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 Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 4:03 pm
Paris waited until the front door had shut behind Momma and Beau before setting a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and jumping to his feet.
The TV was on, already in the midst of a movie he’d started with the express purpose of later ignoring it entirely—some Star Trek film he’d seen years ago due to his parents both being fans, and which Peter must have seen at least a dozen times by now given how rabid his attention was for all things space. With its familiarity there would be no questions pertaining to plot and enjoyment once Momma and Beau returned from their date, and so his temporary caretakers would likely assume that he and Peter had been in the house all evening.
That was, of course, exactly what Paris wanted them to believe.
“Alright, get your pen,” he said, once he’d heard the car pull out of the drive and was sure Peter’s parents had gone. “We’re going out for a bit. I’m going to prove to you that I’m the best babysitter on the face of the Earth.”
Not that he thought Peter needing any convincing, in all honesty.
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Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 9:25 pm
Even though he'd seen the movie quite a number of times, Peter wasn't going to complain when Paris requested to watch something. There was something weird going on with his new house-mate/babysitter. It wasn't that he was acting strange... he just seemed... sad all the time. Probably because his older brother was a douche and hurt Paris's feelings... and also because his dad died, but mostly Chris being an a**. So because of that, Peter was more than happy to suck it up and watch Captain Picard kick Borg a**.
Of course, now that his mom and dad were finally leaving, Paris was starting to act weird again. Peter watched him out of the corner of his eye as he seemed to check to make sure the coast was clear, before finally jumping up.
"Huh?" Peter nearly sputtered at the order, although dutifully sliding off the couch. "You want to patrol that badly?" he blinked curiously, glancing at the clock. He figured they had enough time to do it, but he usually tried to get some patrolling done before dinner, so his mom wouldn't freak out that he wasn't going to bed at a good time.
Either way, he turned to head up the stairs to his room and fish the pen out of his desk drawer. He thought it was a perfectly good place to hide his pen when he wasn't in school. Otherwise he would just carry it around in the pencil pouch he kept in his backpack.
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 12:40 pm
Paris sprinted up the stairs after Peter to head into the guest room he’d be using for however long he ended up staying with the Gallos, finding his purse and digging through it to grab his own pen before trotting back downstairs to meet Peter at the front door. He took a few seconds to peek out the windows and make sure the coast really was clear before turning off the alarm system in order to reset it as they left the house.
“No patrol tonight,” he announced, opening the door for his boyfriend’s little brother and waiting for him to exit before following behind and shutting the door securely beside them. “I figured we’d take a break from that and do something else. Come on, let’s just walk a little ways.”
He didn’t want to bring attention to the Gallos’ house by transforming right there, so he led Peter down the drive and through the gate to head down the road a ways. When they came to a nice, secretive copse of trees that should conceal their respective transformations from passing eyes, Paris used his pen and muttered all the mumbo-jumbo about Ganymede and make-up and stood there a few seconds later in his boots and corset.
“We’re going to go on a little senshi field trip,” he said once Peter had followed suit. Summoning his phone, Ganymede held it out for the chibi senshi to see and pointed to the round center button as he asked, “Do you know what this button does?”
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Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 11:11 pm
Peter eyed Paris suspiciously, but followed him out the door nonetheless. About a year ago, he would have probably questioned everything that his brother's boyfriend(?) did or said, but after a decent amount of blackmailing and somehow ending up liking him and being saved by him on a number of occasions, well... he'd learned to trust him, too.
Chris was obviously dumb when he decided he didn't want a relationship with Paris, boy or not. At least he got to keep him as an almost-sister/brother.
"A senshi field trip?" he chirped in repetition, curiosity bubbling up over his wariness. "What do you mean by that?" he wondered, staying close to Ganymede's heel, although he had to take a step back in order to power up, himself. While he was horrified by the buttbow, he was actually quite happy with everything else. Especially when Ganymede was stuck with heels and an obnoxious train. Oberon at least got decent shorts and hiking boots.
Feeling a little dumb, the chibi shook his head when asked about the button in the center. "Main menu?" he said lamely, wishing he knew for certain what it did. How was he supposed to know?? His phone was a piece of crap with no access to the internet, so why would he bother using it for anything other than to text or call a senshi friend... and usually that was Ganymede, whom he now lived with so... pointless.
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Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 12:13 am
Ganymede smiled at the response but shook his head in reply. At least the kid had given him a logical answer. Smart little brat, that Peter.
“One would think,” he said. “But nope. Not these phones. This is what’s going to let us go on our field trip. Sorry, you’ll have to hold my hand, though, or it won’t work,” he added, keeping his phone in one hand while holding his other out for Oberon to take.
“Hold tight. It won’t take long,” he said.
Then he closed his eyes and concentrated while keeping his thumb over the center button. It was sort of distracting trying to do this with another person standing right beside him. He’d done it once before, of course, when he’d taken Valhalla along, but his boyfriend was a bit different than a talkative kid who had the tendency to get in trouble if left unattended for very long. There was no telling if or when Oberon might try to interrupt and end up breaking his concentration.
Luckily he managed it after a few moments, listening hard until he found it, that tone that meant his world—the tinkling of a piano, the chiming of a bell, a low whistle from far away.
He pressed the center button. One moment they were standing on Earth behind a few trees on the street that held the Gallos’ house. The next, they were on Ganymede.
The eternal senshi opened his eyes again to see that they’d appeared in the hallway of mirrors. It was dark, with only the stars, the red glow of Jupiter, and another moon—he wasn’t sure which one—lighting their way. It would have been creepy if he hadn’t grown used to it by now.
“Welcome to Ganymede,” he said, smiling wide and waiting for Oberon’s reaction.
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Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 11:33 pm
Yeah, okay, so he was wrong about not knowing what the center button did. Big deal. That didn't mean that he didn't know anything about technology. Jeez.
Paris was eyed with suspicion once again as Oberon was informed that he'd have to hold his hand. Yeah, well... worst things have happened... Almost grudgingly, the chibi senshi took hold of the black gloved hand with his own white, holding on tightly as instructed.
At first he wasn't sure what was going to happen, before realizing that he'd already experienced the same thing when Hypnos took him to her planet.
"Our phones can do that?!" he sputtered in surprise, staring wide eyed at Paris before around at where they were. "Wait, really?? You just push a button and... So that's how..." He should have known! He wasn't paying attention to Hypnos' phone when he went to her world, and he was a little bit too distracted if she had tried to explain how they got there.
They were in space.
Well, technically Earth was in space, but this was obviously not Earth which made it infinitely more cool.
Woah, so you really are the moon Ganymede!" he chirped in excitement, practically bouncing as he went to peer out the window at Jupiter and the other moon. "I didn't know if it was the asteroid or not... I think I'm a moon. Oh man, does that mean I have a world too??" he rambled, moving from one window to the next to try and get a better view, before climbing right out of a broken one. He was totally going to explore this place.
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Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2012 4:48 pm
“Well, you have to do a little more than just bush a button,” Ganymede said, releasing Oberon’s hand once they’d arrived. “You have to concentrate a lot, sort of listen for it, I guess, so you’re not just going to randomly appear on your moon or whatever your world is if you happen to slip and hit the button on accident.”
He realized rather quickly that letting go of Oberon’s hand might have not been the best idea, as the chibi senshi immediately began wandering around without any concern for his safety.
“Wait, Oberon!” he called as his miniature companion went bounding out one of the broken windows.
Ganymede gave the hall a quick glance over, checking the mirrors opposite the windows for any sign of trouble, but he didn’t see anything but his own reflection. Heaving a sigh, he followed after Oberon, bending to avoid some of the broken glass still attached to the window’s frame. He wasn’t as tiny as Oberon and it took more of an effort to keep from cutting himself, but he soon managed it and stood out on the castle grounds.
His first step tripped him up and he was yanked backwards by his train, which had gotten caught on a piece of glass. He heard the fabric rip as he reached out to steady himself against the castle’s façade. Frowning in annoyance, he reached for the tear in the train and ripped it through, effectively cutting the damned thing off. Ganymede left the fabric there to disappear and reappear the next time he transformed.
“You should have a world,” he answered, rushing to follow after Oberon. “I don’t think it matters if it’s a moon or a star or an asteroid, but then I’ve only ever been to moons. I went to Europa once. And then Valhalla… he’d a knight,” he explained, not sure he wanted to reveal that it was Chris if Oberon didn’t want him telling Chris he was Peter, “I don’t know if you’ve met any knights yet, but they sort of represent each of the planets, I guess. Valhalla took me to his fortress on Jupiter.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:55 am
Pft, if he was going to be on another world, he wasn't going to hang around inside some dusty old ruins all day. Buildings and old stuff might interest his brother, but for him? He'd rather be outside.
"Oh man, I wanna go to my own world as soon as I can. We should go as soon as we get back, okay??" he chirped, turning around to see what Ganymede was doing only when he couldn't sense him directly behind him. "What are you doing?" he blinked curiously, before frowning. "Don't get hurt... I swear... I'm not going to be watching you this entire time."
He was there and now he wanted to explore. The world looked rather dead and barren, but that was okay. There were still things to investivate.
"Are those fountains??" he gasped, running over to see inside the empty pools that could have once held water. Sure there were a couple puddles here and there, but it looked like it could have once been a magnificent fountain. He climbed up onto the edge to peer over, before making his way around. He was tempted to jump in to run around for a bit, but he was sure he could find more interesting things.
"What happened here...?" he asked as he paused to stare at what could have been a statue of... something at the center of the fountain. "Why is it like this...? Are all the worlds like this...?" Dead and barren...? He didn't like it... it made him sad.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:50 pm
“I doubt we’ll have time when we get back,” Ganymede replied, still following after Oberon. He didn’t mind letting the chibi senshi direct the course of their exploration, but he still made sure to look around and make certain there wasn’t anything for him to hurt himself on. “We have to be home when your mom and dad get back, but we can try to go soon.”
Exploring far off worlds was always much less stressful than dealing with random youma, though he couldn’t be sure it was always safe to do so, especially not by oneself. Who was to say all of these places were as vacant as Ganymede seemed to be? And what if someone got hurt while they were lost in their memories?
He wasn’t sure he wanted to mention those to Oberon yet. Best let him get used to being there first.
Stopping at the edge of the fountain, Ganymede looked at the puddles of water sitting sporadically along the bottom. He imagined they must have come from a rainstorm, but as the weather hadn’t ever changed much in the times he’d be there, he couldn’t be sure.
“I honestly have no idea what happened,” he admitted. “Considering we’re at war and it’s apparently gone on for hundreds of years, I always assumed it was destroyed in some sort of an attack, but I guess it could just as easily have been a natural disaster. Earthquake or something. Europa looked fairly similar, though, I think. Damage wise. At least what I remember of the building we were in. Valhalla might have been a little more intact. I mean, you could tell people haven’t lived there for a long time and there are parts of it that look damaged, but it’s still got this vibe of being sort of alive.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:48 pm
Oberon paused on the edge of the fountain for a few moments before hopping down. He was tempted to kick at a couple broken pieces of rock that were laying around the base, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of guilt in just the thought of needlessly disturbing a place that wasn't his.
It was strange and he wasn't really sure what to make of it, so he just waited for Ganymede to catch up with him before wandering off any more.
"But... Why are we at war? What did we do?" he wondered, frowning sadly at the broken bits of things all around him. What had they done to cause a war that has lasted for hundreds of years...? And why were they not able to put an end to it? Surely someone would come along and say 'no, we won't do this', right?
Or maybe he was just too naive to really understand...
Doing his best to shake off his sudden insecurities, and with the reminder of having to get home before his parents did, Oberon dashed off again, heading away from the large building that had to have been a palace or something, and towards what looked like a large wrought iron fence and gates. "What's out there?" he wondered, heading in that direction. "So, is this your house? Like... Sailor Ganymede's I mean," he wondered walking backwards to gesture to the large palace behind Ganymede as they moved away from it.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:05 pm
“We didn’t do anything,” Ganymede insisted, increasing the speed of his steps to keep up with the younger senshi. “The Negaverse seems to be under the impression that we intend to set some Moon Queen up on the throne of Earth, or some equally bogus crap like that. I figure that BS must have come out of whatever happened in the past, but as far as I’ve been able to see the people here didn’t give two shits about any Moon Queen, least of all one on a moon as far away as Earth’s.”
Then again, he hadn’t seen very much yet, just visions of his past self at varying ages, often in the company of Valhalla. They’d always seemed too invested in their own problems to worry about the rest of the universe. He’d yet to see anything beyond the scope of Ganymede itself.
Coming to a stop by the gates at the front of the palace, Ganymede looked up to observe them. Part of the surrounding fence had been knocked in some ways down, and the gate itself hung partly open. Most of it had fallen victim to rust. Here and there he could see traces of what it might have looked like at the height of Ganymede’s glory, with intricate designs crowning top of the gate and small flecks of gold paint fighting to be seen through the violent scarring and the wear of time.
“Beyond here’s the capital city, I think,” he said. He looked through the rusted rungs to the dilapidate buildings that lined the sides of the cobbled streets. “Ganymede lived in the palace. I think his government held him pretty firmly under their thumb, so it was probably best to keep him close. I haven’t seen much of the city yet.”
He’d appeared there the first time he’d arrived on the moon, but had always taken more interest in the palace than the destruction that lay beyond it.
“We can go look if you want,” he offered, “so long as you’re careful. I can’t promise some of this stuff is all that stable. Try not to touch more than you have to.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:15 pm
Oberon rolled his eyes. "I've been in old buildings before... I know not to touch things that could break," he insisted, easily moving through the partially opened gate without taking much more notice to it. It was a gate, and it was blocking his path to cool things, so... that's all that mattered.
He didn't understand why they were fighting over something that happened in the past, but he figured it had a lot to do with adults not being able to just move on.
"Hasn't anyone told them that we're not going to take over? Is that what they're afraid of? I don't want a Moon Queen to take over, either. Maybe we can just... talk to them." Again, he figured it was his youth showing through. Surely it was a lot more complicated than that, but right now, he just imagined it was all a misunderstanding on both sides.
Either way, Oberon made his way down the path towards what was once a city or town of sorts. It was kind of like a ghost town with everything falling apart and just... old... It would have been cool to see what it once looked like, but this was cool, too.
He froze when he saw something familiar, before running towards it, letting out a laugh in surprise. "Look! A train!" he cheered, having spotted what must have been part of a station that led to other parts of the city or even other places all together.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:33 pm
Ganymede rolled his eyes right back but dutifully followed, slipping through the gate to make his way out into the city.
Everything looked broken and dirty and just… sad. The buildings that hadn’t been destroyed were well on their way to crumbling on their own. The streets were dirty, uneven with split stones that threatened to trip them up if they weren’t careful. He saw very few plants. As with the land immediately surrounding the castle, everything out here looked barren. What little growth he did see came in the form of overgrown weeds, creeping up through the cracks in the cobbled streets.
While Oberon rushed forward, Ganymede took his time looking at everything. He paused here and there to consider his feelings, trying to separate what he knew to be his own from a sort of familiarity he suspected stemmed from the past. It’d been like that with a few of the rooms in the palace. Here he felt… curiosity… intrigue… vague excitement...
He turned at Oberon’s cheer, and as he did so another image suddenly faded into view—the city bright and whole, bathed in sunlight and crowded with people rushing to and fro. Startled, Ganymede jumped out of the way of a horse-drawn carriage speeding by, searching for the chibi senshi through the throngs of ghosts scrambling from here to there when he heard the blast of the train’s whistle.
“Oberon!” he called out. He knew which direction his companion had gone toward, but he was having a hard time focusing through the sudden burst of memory. “Just… hold still for a sec…”
Ganymede made his way forward cautiously. Instinctively he knew that none of what he was seeing could hurt him—he was likely to just pass right through—but he also knew that his surroundings in reality were much different than this neatly kept town.
It faded as soon as he drew closer to the train, the sights and sounds blending back into the past as the present came to take its place.
“Sorry,” he said, looking around to reorient himself, trying to remember what Oberon had been asking him before. “Um… well, I’ve tried to tell a few of them that, but… they’ve never really cared to listen. I don’t want any Moon Queen coming to take over either. No one can even prove that she exists, so…and even is she did…”
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:28 pm
Although he didn't really want to wait up when he'd found the train, his general respect for the older senshi had him pausing in his tracks at least long enough for him to catch up.
But there was also something strange going on... Ganymede was walking too slowly and carefully for everything to be normal... or at least he was pretty sure something was going on. He didn't usually sound like that when he tried keeping up with him, anyway.
"Are you okay?" he asked, frowning at Ganymede with concern. "Are you dizzy...? Do you need water?" Maybe it was another one of his spells? He wasn't going to pass out, was he? No... that didn't seem to be the culprit. He hesitated for a few moments, before retreating back to the older senshi's side, feeling a bit guilty for running off when he looked like that.
Oberon shook his head, not wanting him to think there was anything he needed to apologize for. "It's fine. We're here to explore, right?" he said, figuring a change of subject might be what Ganymede needed. "Let's see the train? Do you think it's run the same as they do on Earth? I mean, like... with coal or steam or something. You don't think there's magic that helps it run, do you?"
He paused to laugh at himself, shaking his head. "But... we're the only ones who can make magic, right? So... I guess there wouldn't be any..." That was a little disappointing... that the only things 'magical' were themselves. Seemed kinda lame in the bigger scale of things.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:40 pm
Ganymede found himself frowning over Oberon’s questions concerning his health, but he didn’t say anything about it, just shook his head and pretended like he had no idea what the chibi senshi meant.
Now wasn’t the time for that anyway.
The eternal senshi glanced up at the train as they grew closer to it. It seemed about as rusted as the gate had been, with a large gash in the side of the engine that looked almost big enough for someone of Oberon’s size to wedge his way inside. Ganymede kept a close eye on him to make sure he didn’t try. He wasn’t all that fond of the idea of struggling in after him. Besides, what if they got stuck in there?
“No, I don’t think it’s magic,” he said. He reached out to carefully run the tips of his gloved fingers across the side of it, but there wasn’t very much to see there. “I haven’t noticed much magical about this place. Just me, and the guy I used to be, I guess. Valhalla had some sort of magic, though. Or at least it seemed to. So I guess it’s not impossible.”
He kept close to his guest, walking with him as they traveled down the length of the train. A few of the boxcars had been derailed and overturned, forcing them to walk around them.
After a few moments of quiet exploration, Ganymede decided to reveal a little more. “Whenever you go to your world, you might see things,” he told him.
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