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 Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 7:27 pm
Alkaid couldn't count the times she had stood atop the same building on nights that felt like they were life times ago. Once upon a time it had been comforting to her, being able to look down at the city she protected and see it swirling with life beneath her. She once followed the meandering dots of people, the blurred headlights of cars, with a smile of pride on her face and accomplishment in her heart.
Now she stared down at them with indifference. She had once protected them because it was her passion - now she protected them because it was an order.
As she stood there atop the building, perched in stillness upon a jutting ledge with the shimmering cloth of her cloak billowing in the wind behind her, she had never felt so much like she didn't belong. This world was thriving, full of life and emotion, while hers was dying to save it. She supposed she should have resented them, but she couldn't even do that. She remembered what if felt like to belong, but could not summon the feeling. She recalled the idea of a home but didn't know where to find it. She had become an outsider in the very society she was fighting for.
She brought a hand up slowly to her chest and brushed her fingers across the exposed, shimmering edge of her starseed. In the back of her mind she wondered what they would say if they saw her in the street, what kind of horrified look would cross their faces as they looked into the eyes of their savior.
That thought, at last, made her frown.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 7:53 pm
Whenever her mind was particularly turbulent, she found that falling into the basic routine of patrolling was usually enough to calm the flurry of thoughts whipping through her mind. There were things she didn't want to think about, things she didn't want to confront. She had never been so good at thinking as she had been at simply doing. Nemesis needed to live in the moment, because the second she took a step back to ponder what she was doing, everything she had kept at bay before came swarming down on her. Hints of a life long lived, memories of suffering she did not want to analyze when they first arisen. There was no time to contemplate these things, no time for self-doubt, in the middle of a war.
She just needed to keep trudging forward, believing in every step she made, never questioning herself. Just... keep going.
Nemesis felt the power signature long before she could have spotted the enemy. It was strong, and dark, and that was all she needed to know. This would be the perfect distraction from her own goddamned thoughts, even if actively seeking out strong negative energy seemed... stupid. Anyways, whomever it was would certainly feel Nemesis coming as well. There was no chance for surprise attacks. It seemed that, as a general rule, everyone liked to chat it up before trying to pummel their enemy's face in. Nemesis was not exempt from this predisposition. She even liked to talk until the very end of the inevitable fight.
There was no rush in her ascent to the top of the building. If anything, she wasn't wasting energy she might need to take on such a strong opponent. Perhaps she could have tried to sneak a peek at the enemy before climbing to the roof of the building... but eh, she was careless in that way to a point. There was nothing to fear from a strong enemy because she was stronger. That was the impression she tried to give off, it certainly was what she believed.
What waited for her at the top of the building was a shock, though. That was definitely Alkaid. She hadn't seen the senshi for weeks, and probably with good reason. One of them may have well been dead if they had a quick succession of confrontations. Nemesis was eager to get rid of something that caused her so much discomfort. The guilt she refused to acknowledge still lingered in a small quantity, but was greatly overshadowed by the hate she felt for the Corrupted Senshi of Guidance. Alkaid may have been corrupted, but that did not mean she had to pledge herself to the Negaverse's cause. Alkaid could have chosen to not be the Negaverse's b***h.
"Uh, have you ever heard of skin lotion? Holy ********, Alkaid." It was briefly reminiscent of the first time she had seen Alkaid with dreads - her first instinct was to insult her for the change. But, this change felt different. It wasn't merely cosmetic - Nemesis certainly wouldn't accept that sort of change for cosmetic reasons.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:37 pm
If there was one thing that Alkaid had learned about her transformation, it was that she couldn't hide, let alone sneak up on anyone. What had once been a power aura was now a crackling, chaotic leak of energy. Other than those with a regal title, there was no one that even compared. It made some senshi turn and run and yet others sought her out - like the one coming ever closer.
She didn't turn to look, even as she heard the sound of footsteps on the rooftop behind her. She knew from experience that there were very few souls in the world, senshi or otherwise, that wouldn't stop to stare at her. Her face was a blessing and a curse.
As Nemesis' voice reached her ears however, her body visibly tensed. It wasn't because she feared her, but because the sound of her voice still made something inside of the not-quite-senshi react. Her warped heart beat a little faster, a little more frantically, and with a long, slow sigh she closed her eyes against the world.
"How clever of you, per usual."
Her bright eyes snapped open and she turned, slowly, until she could face Nemesis. It displayed every grotesque inch of her skin, from the cracks spiderwebbing over her limbs to the hole in her chest. "But I don't think there's a formula strong enough to even touch this."
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 8:50 pm
Alkaid turned around, and there was no way Nemesis would avert her gaze, no matter how different the corrupted Senshi looked. The gaping hole in her chest was expected, but not the grotesque line of cracks over her skin. It wasn't humanly possible - she'd chalk it up to magic, a sort of magic that Nemesis would never desire to partake in. Something had changed Alkaid, had made her far stronger, but at what cost? What had happened, and why did she want to know what had happened? The simple matter of fact was that Alkaid was an enemy. Nemesis' instincts should tell her to charge in and attack before Alkaid took the chance to strike first herself. If she caught Alkaid off guard, she might stand a chance against such a formidable opponent.
But, her body failed to follow the scenario her mind was playing out. Instead she remained motionless just a few yards from Alkaid. "I've always been pretty ******** clever," she answered to fill the silence that had followed Alkaid's words. Staring could be considered rude, but Nemesis didn't quite give enough of a ******** to stop it. This Alkaid was not the Alkaid she had known, not in her past life or this one. Nemesis wasn't comfortable with the change, not that she had any right to be... but her past life was quickly entangling itself with her current one.
She could remember an Alkaid with free hair, wearing gold dresses that were amazingly intricate despite their seeming simplicity. She could remember a voice filled with warmth and hope, even when on a planet that was nothing but darkness. Nemesis could remember these things in fine detail, because once upon a time, that was the only light she had. Now it was completely gone, it had been smothered efficiently by Chaos, and there was no hope of retrieving it. "What happened? I didn't think you were into disfiguring yourself intentionally, though I should have guessed at it after you made your hair into dreads."
The past needed to silence herself. That Alkaid was long ago, thousands of years ago. Even the reborn Alkaid could never be that one exactly.
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:31 pm
Alkaid pursed her lips as the questions began, flavored with Nemesis' attempt at pretending she didn't care. She was used to the way the other senshi expressed her concerns or fears, it had never been terribly hard to figure out. The question here, now, was how much she could tell the eternal before it became a security risk. What was the balance between striking fear into the hearts of those in the light and giving away too much information to remain safe herself?
At last she shifted, crossing her arms behind her back - beneath the cloak and above the ominous, dark wings sprouting from what little of a fuku she had. It was a motion, echoing a nervous habit she had once had, more a muscle memory than an actual sign of uneasiness now.
"The spaceman you once told me about, he took pity on a lonely heart and showed me the way home." Her eyes drifted up to the stars overhead, the bright orange tracing constellations she had committed to memory. It was up there somewhere, so far beyond her eyes and yet.. merely a shift of energy between them. When her eyes fell back to Nemesis, it was not awe at Kurma's gift that shined in her citric irises. It was.. something else, something dark.
The Alkaid of a year ago was long gone, the Alkaid of thousands of years ago was silence forever.
"Chaos follows us wherever we go, Nemesis, there is no escaping her. When she asks for a sacrifice," her hands unwound and held themselves out to the sides, "you give it."
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Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 9:47 pm
The question rose to the tip of her tongue, pressing against the seal of her lips, but never found the strength to be voiced. What did you remember? It was a curiosity she shouldn't indulge herself in, she shouldn't be seeking out some way to familiarize herself with Alkaid. She was confusing the Alkaid of the past with the Alkaid now, and how she was doing it was beyond her comprehension. The two were entirely different entities now. Where the past Alkaid had been light, this one was nothing but darkness. Alkaid would never be able to instill hope in Nemesis' heart again. Alkaid would never again be the light to draw her out of the darkness, and Nemesis' own light would never be strong enough to claw Alkaid free of the darkness she had ensnared herself in. They were no good for each other.
"He showed you the way home, and you came back looking like an absolute train wreck?" It was clear that Nemesis couldn't fit the pieces of the puzzle together. There were only a few pieces to fit together, but their shape seemed ever changing, and she could not grasp how they possible went together. Nemesis was completely unaware of how she still cared a certain amount for Alkaid. It was easy for her to dismiss so many other people, but something about Alkaid's influence on her past life, and how she had been corrupted by the Negaverse, made Nemesis feel something still for her.
It was a feeling she could conquer from time to time, convince herself that she could kill Alkaid. She probably could do it, had come close to doing it before. But, if she did do it... if she killed Alkaid, how long would it take for that act to haunt her? How long could she shove aside the memories before they came crashing back down on her? It was something Nemesis did not want to contemplate, and so she stopped. This was not the time to get caught up in emotions, no matter how determined her mind and heart were to be just that way.
"Chaos follows you," she corrected out of habit. "If you had made one different choice, just one, Alkaid, you would not be hounded by that force now." There was really no point in going over the past, but Nemesis had put a little more stake in the past than she had been inclined to do months ago. "What did you give it? What did you sacrifice to Chaos?"
She wanted to crack a joke, wanted to say 'So you sacrificed your youthful skin', but for once it didn't feel quite right.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 7:40 am
Throughout Nemesis' chastising speech, Alkaid simply stood in silence, but a slow, amused smile spread across her lips the more the eternal spoke. When she was done, Alkaid brought a hand up and across her starseed, and then pointed very calmly at the center of Nemesis' chest.
"If I had made a different choice, you would be her servant instead." Her hand fell away from where it pointed, dropping limply at her side, though her eyes remained transfixed on the dark eyes before her. "Or perhaps something less fortunate." The smile on her lips faded slowly until her face was that passive, blank slate again. There were emotions there, strong and confusing, but hidden deep beneath the endless hollow.
"I sacrificed everything." She turned then, away from Nemesis and back towards the ledge she had been standing on before. The trail of her cloak scratched across the ground, accompanied by the dull click of heels. For a long moment, that was the only sound that filled the silence, until Alkaid found her words again. "I'm dying, Nemesis, and when I do it will be the last time."
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 7:55 am
Ah, that was the reason Nemesis struggled so much to do to Alkaid what she should do. The Corrupted Senshi was a strong enough force to warrant elimination before she caused too much damage. It would be enough damage that repenting for it was an unfathomable thought. There would be no way that Alkaid could make up for the suffering she caused. But, the very fact that Nemesis remained unchanged was because Alkaid had taken the fall for her. If not for the hollow senshi before her, Nemesis would likely be dead, or worse, corrupted. It was why, when the moment came to attack Alkaid, she faltered more often than she stood strong. They had numerous encounters in the past, numerous chances to kill one another... and it never happened.
Nemesis was beginning to think that it never would. She did not understand why Alkaid wouldn't kill her. She knew perfectly well why she couldn't kill Alkaid. They were at a standstill until Alkaid attacked her, and Nemesis was forced to defend. In self-defense, perhaps, she could find the strength of will to end Alkaid. "I think I would do a fair bit better at resisting her influence than you. I am not so weak minded that I would do whatever was desired of me because someone stuck their grubby fingers in my chest and corrupted my starseed." Nemesis did not understand corruption, and hopefully she would never have to.
"I don't know what you ******** constitute as everything, Alkaid." There was, perhaps, no reason for Nemesis to demand answers out of Alkaid now, but she did. She had no position of authority over Alkaid, but she certainly acted like she did. Nemesis wanted to know, and she could not even begin to explain why.
"Dying?"
There was a dull silence that followed after her question, her previous frustration stunted by Alkaid's final statement. Dying could mean so many things. Was that old Alkaid finally withering away in favor of this new one? Was she physically dying? She certainly looked like she was dying. Her body appeared to be breaking down not in the fashion that Nemesis' own attack would cause, but something different. Having Alkaid die on her own would probably be better for Nemesis. No longer would she have to confront this flux of emotions whenever she ran into the other senshi. But... she didn't want Alkaid to die, not in any way, any form.
She wanted Alkaid to live, but needed Alkaid to die.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 8:22 am
The first thing that answered Nemesis was a laugh. It was a chilling sound, heartless and cold. It wasn't a sound full of warmth or life, it wasn't born from joy, it was just the recognition on Alkaid's part that there was something amusing in Nemesis' belief that she could resist something so powerful as Metallia's will. When the sound finally ceased, she turned her head and gave Nemesis a chilling look over the shoulder.
"Do you really think so?" She half turned around again, just enough to extend her hand towards Nemesis with the fingers splayed and crooked - as if she were about to grip a heart, or a starseed. "Would you like to test that theory, senshi? I can show you the full power of chaos and a mortal's inability to resist it. I think you'd see things a bit differently." If she wasn't capable of doing it herself, she was certainly making a good bluff.
Then that hand turned back towards her, inward to her own body, and reached down into the broken, jagged fissure across her chest. When she retracted it, there was something glowing dimly between the cracks in her fingers. Slowly, one by one, her fingers uncurled until her starseed rested in the palm of her hand.
"I have given them everything I have to give, Nemesis, everything I have ever had. Everything I ever will." She extended her hand upward just a little, so that Nemesis could get a good look at what had become of her very core. What had once been a bright seed now shined only dimly, cracked down the very center like every other part of her body. The dark energy that filled her now leaked from the center, trickling over her fingers like thick smoke before it dissipated into the air uselessly.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 8:37 am
Her stance stiffened, the crease at the corner of her lips deepening when Alkaid made what could be interpreted as a threat. The words were less frightening than Alkaid's actual movements. There was something about them that set her off, an almost mechanical feel to the way Alkaid gestured at her. It was as if she was programmed to do the motions instead of feeling them. Is this really what Chaos did to someone, remove everything that was once human from their bodies? Was there anything left of Alkaid that could be salvaged?
No.
Nothing.
"I am not some weak senshi who'd bend to Chaos' will." She was, in a way, just another face in the crowd. Like any senshi, if someone could get a grip on her starseed and thrust Chaos upon it, Chaos would consume it just like any other. This was a truth she didn't acknowledge, as if she were somehow different from everyone else. Chaos would never corrupt her, because she didn't ******** want it to. "I only think that you'd be the one in for a shock when I succeed in something you did not, when I retain everything that I am, keep everything that I once was and forever will be. Don't be sore because you lost it all. You never had to. It was your decision to save me."
Nemesis grimaced as Alkaid reached into her own chest to draw out a dulled starseed. It had been destroyed, wrecked by whatever transformation had occurred. It was nothing like the bright glow that Nemesis' own starseed pulsed with, and she doubted her's was the brightest out there. How Alkaid's starseed did not shatter on the spot was beyond her, the only thing that seemed to be holding it together was the Chaos energy. It was horrific to see something once so pure... broken.
"Alkaid," there was tension in her voice, an unusual amount of emotion that she never enjoyed sharing with anyone. "You never had to. You don't have to give them everything, and I'll never understand why you have. I don't understand why you've succumbed to this. Did you even fight, once, to maintain your self, your being?" She truly had no idea about the nature of corruption.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 8:54 am
Alkaid listened. She listened as the words tumbled from Nemesis' lips with more true feeling and concern than she'd ever heard the Senshi of Decay speak with. For a single moment, something about Alkaid softened. Then she made up for the moment of weakness by turning stonier than before, pursing her lips and glancing away from the eternal with a jerk of her head.
"You know nothing." Her hand curled back towards herself and she slipped the starseed away, back into the cavity of her chest. Her eyes drifted up to the stars, then slowly slid toward the half moon where it hung low in the Destiny City sky. "You fight the darkness because a traitor dressed in light once told you to do so."
She didn't answer Nemesis, but her next words were as good as one.
"When I woke up, there was only darkness waiting for me. When I was taken from the path of the light, there was no princess there to help me find my way back. There was just darkness." Her hand still perched over the fissure in her chest as she stared up into the moon, a look of contemplation etched over her broken face. Then she turned her head away and glanced back at the eternal, that same contemplative look in place.
"Not everything born of darkness is evil, that is something you do know." As her head turned farther, her body began to turn with it, until she was facing the eternal again.
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:10 am
"I know enough," the defense came without thought. Where Alkaid was nearly devoid of emotion, Nemesis was full of it. There were hints of it, every now and then, that Alkaid could feel something. As a whole, though, Nemesis suspected that whatever she felt was distant, something that Alkaid had to reach out and grasp. Even then, her fingertips only brushed against the surface of that emotion before it drifted away from her reach. A girl that had been filled with so much life was left without any of it. "No, don't dare make those sort of assumptions about me.
You know nothing of my lives." Her arm lifted in the air, fist pointed to the moon. "I fight the darkness because it is my decision, not because some long dead b***h wanted me to. It was always my choice, and my choice alone, Alkaid. I need no figure of light to whisper in my ear and tell me what is right to do and what is wrong. I know already. I've always known." There was resentment in her voice that stemmed from a life she would be better off forgetting. The Moon Kingdom had plagued her long enough, and to be insinuated that she was following the path that she was on now because of them was downright insulting.
"You didn't look, Alkaid. Is that all you really saw, a vast nothing, darkness without exception? If you had looked, I would have been there. I would have helped you, in some ******** way, I would have helped. I would have found a way to help." Perhaps, if she had, for just a second, contemplating helping Alkaid back then, she would have been able to. Only recently did she start thinking that she could help those afflicted by Chaos. It had taken her far too long to believe this. The time that it had taken her was the time that Alkaid needed to be fully enveloped by darkness.
"I do," her voice was muted, as if that would hide the turbulence of emotions whirling through her heart. "But what you are aiding, what you are doing, it is evil. You can't deny it, if there was any light left in you, you'd know. I think you're too far gone now to see it, so I will see it for you."
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Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:58 am
"Then look, Nemesis, and see." Alkaid's pale, scarred arms spread out to her sides, encompassing the city that stretched out behind her in endless, glittering miles. She took a step forward, until she teetered on the edge of the ledge closest to the eternal, staring down at her.
"Until you have lived on both sides of this war, you will never know the motives behind it." Her arms fell away, dropping to her sides, as she settled her bright eyes on the darker ones across from her. "I walk the path of darkness because it is the only way I see this world surviving. You've seen what happens to worlds left in our care." Memories bubbled in her mind, fresh and unbidden, and a look of pain flashed across her face. For a moment it burned strong, then settled into something calmer, but solemn.
"When I walked the streets of Alkaid, the bones of my people crunched beneath my feet, littering every inch of a world that was under my care. What is the difference between dark and light if we fail in the end?" She shook her head, sending the long, braided dreads swaying over the ledge behind her.
Then the fissure in her chest began to glow with a bright, searing light that crawled outward along the cracks until every inch shone with energy. The eyes that were watching Nemesis were alive with their own fire, setting her pale skin alight. "I chose the power to save them, that's really the only thing that matters." And then she was gone with a soft crack, ripping reality open with the energy she gathered, and leaving behind only the faint aura of chaos that disappeared by the second in her absence.
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