[R] Catching Up (Pomona, Sinon, Lenka)

[The Red Dame]

Pomona wanted to rant. Wanted – no, needed – someone she could talk about these past weeks with, but her options were sadly limited. She couldn’t talk with her parents, or her siblings, or most of her classmates. So she turned to her usual outlet for these cases: Sinon.

It had been a long time since Pomona had seen Sinon, or at least it felt like it. She had meant to go see her shortly after getting her upgrade, but then there had been school projects, and then the civilians vanished, and then there was The Incident… yeah. Phone calls, text messages, Facebook, all that was fine, but a nice face-to-face meeting felt over due.

Still wary of the park, Pomona had asked Sinon to meet her by a small abandoned office building. There seemed to be an increasing number of abandoned buildings in DC, and depressing as it was, at least they offered meeting locations. Pomona had sat herself on a cement parking curb, eyeing the stars as she waited eagerly for her friend to show.  

[Syusaki]

The soldier of lies was always willing to listen to her friend’s latest woes, although Sinon would be aghast to realize that she was so low on Pomona’s list of people to rant to. She would have expected herself to be a bit higher than that! But beggars couldn’t be choosers.

It was funny how life sometimes conspired against people. School had barraged Sinon with projects and homework, most likely the effect of now becoming a senior or something like that, and then that whole excitement over a bunch of civilians vanishing that culminated in that gigantic battle in space—man, Sinon kind of wished she had been there. A giant battle in space…!

Sinon was in no clear rush to meet her freckled friend, as overdue as their meeting was. She simply continued to amble down the roads, standing on her board and occasionally propelling it forward to add more speed and momentum when it slowed. Lips pursed in a tight line, she sailed underneath flickering lampposts as she searched for the right abandoned building, and as she spotted a familiar redhead up ahead her mouth curled into a broad smile that never lost its glow. “Pomona!” She waved as she hopped off her board and swept down to pick it up. “You’re looking mighty fine for a super.” She grinned. As she drew closer, she opened her arms to crush Pomona in a bear hug.  

[The Red Dame]

“ Sinon!” Pomona happily accepted and returned the hug. “Am I glad to see you.”

And she was. Since she was the chatty type, being surrounded by people she knew she couldn’t talk to was almost like torture, even if she didn’t particularly want to talk to them; it was just the idea of the situation.

“ And you’re not looking too bad yourself; kept your pants I see.”

Pomona had kinda expected Sinon’s pants to vanish, like how Europa had lost her shorts when she leveled up. Looked like Sinon really was one lucky Senshi.

“ So what have you been up to? Have things been crazy for you too?”  

[Syusaki]

“Right back at ya, Pomona. Right back at ya!” She replied without missing a beat.

At the mention of her pants, Sinon’s beam morphed into a grin as the senshi of lies stared at her best friend through smug, half-lidded eyes. “Indeed I have.” She was incredibly pleased with this fact. The redhead only wore skirts and dresses on special occasions. Plus, she still could not understand how most of the female senshi could stand running around in short skirts. Sinon prayed that she would still keep her pants when she leveled up again, but who knew when that would be?

“Oh! Just the usual. Fighting youma and the negaverse. Trying to balance all of that with my regular life.” She shrugged. “I heard there was some space battle. Were you in it?”  

[The Red Dame]

“ I did go to space, but I was just there on a supply run, so I wasn’t in any of the fights.”

Which kinda made Pomona feel bad. Rumor had it that most, if not all of the civilians had survived and reappeared on Earth, and she wasn’t the best fighter, but still. She had left space to go to Castor’s training camp and then hadn’t returned.

“ It was the Zodiacs’ turf; the outposts were pretty beat up. I heard a rumor that there’s a way to go back, so I may go and see if I can help clean up some of the aftermath.”

That was at least one way she could be useful: an extra pair of hands for clean-up and repair. Assuming she didn’t hammer her thumb or something.

“ I have had a couple of encounters with the Dark Mirror Court though.”  

[Syusaki]

“Still pretty neat though. What was it like? I hear it had some pretty sweet stuff, although a bit dirty.” If Pomona felt bad, then Sinon felt even worse. She hadn’t even taken the time to personally visit the Surrounding to deliver supplies. Sure, the redhead had managed to sneak some items and food under her father’s eye, but she didn’t consider it to be much, not when there had been a battle and numerous civilians had disappeared into space.

Her expression became curious at the mention of the Zodiacs. “Oh, them? Did you get to meet them? What were they like?” Sinon had never seen them personally, but they seemed fairly formidable. “Oh! Go back? You think I could sneak in with you?” She grinned mischievously, brown eyes twinkling.

“Dark Mirror Court?” Eyebrows furrowed at the name. From what she could recall, there were only a couple known members that hailed from the faction. “They travel through mirrors and stuff, right? And there’s just a couple of them?”  

[The Red Dame]

“ Yeah, it looks like it was a grand place at one point, once you got over the whole floating-castles-in-space thing. There was a rainbow road that looked a lot like the one from Mario Cart.”

Pomona hadn’t gotten to see many of the outposts though, as she had mostly stuck to the kitchens in Leo.

“ I only really saw Leo’s Outpost, but it was pretty grand, even with its… ruin-y state.” Was that a word? Pomona decided it was. “ I suspect all the space monster attacks didn’t help improve the outposts’ condition. I heard there’s a way to go back, but I’m not sure about all the details, so we’ll probably have to hunt down a Zodiac.”

The Dark Mirrors though, that’s what Pomona really wanted to talk about. Well, that and her other little – chibi, actually – issue.

“ Yeah. I don’t think there’s many now, but they’re planning to recruit. I met two of them. One was Ares.” She paused to shudder theatrically. “ She’s, like, beyond Eternal; a Princess or Queen or whatever. She tried sweet-talking me, told I was misguided and stuff. Thankfully she didn’t get too upset when I turned her down.”

If Ares had been, say, a Corrupt Senshi, Pomona would’ve been a bloody smear on the ground; not something she liked to dwell on.

“ Then there was Leto. We got in a tussle and I thought she was going to call Ares, so I got a little… carried away.” Pomona winced. “ I think I’ve got a target on my back, which brings me to my other problem.”