liked Grus’ look; She looked bold and powerful.

“So, Super, what does that mean? Are you like super good at this” She asked and waved across her fuku to emphasize ‘this’.
 

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

"Sailor Clotho, nice to meet you!"

Clotho? Clotho..."So your the Senshi of....cloth?" She said, venturing a guess at the girl's power sphere. She seemed to be very excited to see someone. Was she scared?

She looked down at her own fuku with it's relatively new stripe of black around the base of the skirt. "Super is the next stage of our power." She explained, looking back at the girl. "I guess after a certain amount of time or a few battles your power gets an upgrade. You even get a new attack!" She finished excitedly.

She felt good realizing that this girl knew even less than she did. Grus was always feeling like she was the newest member of this whole battle, and it was nice to know that she wasn't the only one who really didn't know what the hell they were doing.  

[Madness_insanity]

She laughed “Cloth? Not quite! But close!” She studied Gru’s fancy figure-skater ensemble again. “I suppose it makes some since that we’d gain experience and I can’t complain about new snazzy costumes….So all of us don’t look the same then?”

Grus didn’t look bothered by her questions so far, so Clotho ventured to ask another, leaning close to the girl “Soo what exactly should I be doing?” She said it a much more hushed tone then she had been previously talking in as if she didn’t want others to hear. “I mean I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but I’m not really good at fighting…..I’ve never had to be?”

Clotho’s excitement had died down as she dwell on what was to come. Would she be doing this forever? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad when there were others like her around. “How long have you been doing this?”
 

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

"Not cloth huh? Well, thread then?" She guessed. "So far I haven't seen anyone that looks the same." Grus went on to explain. "And the Negaverse has even more different costumes. I think most of them kind have to do with your power sphere. Like I met this Senshi once, he is the Senshi of Danger. And his outfits is all decked out in knee pads, and arm braces and that yellow and black caution tape." She smiled, remembering Chaonis's teaching, and then blushed slightly as she realized that she had trailed off. "But, uhmmm...then there was a Senshi that her power sphere was Madness. Her outfit was all torn up."

She concluded her ramble, and then leaned forward as Clotho spoke quieter. "Well, I've been doing this for almost a year." Grus said, crossing her arms in thought "And I guess what you should be doing is kinda up to you. There are some that actively seek out Negaverse, while others do not."

She noticed a bench not far off, and said "Why don't we sit over there? Might be more comfortable than standing." She wandered over and plopped on the bench, slightly off center.

"There are some senshi that think that we are supposed to get rid of the Negaverse, and some who don't think they are the main problem. Most of us just kinda patrol around, and fight if we have to." She continued to talk, using her hands to emphasize her words. "Sometimes it's not about the fighting at all, though that is a good portion of it. You can just use your powers to visit your home planet if you want to." She finished with a smile at the young girl.  

[Madness_insanity]

Clotho listened eagerly, soaking up the information like an anemic sponge. How lucky she was to find someone who could explain things to her…..except most of the explanations left her with more questions….Negaverse? Other Senshi? Does she fight? Does she patrol? Does she sit in a corner and cry?

“Up to me huh?” Clotho seemed to be thinking about this as her eyes stared unfocused into the distance. If her mother knew she ran around at night in an outfit like this searching for rather nasty people or monsters, or was there much of a difference, she would have a heart attack and probably disown her. Clotho was pulling at the fingers of her gloves, unable to hold still as she dwelled on her situation.

She nodded when Grus offered to sit on the nearby bench. Clotho stood near it, leaning against the side, her arms resting on the upper back of it. “What exactly does this Negaverse want? Do they seek us out too? I don’t think I’ve ever had someone dislike me enough to seek me out to fight…….”
 

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

Here, she got quiet. It was strange, this whole concept, and it seemed easy enough to explain, but a certain battle tugged at her mind, and suddenly it made no sense to her.

Everything about this battle was skewed.

"Well." She began slowly, unable to keep up her enthusiasm. "Well..at first I thought the Negaverse wanted to trap people, steal their starseeds, control the earth by killing people. Because if you lose your starseed, you lose your life."

She paused, letting the information soak in, and the bad memories only bothered her for a second, and this time they didn't leave her paralyzed.

"But recently, I've come to find out that they don't use people because they want to control the world. They steal their energy, their starseeds, to get rid of us." Her voice dropped further. "They believe that we are the reason our own planets are in ruin, and that we follow some Princess that died a long time ago. A Senshi Princess of the Moon."

Her gaze traveled upward, to where the fabled Princess once lived. "And that princess brought ruin here I guess. They say they are trying to protect Earth from us."

She didn't get to ask the Corrupt Senshi Hel before she was gone more about this. Why condemn all senshi to death because of one mistake made by a senshi who lived who knows how long ago? And were they even right? Or, Like her, were they only working with what information they had at the time?

Super Sailor Grus went quiet behind her musings.  

[Madness_insanity]

Clotho watched Grus as she seemed to pause to think. When she spoke, her excitement seemed lost and it scared Clotho a little bit, Grus seemed so strong, what did she fear? Clotho wondered if would have been better to not have asked; to remain unaware of what was between the glittering cracks, behind the pretty sparkles and kick-a** boots. But Clotho felt she needed to know, that she couldn’t run around the city without knowing what was really happening and what to do. Besides, it was going to be alright. The way Grus spoke there were other senshi out there. She wasn’t alone in her struggle.

Clotho’s gaze immediately found the glowing moon as Grus spoke of a princess. Why would a princess of the moon ruin earth…..and as far as Clotho knew the earth wasn’t in ruin……was it? She had stood up straight by now, clutching at the bench with such force her fingers were hurting. “The Negaverse wants to kill us? But I’ve never done anything, I don’t even know about this princess……and well aren’t the senshi supposed to be helping people?” Clotho said with a wavering voice, though she sounded close to tears, her face was controlled and serious. “Do you follow this princess?” She asked curiously, her eyes finally finding their way back to Grus’s face.
 

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

The negaverse...thy were complicated. Every one that she had met had wanted her dead. To her, for no other reason than she wore a pretty skirt and could throw feathers at them. But she was beginning to see that there was more to them than she thought.

"They do." She said simply, not wanting to sugar coat it for the girl. Granted, she looked like she wanted to chuck off her fuku and run for the hills, but Grus wouldn't let her do that. But there were certain things that a Senshi needed to know, or else they wouldn't last. She smiled a bit bitterly, realizing just what Chaonis had meant when he had given her the "Rough talk" as she liked to call it.

"What you've been thrown into is a war." She said, looking at Clotho. "There is a battle between Senshi and Negaverse going on, with Knights just coming into the mix. They want us to leave their Earth. But we have no where to go. Why we fight, at least why everyone I've ever met fights, is to protect people."

"The negaverse uses people as farms." She said, choosing her words carefully. "They steal the energy from people, use it to fight us. But that's not why we fight them. Energy can be gained, the person just has to take a nice long nap, or even sleep for an entire day. But the negaverse chooses to take their starseeds. And a person without their starseed dies."

Flashback. Lt Mica sneaking away while the man's eyes stared at her accusingly.

"There are some senshi who've chosen to follow Chaos." She went on. "We call them 'corrupt' because they give their starseed away, but they remain alive."

"I don't know this princess." She said, stretching out her legs. "Seems like no one had ever really met her, since it's been a long time from the battle. Supposedly she died. But many senshi think that, like us, she will be reborn, and we have to find her. I personally don't care for some princess that died a long time ago. What does she have to do with me protecting my family?"

Grus sat up now and offered Clotho a smile "The best part about being a senshi, is that you get a choice. You get to choose who you fight for, and why. And there's s many more senshi out there who probably fight for the same reason."  

[Madness_insanity]

"What you've been thrown into is a war."
Clotho felt a little sick. She really didn’t think the whole senshi thing was going to be easy, nothing is really easy, but she didn’t ever imagine it to be so……beyond her. A war! People died in wars, what if she died for a war she didn’t quite believe in yet. A small part of her wanted to run and say too bad, everyone just fend for yourselves, but Clotho couldn’t live knowing others were being hurt and she could be doing something about it.

“Well can’t we just explain to this Negaverse that we aren’t trying to destroy earth? And why do they take starseeds, what do they do with them?

Clotho’s mocha skin actually paled when she heard about corrupt senshi, and for a moment she imagined Grus scowling and ugly, trying to kill Clotho and stealing away her starseed, which she imagined to be a small glowing seed.

Clotho stood up abruptly, swallowing hard. “I think I’ve heard enough,” and she could keep her voice steady but after another long breath she calmed herself, “ I need to absorb this before I can hear anymore…..and I have a feeling I could keep asking questions forever.” Clotho glanced back up to the moon, curious as to its mysteries and involvement with the senshi.

“Thank you Grus…..I don’t think it was easy being drilled about all this.” She offered a small smile to the other senshi.
 

[Blue Eyed Melloon]

Grus sighed again, growing weary "I've tried explaining myself to a negaverse agent, as well as a corrupted senshi. But they seem to want to ignore our defense. They are convinced that we are out to ruin them."

Ah, the starseeds. "The starseeds? I'm not really sure what they do with them. I know they take them, but for what purpose? I'm sure there are some other senshi who might know the answer. Maybe one that has white wings on their butt." She said with amusement. "They've been around a while. More elaborate questions would be for them."

She seemed very uncomfortable, and Grus felt bad for putting her in this situation. Well, she didn't give her magic powers and say -Hey go for it!-. She was just telling it like it is. Grus rose, and put a hand on Clotho's shoulder. Her body was tense between her fingers, and she was apologetic when she said "I'm sorry I have to tell you all this. I don't want to frighten you, or turn you against this whole thing. I've been there; I've wanted to quit." Her eyes were clouded over. Oh yes, she knew this.

"I don't want you to give up." She went on to say "If you need help, I'm here for you. And I know some more senshi that would be happy to help as well."

Grus smiled at her sweetly, hoping to ease her nerves. Poor girl.