She was on her moon again, but as Penelope knit her brows together, she could not remember traveling there. She did not remember taking out her cell phone or hearing Pasiphae’s distinctive call. Yet, she must have done both of those things because she could not deny where she stood. She was still in her favorite summer nightgown, the thin, satiny fabric doing little to stop her from shivering as she walked the cold landscape. (In fact, she rather wished she was wearing her favorite winter nightgown, as its flannel would have kept her far, far warmer. It, however, was currently packed away in the back of her closet at home, where she kept all of her winter clothes. These thoughts were startlingly clear, if a bit random given her current situation.) Her cozy sleeping socks, however, had somehow disappeared. Her now bare feet sank slightly into the powder soft dust, but when she turned to see how her foot prints looked in the soil, all she saw was darkness. Not space, dotted with stars--that lay ahead of her along with the view of Jupiter that she could see, that she had seen in person now. But this view, this particular angle… it was familiar for another reason altogether. The first time she had seen this place, it had been in a nightmare. Penelope looked around the landscape now and, on some level, knew that she had to be in another nightmare. The conscious knowledge did not make the situation any easier.

She walked and walked, but no matter how long she did so, she seemed to never get anywhere. The view of Jupiter never changed. The craterous, pink surface was never presented at a different angle, even though she knew she was moving herself forward. Clearly, her actions were not the ones that she was meant to be taking. That’s when the urge struck her, the need to henshin up into her now Super Sailor form. The henshin pen rested heavily in her hand, even though she was certain that a few seconds ago it had not been there. Dream logic at its finest. Still, it indicated that powering up was, in fact, the correct step to take to make the dream progress further.

“Pasiphae Moon Power, Make-Up!” Penelope did not struggle as the chains of energy beads formed around her, not even when they tightened. It was still more painful, filled with more pressure, than normally occurred with her henshining, but having experience it before it frightened her less. She had to go through the motions, right? That had been the only way to get out of the dream the first time; she was simply lucky, on some level, to know that this was all a dream now. Surely that would make it all easier to endure… right?

At first, she almost believed that it would, indeed, be that easy. But then the beaded chains around her chest tightened even more, and a strand rose to wrap around her throat. Choking, she struggled to tear it away, but it refused to budge even as she struggled. “I don’t… I don’t understand,” she gasped, pain beginning to overtake her. Even as she contended with the chains, new challengers appeared for her attention. The very first wound she had ever suffered as a Senshi, that javelin graze that had been healed for months, now suddenly began to ache. Her hand, sliced upon by a piece of metal during the battle against a youma with Polaris, stung anew and bleed, not red, but black. The scar on her shoulder, the only lasting proof of the deep stab wound that Virgo’s power had healed, began to pulse, as though something was trying to break free from beneath the tissue. The wound from Benitoite's paint brush, easily healed after the long battle with the Great Youma, sent jolts of pain up her arm. Every bruise, every scratch, every abrasion, every burn, every minor injury she had suffered piled onto her again. She had thought that she could not endure any further pain than she had in her first nightmare. Clearly, she had been wrong.

But even with all of these pains that assaulted her, she did not begin to scream until she felt the warm stickiness of blood and tar coating her skin, just as invisible as all the other wounds, but thick, inescapable. She could feel each bite from the locusts, and the noxious fumes filling her lungs and sending her into a coughing, fever fugue. All of the many terrors she had suffered in the Surrounding, but now all at once. She clawed desperately at the air, at her throat, trying to find any form of relief. But there was none. Nothing she did seemed to make any difference.

And then her ragged, cough-filled screams turned to large, painful sobs as sorrow welled inside of her and spilled out, the same overwhelming, inexplicable sorrow that had crippled her on the battlefield. Agony, terror, sorrow, and pain completely overwhelmed her, and the teenager struggled against the beaded chains that pinned her in place--but they were strong, too strong for her to escape. In desperation, she called out to her moon in a raspy, broken voice, finally feeling herself begin to fall, "Please... please, make it stop... please..."

No sooner had the words escaped her lips than the chains exploded into a shower of individual energy beads. As Penelope sank to her knees on the waiting, pink soil, the beads rearranged themselves into the shield that surrounded her whenever she called on Pasiphae's power. Even though the pain disappeared instantly, Penelope did not, could not, rise to her feet. She actually fell forward slightly, her hands on the ground along with her knees. Bent over like this, her stomach heaved against what she had just experienced. She struggled against the bile rising in her throat, finding the gagging harsh but hoping that it would wake her up from this nightmare. But no matter how much she wanted to wake up, to escape the potential resurgence of the pain she had just endured, she remained in place. It seemed she would be trapped at least a while longer.

"What do you want from me?" Even Penelope was shocked at how small, but quiet her voice was, how little fear she manifested in it considering to the onslaught she had just experienced. When she had first had this nightmare, and a less severe version of this nightmare, she had been shaken to her core. The very concept of Pasiphae, her moon, and having a connection to that distant, pink place had frightened her. She had hesitated to accept Kallichore and Europa's advice to visit the place because she had been terrified. She had only been able to make the trip because Perseus--a kind stranger!--had agreed to go with her. She had been unable to go alone. Then the Shame Senshi had collapsed on that soft, familiar, welcoming dust, found the statue piece that now sat on her shelf.

Now, as she pushed herself back into a seated position within the shield, she swallowed back her fear and closed her eyes. Under Perseus's instruction, she had learned to hear the call of Pasiphae. Now, as she concentrated, she could hear it again, that same slow, enticing mixture of cellos and violas resonating from the energy shield around her. It was louder. Stronger. Deeper. It matched the flood of energy that had swept over her in the Surrounding when she had called out for just a little more help--and that’s when an understanding of sorts clicked in Penelope’s head. She stretched out a gloved hand and placed it against the protective barrier, and a trickle of shame crept into her voice as she marveled aloud, “I don’t understand, I’m sorry. I hear you, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. You… are calling me, aren’t you? Calling me like I call you?”

She received no clear, verbal response, but in truth she hadn’t expected any. Her moon could not speak to her directly, she assumed, because it was a place, not a person. Instead it sought to reach her in different ways, although why it chose to do so through nightmares, through pain, and not through a simple dream was a mystery. Logic dictated that a place could not speak. Then again, logic played little part in her life as a Senshi. What part of logic, after all, said that a teenage girl could meet a talking cat and discover that she drew power from a distant moon of Jupiter to fight people corrupted by Chaos and the monsters that they controlled? Still, if she was in this place, in her nightmares, again, then it had to mean something. These…attacks, for lack of a better word, were specific, targeted after her gaining a new power, and this attack in particular seemed to be building on what had happened before.

So, she waited, shame building further the longer she maintained contact with the shield. The feelings of failure that had plagued her in her first dream resurged now, and if the girl was good at anything, it was berating herself. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it had been presumptuous for her to ask a question--maybe she was presumptuous to call on the power at all, even in time of dire need. But an answer did come, even if she did not know what to make of it. As her shame grew, so did the sound of her moon until nothing else filled her ears. Not her breathing, not her heart beat, not anything else. Just the unique, musical presence of her moon.

Penelope’s eyes opened, but even the sight of her room did not convince her she was awake at first. Pasiphae’s call lingered in her ears, forcing her to push the blanket aside and shakily stand. She grabbed her clock from the night stand and spun it to face her. 3 a.m. The witching hour. Harper would’ve appreciated that little irony. The girl pulled her henshin pen and her cellphone from her bag. However, she used neither immediately. She stood and stared at them.

For a few, tense moments she considered calling her best friend or one of her fellow Jovians, despite the hour. She could tell them what happened, what she was planning to do. Her thumb slid over the buttons, and she scrolled through the contact list without actually pressing the button to make a call or to send a text message. Penelope bit her lip as she looked over all those that she could call. In the end, however, she lowered her phone to her side. No. She couldn’t bring herself to contact them. She couldn’t bother them over something as trivial as a nightmare. She couldn’t. She rolled her henshin pen in her hands, and she knew what she had to do. When she called, her moon responded. Now, her moon was calling. She needed to respond.

“Pasiphae Moon Power, Make-Up.” She repeated the words that she had spoken at the beginning of her nightmare in the real world much more softly than before, not wanting to risk waking her parents or getting Minotaur’s attention from downstairs. She held her breath as the transformation occurred, but nothing went awry. The beaded chains did not tighten. She did not spontaneously regain her old wounds. More proof that she was actually awake now and actually going through with her decision. The still strange layers of lace and beaded silk that had been added when she became a Super Senshi were somewhat of a comfort now, the new, fuller mask on her face giving her the illusion, perhaps, of protection. This face was Super Sailor Pasiphae; this face would be what the moon would recognize. She closed her eyes and easily found the call of her moon, transporting straight from her room to that distant, pink orb.

[Continued in In the Underground]

[OOC Note:
Participant: Penelope Seneca/Super Sailor Pasiphae
Player: Quicksilver the Archangel
Word Count: 2,000 (not including the link to the additional solo or this OOC Note)]