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 Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 8:17 pm
Persephone had begun to make a habit of returning to the places where she'd first met her teammates, retreading old ground and perhaps hoping that when she did, the person she sought would be there. Tonight, she was in the park where she had sat and talked with Leda, inviting the bubbly Senshi of Steam to a team that would support and care for her.
Was Leda still as happy as she had been that evening? It seemed almost impossible that she would be, not after what had happened. That night had certainly exacted a fundamental change in Persephone herself - as reflected by her new graceful black dress and the black bat wings attached at her hips.
Her eyes fell on the swingset that she had sat on, and slowly she approached, lifting her hair out of the way so she could properly sit down. It seemed such a short time ago that she'd been enthusiastically talking with Leda about her hopes and dreams for Team Cornucopia - and really, it hadn't been all that long, in the end. It was just that so very much had changed in the interim.
She wondered if Leda haunted this park sometimes, as she did - seeking the ghosts of easier times.
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Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:39 pm
How long had it been since she first powered up? How many days, how many months, how many years had she wasted on drifting about Destiny City in a dreamy limbo? How long had she fought without really knowing why, or how it could've been important? And how long had she gone on pretending that the harm she inflicted wasn't real, as whimsical as magic, and that the threat of death never hovered above her head? Each fantasy slowly melted away, like icing on a too-hot confection, slithering down the sides into a sticky, sickly sweet pool. Now she couldn't stand the taste of her own misguided beliefs, with all their effervescence and brilliant conclusions.
First a captain clamped his hands about her neck, and she breathed her first real fear of death - of those hands slowly separating mind from body, cast away toward the stars, far beyond the lifeless corpse she left behind.
Next she watched the Negaverse singlehandedly disband her first senshi meeting, her first team, by impaling one of her number before her very eyes. A girl even younger than she, with a trident thrust into her gut, painting blossoms across her fuku.
Lastly she floated through life, never truly present in any given moment, even as she tried to stop an agent from draining an older woman. But even in that tussle, with her spoken threats, her scalding magic and the matron's series of snowballs, the affair ended with the woman dead at the base of the building and only herself to blame.
With every step she took, another dream fell from her form like broken feathers from a flightless bird.
Now she drifted through her own graveyards - old playgrounds where she once sat and emphatically chatted with anyone who showed an interest in fashion. Later, once acquiring her henshin pen, she frequented the same area to encounter other powered entities, be it friend or foe. Last time she recalled seeing Persephone here, their one-time leader, flourishing with quiet excitement alongside her natural soothing demeanor. They hadn't talked much, as Leda did most of the talking, but already she found that she quite liked the green-haired senshi.
She also thought Persephone's brooch was cute. Now increasingly dejected, Leda sighed.
Finally the Senshi of Steam stirred from her broken thoughts when the infectious, pervading auric energy of a Negaverse eternal breeched the storm. Leda shot into a nervous frenzy, whirling about herself with green eyes pilfering the landscape for some sign of a vicious corrupted senshi. Her desperate terror slowly petered out once she recognized a form sitting atop the swings, clothed in unending green hair and a lengthy dark dress alike.
Leda froze - she knew not whether to run or stand her ground.
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Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 8:38 pm
Persephone felt the approaching Order aura, and lifted her head. When she realized who it belonged to, her entire expression lit up. She hadn't known what running into a member of her team would be like, but mostly - well, mostly she was just happy that Leda was alive.
"Leda! Come and sit with me!" She beckoned, as if nothing had changed - as if she wasn't now dressed in black and bearing the signs of Negaverse corruption. "I'm so glad to see you're alright, I wasn't sure what happened to everyone else after...the attack." It was strange, how quickly the cheer dropped out of her voice. She so disliked thinking about that night, even if she couldn't escape it.
It had changed everything about her. Escape was impossible.
"Anyway, I'm just...really glad you're alright." A little disappointed that she was still with Order, but hoping for everyone's eyes to be opened the way hers had been was probably too much. It had been a slow process for her, and she doubted that anyone else had been as far down the path of enlightenment as she. "How have you been, since the meeting? Have you seen anyone else?"
She craved knowledge of the others, even if she had yet to properly seek them out.
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 7:03 am
Leda stared in disbelief, mouth open in a wordless reply. She watched, but she couldn't process what she was seeing, what she was hearing - it sounded like Persephone, but the twisted senshi sitting on the swingset couldn't possibly be her old team leader. No, Persephone exuded a kindness and gentleness, a pure aura, and this thing only wanted to imitate her. Maybe it looked like her, maybe the hair was the same, and the dress sorta had the same shape, and... Her eyes were that same olive hue...
Leda's eyes welled up with tears, painful and obscuring, and soon the black blotch drifted in and out of focus as she tried to blink them away. The makeup bestowed upon her by her fuku never ran, but she wouldn't have cared anyway. She didn't want to approach, she wanted to leave the girl, leave that wretched monster be, but her legs afforded little choice. They carried her toward what amounted to both nightmares and painful memories, another blow to her perfect dream of the White Moon.
And she thought, maybe this is just a dream.
And she thought, Persephone is lying in bed somewhere, asleep.
And she thought, She isn't here anymore.
And she realized it was true.
"What are you?" She asked, but she didn't sound like herself. Her voice caught in her throat, where it tore, ragged, and rolled down her tongue in unceremonious bursts. "What happened to you? Persephone, you were one of us! You promised to lead a team, you were going to make a family, but now? Look at you! You betrayed us! Every one of us! Even Biela, who died to save us!" Her lips trembled terribly, her whole body shook, and her tears took jolted, lightning bolt paths down her cheeks. She never sat down. She didn't want to - not next to a monster.
"No, Persephone - you don't get to ask about the others. You lost that chance when you betrayed everyone. When you turned into this..." Leda shoved her hands toward the girl to indicate her very being. "Thing! You let the Negaverse take you! You don't have the right to know about everyone else..." But even Leda didn't know. Even Leda knew nothing of her other teammates, whom she met for so little time.
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Posted: Mon Jan 27, 2014 7:00 pm
Persephone sighed a little sadly. A harsh, angry reaction was almost expected, but at least Leda was coming closer, not running away. She stood up off the swings, stretching a little, and a calm smile returned to her face.
"Thing? Isn't that a little harsh?" She asked. "The proper word, by the by, is 'Negaverse senshi.' Chaos was kind enough to take me in after Order abandoned us all." She started, almost absently, to circle Leda, folding her hands behind her back. "One Captain made a call and half the Negaverse descended on us. And no one came to help. None of us even had time to call."
She had to believe that, had to believe that in the end she was right, that Chaos had been the right choice, because if she ever wavered from that belief, the weight of everything she'd lost in the trade would crush her.
"So yes, I made the choice to turn. I embraced the tide that is Chaos, and it is the best decision I have ever made." She spun around, her tone joyous. "Because I do have a family now. I know I made you promises - and they're promises I still want to keep, Leda, if you'd only open your eyes and your heart. I'm not a monster, or a thing, I'm still me - I just wear black these days instead of white, and I have the strength to keep the people I care about safe."
She stopped, standing still directly behind Leda. "I did it to make sure there was never another Biela again. Not on my watch."
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Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 8:46 pm
"I don't care what the proper word is!" Leda thrust her fists straight downward in frustration. "Order never abandoned us! You never made the call for help! You were our leader, that was your job!" But Leda could hardly believe her own accusations - was she really claiming that the travesties that night were Persephone's burden to bear? Any one of them could've called, but each were far too distracted or panicked to even think about it. Was that really a point against the White Moon Court, or themselves? "We weren't abandoned! We had each other - we could've made a plan to call!" But no one did, and she suspected that no one really understood what a war was all about.
They were all just kids sent to slaughter.
But Persephone appeared wholly unaffected by anything Leda said. She didn't even care - here Leda was, explaining how everything fell apart and each of them had to deal with it, but Persephone was busy with her head in the clouds, in her little ivory tower crafted out of chaos... And she was twirling. Twirling and showing off her new power, like it was some shiny new coat she bought at a bargain basement price. And maybe if Leda was a little more naive, if she never knew what happened that night, she might've complimented Persephone on her new find. She would've thought that maybe, just maybe, chaos wasn't so bad. After all, they were willing to give Persephone a sizable boost in power.
But what did power even mean if no one knew what to do with it? If she were an eternal, would she have known to call for backup? Leda doubted it. Even with her upgrade to super, her life didn't suddenly untangle itself. Things didn't just become clear just because she could use her Scalding Blast.
Suddenly Leda found herself backing away from the girl she once knew, now frowning in disgust. "Who are you?" She asked incredulously. "You don't even make any sense anymore. I thought you were a good person when we first met - in this park - but..." She halted her sentence, voice now quavering with the weight of her memories. "That was just a lie, wasn't it? You just wanted power. It didn't matter if Biela died or not, did it? You just wanted power, and when the Negaverse offered it to you, you took it..." She let out an almost imperceptible huff.
"You took it, and you left us all to rot."
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Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:05 pm
Persephone exhaled and crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head.
"No, Leda, not power." She said. "Power is selfish, and power involves command - and I think we both know exactly how suited I am for command." They'd both seen her fall apart and crumple in an actual battle, in a moment where a proper leader would have stepped up and shown how strong she was. And the result had been a dead fourteen-year-old girl.
"I'm not a leader, I never will be, and I made a mistake in trying, and I can say that with certainty and point to some very good proof. What I want is strength, because even if I can't lead, if I'm strong, I can still keep people safe." She dropped her arms and sighed. "You don't believe me, but I wish you would. All I've ever wanted is to protect the people I care about, and after what happened that night, after I failed so painfully and utterly, I realized that the only way I could do that was if I embraced Chaos."
It made perfect sense to her, especially so given that in the end her decision had been made under stress and without a full consideration of all the consequences. It simply hadn't occurred to her that she would be outright rejected - perhaps the others wouldn't be happy, wouldn't see the wisdom of her decision in the first place, but to be told that she was a bad person, a monster... That hurt, that was something she hadn't expected at all.
She walked forward and held out a hand to Leda, but braced herself for rejection. "Please, try to understand..."
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Posted: Sat Feb 08, 2014 11:36 pm
"They didn't give you strength. You're not strong. If you were strong, you would've stayed with us. You would've had the sense to call for backup when none of us thought about it. We had time, Persephone - we felt them gathering before they charged. But you stood around just like the rest of us!" Leda sighed shakily. "I know the White Moon has its problems... We're not very organized, we're not good at reaching out to each other, but... All our hearts are in the right place! How could you side with an organization that wants to drain your family to death? How could you join the people who stabbed Biela to death? Don't you see? Siding with them isn't going to change anything! It'll only cause more pain and suffering... Think of what you're doing to your teammates by parading around in your new black fuku! Abandoning them like this isn't the answer, Persephone!" In an effort to restrain new tears, Leda balled her fists until her fingernails dug into her palms.
Leda shied away from the corrupted senshi as Persephone approached. Defensively, she crossed her arms over her chest. "If you wanted to be strong and protect the people you cared about, you shouldn't have left them... Nothing you say is worth believing, Persephone, because you betrayed everyone who trusted you! There's nothing left to understand!" This strange creature standing before her, bearing a gaping hole in her chest... She couldn't possibly be the same Persephone. No, something had changed - that same drive to protect others was there, at the surface... But something entirely different lurked beneath it.
Leda didn't want to find the truth.
"Stay away from me, Persephone! You're not the same gentle person I knew before... You're something else now, and I don't want to see you anywhere near the teammates we used to share. I don't want to do this, but I swear to God, if you take another step toward me I will attack you!" The thought of attacking a former ally churned her guts, but she swallowed the welling nausea knowing that she might have to. Persephone... Did they even take her willingly? Or did they ambush her as she tried to escape, and corrupted her to their side? Was this just some cover to keep her wits about her? Oh, Persephone... What happened to the real you?
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Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2014 9:32 pm
Persephone sighed, withdrawing her hand and stepping back. It was obvious Leda didn't understand, that she was still clinging to the view that Order was the right side and the right way to go. It was, however, rather nice to see a spark of ferocity in her.
"Biela was a casualty of war and one that could've been prevented if I or any of us had half the abilities the Negaverse blesses." As if to prove her point, she teleported back over to the swingset. "If Order could do that, maybe someone could've stepped in and stopped the blow, or taken it instead of her - hell, we could've left that warehouse as soon as they attacked.
But Order can't do that. You can't do that. I can. I am so much more than I was that night, Leda, and I'm not just talking about my buttwings or my black fuku or my new magic." Which she still hadn't tested, and which she had no desire to use on a former teammate.
The energy seemed to drain from her, and she sank back onto the swing. "Ask Dionysus if he thinks I betrayed him. I already spoke to him, I'll find the others, and nothing you can say will stop me."
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Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 10:22 pm
"But all those extra skills come at a price... Now you have to hurt other people just to keep them! Quite honestly, I don't think it's worth it, and I don't know what got you to abandon your friends and family to become that, but I'd never choose it for myself. Maybe the people on this side of the fence didn't mean much to you, but they mean too much for me to just drop for the ability to teleport!" Now that Persephone maintained her distance, Leda allowed her stance to drop. She knew she was far outgunned here, with an eternal corrupted senshi, but Persephone seemed to lack the intent to attack her...
"Fine, I'll ask Dionysus for myself, even though I know you betrayed him. You betrayed everyone else too and I hope they stay out of your path." She spoke softly, despite the anger in her words. Even now, she started backing up toward the edge of the park, where forestry and underbrush prevented pryers from peering too deep. "Maybe someday you'll figure out that the choice you made was a bad one, Persephone. I hope you can live with that."
Leda never turned her gaze from her former teammate as she retreated; slow, dragging steps informed her of any obstacles. Soon, she slipped behind the forefront boughs of the forest, with deciduous trees on either side clawing into her vision, before she finally faced the woods. Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks once more as she reflected on this small journey - from the murder of a teammate to the corruption of a friend. Somehow the world didn't seem so innocent anymore.
Dead underbrush crackled and crunched beneath her shoes as she progressed through the forest, over snapping twigs and between thick trunks that grew so close together that the senshi turned sideways to edge by. And every step of the way, she reminded herself that she didn't want to think about this anymore.
She didn't want to think about this ever again.
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