Jett's lessons were fresh in Acubens' mind. By now, nearly half a year later, she was proficient enough in boxing to utilize the craft in her calling. It had come in handy too, as of late. The massacare was fresh befor eher eyes. Her nightmares were haunted by the dead and dying. Screams of the agonized echoed in her sleeping ears. Acubens couldn't remember when she last got a good night's sleep. It was evident in her stooded posture, in the deep purple under her eyes. Can't sleep. If I sleep, they will find me. They will torment me. It had made her first year of college rather difficult, actually. She didn't sleep during the night, so her absorption of the lectures were fractioned and her notes were abysmal. Well, the classes Acubens even bothered to go to, that was. These days she spent most of her time in her powered form. The only thing that made sense anymore. If the chaos could attack at any moment, she didn't want to fuss with finding a private spot to henshin up.

She stepped on a finger, attached to a recently defeated nega. New, inexpirienced, and an easy defeat. But any victoy was a victory, and that was one agent who wouldn't be returning to battle any time soon. The battle had still left her with split knuckles, lips, and a black eye. Even her shoes were stained; she'd begun to use the claw as a shallow-cutting weapon. Nothing really too damaging, no matter how hard she thrust her claw into someone. It had even broken off a few times.

Each victory left Acubens hungry for more blood. Each loss fueled the same fire. She was stuck in an endless loop, forever caught between insomnia and desperate battles.

Lenka had calmed down some. Shouting and berating that super senshi…it had made her realize that being a horrible person was not going to help the other horrible people stop being horrible…

How could she have forgotten the jedi way? She was supposed to help. To guide and to protect…she was supposed to be a protector, protecting the innocent, then fighting the battles. What was it that Mace Windu had said? We are keepers of the peace, not soldiers. A sudden, relaxing warmth seemed to erupt inside the chibi senshi and she smiled, a real smile for the first time really since the big battle.

That was it! She was pushing herself to be something she wasn’t. She was a Jedi, and a Senshi, and she had to act normal. She had to be who she was…she couldn’t stop this war like this. She had to find a way to stop it in a better way! The child jumped up and looked around, feeling another senshi nearby. She hoped it was the one she yelled at! She wanted to apologize for being such a rude brat!
Lenka ran as fast as she could towards the other senshi, then stopped, giving a little smile. “Acubens!” It was one of her padawans! That was good too!

Her name made Acubens stop. She knew that voice. s**t. That was the one person Acubens had been trying to avoid recently. Polaris could know about her path of vengence. She was a big girl. Lenka would not understand. She would preach about "the Jedi Way" like she knew the grey Acubens constantly found herself drowning in. Lenka seemed to exist in a world of white and black. A child's world. How could Acubens begin to describe the thirst she suffered?

She curled and uncurled her aching fist, flexing the tense muscles. It cracked open healed gouges, making them bleed a new. No hiding this now, right? Acubens turned, black eye stricking against her naturally pale complexion. She watched Lenka for a long moment, yellow eyes a toxic hue. Lenka would probably think that Acubens wsa angry at her. And, in a way, Acubens was. Acubens was angry at everyone. Lenka included.

"Master," she droned, turning away again, opting to slide out of the bright light and into the shadows of a nearby alley way.

Lenka blinked, confused with Acuben’s moving out of the light…didn’t she want to be seen? Did she have a bad haircut or something? The senshi walked closer. “Are you okay, Acubens…?” There was concern in her voice, and a clear worry for the older girl. She was her friend, she really was…and if there was a problem…well, then Lenka had to at least try and help fix it.
She wondered for a moment if maybe Acubens had been at that meeting, and that was what was bothering her too. Maybe it bothered everyone…it sure didn’t bother the ones who did it though. They must not care at all…

The child hesitated, then puffed out her chest, walking over to Acubens and hugging her tightly. “You tell me what is wrong right now, okay? I’m going to help you. I don’t care if you don’t want me to, you are my padawan and as such you are my responsibility. Now, you tell me right now. What is bothering you? And what can I do?”

What was bothering Acubens? That was a really good question. Acubens wasn't really certain. In a word? Treason. The highest treason possible. Treason against the hearts of lovers. But it went deeper than that. So much deeper. It was that she thought about leaving not only her women, but her natural born alignment. She'd been to space. She'd seen glimpses of the women she was supposed to be aspiring to be. And yet she was willing to damn all of that for those who claimed to love her. For those who lied to her on a regular basis and didn't even know it. For those she desparately loved back. And they stabbed her in the back.

Worse. They betrayed her and made her watch as they slew her comrades. And then they revealed her as a traitor.

"Nothing is bothering me," Acubens growled, wiping her bloddy knuckled on the palm of her hand before scraping that along the brick wall. "I feel good. Better than ever. I finally have a purpose. I couldn't make it as a team captain... hell, Alberio left the team because I'm so bad at it. And I can't be a Jovian. I'm not even all that good of a girlfriend. But I'll tell you what I can do."

Lenka looked up at the super senshi, frowning. She seemed even sadder than Lenka herself had been lately. Maybe when she found out what was really going on, they could go and get ice cream. Ice cream made things better, at least a little better. The chibi senshi just snuggled closer to the older girl. “What can you do now then?”

It was a simple question, not meaning to be snotty or anything, she hadn’t wanted to come off as a brat…but she wanted to know…it did seem like Acubens was lying about something bothering her. “I can tell you what I can do now too…we can trade what we can do. And we can both get better for that, okay?”
She wasn’t aware that Acubens was angry at her for her ‘childish’ outlook on life, but…but she had only just gotten this back, and it really wouldn’t surprise her if something made it slip again. Lenka sighed and shook her head. Part of her was starting to wish she hadn’t even gone over to Acubens tonight.

"I can get revenge." It was a simple statment. Acubens liked simple. "I can get revenge for all the people those bastards killed. I can get revenge for myself for being so weak and so easily swayed by lies. I can replace blood with blood and return to the chaos what they dealt us that evening." She avoided Lenka's gaze, certain the vast brown eyes would only irritate her. Innocent and free, seeing only what she chose. Not what was. "The Jedi Way." Bah. The notion almost made Acubens laugh.

"Blood for blood and death for death. I will smite the Dark Mirror Court with everything that I am." She'd never verbalized it before, really. Only just thought it. Went about her patrols with that silent goal. There was something... freeing... in finally saying what she intended. Like a black flower it blossomed in her stomach, delicate petals tickling her insides pleasently. "I will not rest until I see the end of that court."

Lenka thought this through then sighed, nodding. “I wanted the same thing, you know. I was training and training and training so I could hurt and kill them all too…I didn’t like seeing everyone dying…I didn’t like hearing the screams of the other senshi…and I really didn’t like thinking about how many moms wouldn’t have their kids back that night…”

She swallowed, then pulled away, looking out into the bright city. Finally she looked up at the older girl, question in her eyes. “What will you do when you’ve killed them all, Acubens? What will you do then? You’ll finally get to rest…but…you’ll have as much, if not more blood on your own hands…what if some well meaning do gooder decides you’re as infected with your own chaos, and kills you for it?”

It was one thing to just preach her jedi and sith ideals, but they made sense when you looked at it this way, and it was almost scary how much of a parallel there was between the fiction of the star wars universe and the reality of her own, now war ridden life.
"Then I need to die." There was the faintest glimmer of mirth in Acubens' voice. "You don't think I thought about this, Millie." Acubens forwent the use of the formal, senshi name. The girl needed to know this wasn't just Acubens being overly dramatic. It was Micah having made a concious decision. "And maybe I deserve it. No. I do deserve it. When I have killed on that scale then the only option left for me is to die." A moment of silence as Acubens thought. "And if I do become over taken by my own chaos. Then I want someone to kill me. I'd rather die then be taken over by those bastards. I'll kill them or I will die, but I won't become one of them. That much I promise you."

Acubens stooped after that, a rare show of affection for her. She never brought herself down to the eye level of those shorter than her. She always thought of it as demeaning to the other person. But she did it now. Millie needed to know she was speaking to her as an adult woman. "Millie, if you see me corrupting. If you see even a hint of it in me, then I want you to find a way to kill me. Do it yourself or find someone who can. Do you promise me that?

Lenka stared at the girl, eyes full of a hardly smothered anger. How could anyone talk like this? How could anyone want to start a blood bath, how could they want to…to cause more people more pain. She was stupid. Acubens was stupid. Before she could stop herself, Lenka’s hand came up, striking Acubens hard across the cheek. “You’re an idiot, Acubens! Stop being so damn selfish!” Well, that was a first…Never before had the child uttered such a terrible word…but hey. If she was acting like an adult, it was time to start talking like one. Words like that showed that you were serious, after all.

“You’re forgetting who and what you are, Sailor Acubens. You are supposed to protect this planet from chaos, and you are supposed to do that by defending! Killing, slaughtering…you’re just going to feed into the cycle, and by doing that you will just continue it! You’re going to go mad, you know. You won’t be able to tell who is friend and who is foe, and…” The girl threw up her hands. “What about your own family? What about your mom, dad, siblings? What will they do if you lose your mind? They’ll lose a daughter because she let herself get lost in a desire for revenge.”

The girl drew in a breath and shook her head. “We should be finding a way to beat the chaos out of the dark senshi and the negaverse, not killing them. Everyone has the chance to be redeemed. To be purified. If we can figure out how to do that, then we can end this damn war without more deaths!”

Acubens made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. "They won't be purified. And they won't listen. They only listen to violence, which is the only language I speak. I've tried to be the fighter I'm supposed to be. Were you there, during that meeting? I mean before the choas attacked. I threw up an idea and enitre groups of senshi came down on me for it. And for what? Because I used the wrong word? Because I said "saved" instead of "corrupted" only because I wanted to preserve thier language? What the hell kind of "team" does that? Ganymede, who seems to have some sort of strange vendetta against me, spear headed the whole thing! Then some flower b***h wanted to toss me out all together!" She turned around in a circle, repeating memories that tore open a hole in her chest. She wrenched lose a gutteral scream that hurt her throat before she finally stopped.

"And what makes you think we're on the right side anyway? Light and dark, order and chaos, they're just words. Words the winners put on the losers. How do we know that the moon queen isn't some tyrant who wanted the universe for herself? We only know what the winners tell us. That's not truth, Millie."

The mention of her family made Acubens stop. Had she told Millie how important her brother was to her? She eyed the other girl for a moment before she muttered, "I was gone the second this damned star called on me. Isn't this what this whole war is about? Revenge? The war ended long ago, and now it's picking back up because of revenge."

The girl listened to her rant and was shaking her head after only a few moments. She let the other senshi talk herself out then just sighed. “Then I might as well kill you now, before you get so lost in your anger that their words start making sense to you. If they fooled you before, if they tricked you, then chalk it up to inexperience. Help to teach others that listening to them is bad. Don’t go…dropping to their level…’cause one day, you will be on their level…e-either.” She closed her eyes, shuddering. “Either someone’ll throw you though a mirror or they’ll shove their hand in your chest…or maybe they’ll just shove their hand into your chest and let you die when they stomp on your starseed! Or if they eat it. I bet that’s full of excitement. “

She shook her head. “There will be new senshi waking up every day. We have to help them. We have to protect them…and if they seen an example like you running around, then sorry for this word but,” Lenka rubbed at her eyes for a moment. “…Then we’re ********. Plain and simple. If you older senshi think that killing and maiming is the way to win, then you all need to retire. And fast.”

"They got into our meeting. There were princesses there. Eternals, gaurdian cats, and so many senshi. And still they won. Still they took lives and won." It was a fact that was still hard for Acubens to wrap her mind around. Through mirrors and teleportation... was nowhere safe? "The only way to protect the new wave of senshi waking is to eliminate the threat. And what if another senshi like me wakes up? I'd much rather the threat be neutralized so that they ahve a fighting chance, because it's adamn sure thing that they won't have many friends on this side." Acubens spat off to the side, something she didn't normally do.

"And if, one day, I am corrupted, then I need to be killed too. I failed in my mission and I am disgraced. I deserve to die for that." A note of finality in Acubens voice. Even if she didn't fully understand the permanence of her decisions, she sure as hell had made up her mind.


Lenka still shook her head, then hugged the older girl once more, squeezing as tightly as she could. “You really are dumb. Don’t waste your life like that. Come on. You can come back to my house and I’ll get you some cookies. If you want you can sleep over tonight. I don’t want to lose you, since you are my friend. And even if I think you really are dumb right now, I know you can be pretty smart when you aren’t all torn up inside.”

She drew away from the hug and held out a hand. “The ones who yelled at you were idiots too. We shouldn’t be attacking one another, we should be working to make sure the chaos can’t spread…and we were spreading it ourselves. It was no wonder they won that day. We should have been working to unite. Not divide. Right? Isn’t that how it is? United we stand, divided we fall…that’s how it always works…”

The chibi senshi gave a shrug and then tried to smile, now determined to help Acubens. “Come on. If you really want, we can think of some ways to trap and kill some of the chaos filled jerks…okay? But I think…we should be as crafty as them. Find some who seem shaky in their beliefs, and introduce the concept of purification…if we can get rid of chaos like that…just think of what else we can do!”

Acubens looked at Lenka for a long time. A part of her, a big part, wanted to take Lenka's hand. Take it and give up on this crusade; something she knew was hopeless.

Then why bother?

Acubens shoved the thought from her mind. Just as the raptor could not be weak to the darkness around her, she could not be weak to the weakness within her. She had to stay strong and relentless. There would be no giving up. No compromise. She'd fight until she saw the dark ones' end. Not even for Lenka. No, especially not for Lenka. If anything, Acubens would be fighting for Lenka. So that she didn't have to fight anymore.

"This isn't something you can help me with Lenka. Just stay out of the way and try not to get hurt, okay?"

The child sighed, then finally let her hand drop. “Okay then. If you’ve really made up your mind…” She glanced away and finally turned, taking a few steps away from Acubens, going towards her home. “I want to get mad at you. I want to yell and scream and throw a fit…but I know that isn’t what I should do. So I’m just going to tell you…good luck I guess. And if you do ever decide to give up…I’ll be here.”

Lenka looked back at the curly haired girl. “And if you just need a hug, you can find me then too…even though I don’t agree with what you’re doing. I’m not going to let you just be alone in it. I’m not helping you, but if you need my help to calm down or get band-aids, or cookies or whatever. Then I’m still offering that.”

She heaved a sigh and gave a sad little wave. “I hope you realize you’re being dumb, I really do…but I still do think you are a good guy way down deep…they’re just using you even more when you act like this…so don’t do what they want…I’ll see you around…Acubens…I hope you come for cookies…”

The chibi senshi swallowed hard, then turned back around walking away, crossing her arms over her chest. So this is what it felt like. Abandoning a padawan…letting someone that she had promised to look after and protect go down a path that would one day make her a monster, she was sure…well. She felt lousy. Completely lousy.