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 Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:30 pm
They met outside the Apollo’s on 84th, and by outside he meant ‘on top of’. The sun had set, leaving a few brave stars peeking through the light pollution like flash lights shining through pinprick holes in thick fabric. Avalon looked more horrifying than ever in the half-twilight of the world a story above the rest of civilian life. “Hey,” said Avalon, and Spinel couldn’t bring himself to answer her, still seeing her face over his as she pressed that starseed to his mouth. “Last part, I promise. And if you do well, all will be forgiven.” Sure. On the part of the Negaverse. Could Spinel ever forgive himself? Or her? Or the whole ******** Negaverse? No. Probably not.
He followed her at her gesture as she sprang over alleyways and loped across low-lying rooftops until they came to a neighborhood he recognized. DCU. She lived near here, he remembered. “You remember my bounty for Babylon? You’re going to collect it.” They dropped to street level, and Avalon’s face took on a look of concentration.
It occurred to him then that he could teleport there--he knew how--and he could snap her neck, then and there, end the threat to Tallulah and end this god damn game. No more punishments. No more Avalon. Problem solved, right? But before he could put thought into action, she was opening her eyes and he was realizing that of course he couldn’t murder her, because the Negaverse would fall on him like a wall, all at once. They’d know. Somehow, they would know.
Behind her, a youma popped into being. “Is that yours,” he asked, his mouth going dry at the thought of her adopting the soul of the senshi she’d corrupted through him.
“No,” said Avalon, “of course not. I haven’t got one of my own, so I just called this one because I knew it.” It was a horrific monster, gasping through a ruined mouth, darkness leaking through its crystalline exoskeleton. Spinel couldn’t breathe, all of a sudden. “Oh my god, don’t be a b***h,” said Avalon. “It’s just a youma.” It’s the soul of a teenage girl, he thought. He wanted to throw that in her face.
But he didn’t.
“This much power ought to bring him to us,” she said, sitting on an old milk crate--the bakery next door was never going to be the same, Spinel thought woozily--and lacing her fingers together behind her head. “I’ve seen him patrol in this area. You’ll see. He’ll come.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:31 pm
General. Corrupt Senshi. Youma. With that much dark energy in one place, Babylon had every reason to suspect that someone was up to no good. After all, the Negaverse didn’t just meet for no good reason. They had places to go where no senshi or knight could find them, for when they wanted to meet uninterrupted. This was - this was one of two things. It was a dastardly plot to do evil - or a trap. And, while it was incredibly likely to be the latter (which would also, probably, be some of the former), he still felt inclined to check it out.
On approach, he saw the youma first - a wretched creature, humanoid in form, but far gone from anything human. The most that anyone could do for her now was put her out of her misery. He raised his lantern, ready to strike - and then, in the greater light, he saw Avalon and Spinel. The general looked relaxed. Nonchalant, even. Like she had everything exactly where she wanted it. He knew that expression - it was the same one Tate used to wear, when she had him pinned two moves from checkmate and he hadn’t yet figured out where her final attacks would come from or how to counter them.
The senshi looked… The senshi looked…
Spinel looked like he’d had better days, and Babylon would leave it at that. This was definitely a trap, he thought, and in the worst way. He was outmatched. Outclassed. He’d have to fight through the youma, and through Spinel - and he didn’t want to fight Spinel, he felt bad for Spinel - and then, once he’d gotten both of those out of the way, he’d be easy pickings for Avalon.
“Really,” said the knight flatly. “Really.” This was stupid and unfair, he thought. “Stop trying to make corruption happen,” he said, addressing Avalon on her makeshift throne. “It is never going to happen.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:31 pm
Avalon kicked back on her box, leaning back against the wall for all the world like she owned everything in her sight. It wouldn’t be an impressive kingdom, but it did involve Babylon, which Spinel supposed was the end goal of today’s exercise. “I’m actually using you as a medium for punishment today,” said Avalon chirpily, “corruption is just a side benefit.”
All at once, Spinel understood why he was there. “General, please,” he said.
“Bring me his starseed, Spinel, and nothing happens to your girl.” Avalon’s tone was implacable and her smile was mocking, someone who had cornered their prey and now was ready to watch them be torn to bloody giblets in front of them.
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:31 pm
She was a monster. And he’d known that, of course, but every encounter just made clearer to Babylon something new and horrifying about the extent of her corruption. The knight recalled his previous conversation with Spinel, remembered the love the senshi had professed for his girlfriend - and now Avalon was using her as a bargaining chip? He felt bile rise in his throat. “Spinel,” Babylon said lowly, trying to meet the senshi’s eyes. “Spinel, I don’t want to fight you.”
If he fought Spinel and won, he thought, Avalon would kill the girl as punishment for failure. If he fought and lost, he would have no will left to fight the general’s advances, and he would have hurt Spinel.
The only way to win is not to fight, he thought, and although it was a stupid plan, he was going to have to go with it. I make my enemy my friend. Then they are no longer my enemy. He was just going to have to hope that one conversation with Spinel was enough to qualify for divine intervention.
And if not, then at least some civilian girl would get to go another day without her soul being ripped out of her chest.
“Avalon,” he challenged, straightening his spine. “Let’s eliminate the middle-man. You’ve shown you’ll stop at nothing to have me - so take me.” He glanced to Spinel. He hoped the senshi was following. The general would be distracted. She would not be watching her back.
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:32 pm
Spinel didn’t want to look the knight in the eyes, because he knew that he would cave. He wanted to have his cake and eat it, too--he wanted Tallulah alive, he wanted to live himself, he wanted to not have to fight Bablyon. But he had to. And two out of three wasn’t bad, he thought, jazzing himself up for the first punch. He balled up his fists at his sides and tried to not think of this knight in front of him as someone who had offered him a little taste of hope, as someone who had, for once, treated him like a human being and not a cog…
There was nothing for it, though. He had to deliver Babylon to Avalon if he wanted Tallulah to live. Those were the options. Babylon lives and Tallulah dies. Babylon dies, and…
The Knight headed it off at the pass. Spinel gaped at him, and he--he moved out of the way, to let the knight pass him. Avalon, for her part, was wide-eyed with shock. The expression faded to glee, and she got to her feet with the giddy smile of a child who has finally gotten that pony they’ve been asking for. “Oh, Babylon,” she sighed, “I promise you won’t regret this.” Spinel knew he should do something. He should get in the way, he should--he should attack Avalon, he should make this, what was happening, not be happening. But Avalon was dipping her hand into Babylon’s chest, pulling the starseed, and catching the knight as he slumped, bonelessly.
“All is forgiven,” she told Spinel, smiling at him, Babylon half-cradled in her arms. And to the knight, she hummed, “Oh, darling boy, all will be all kinds of ******** well.”
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:44 pm
He went to her, back stiff, trying to brave. He went to her, with faith placed in someone he was not sure he could trust. He went to her like an uncertain convert to a new faith, a body for baptism or a sheep for slaughter, standing before the altar with his fingers crossed - metaphorically, of course - behind his back, hoping that would save him from her strange new religion. From her dark beauty and the sharp lines of her face.
Whether his ploy succeeded or failed would not matter. He had seen what Chaos had done to her. He knew that if Spinel did not come through, Babylon would never know. All that he was or had ever been would vanish, and he would be born anew. And that was terrifying - but if you did not remember what it was like to be alive, then was being dead so bad?
Yes, he thought. It is bad for everyone left behind.
Babylon could only hope that his small kindnesses had bought Spinel’s help, and it was this small hope that he clung to as Avalon’s fingers slipped into his chest, effortlessly, like ice cleaving into water. She was cold inside him, grasping and reaching, frostbite on his aorta and vena cava, and as she pulled her hand back, glittering prize pinched between her fingers, Babylon thought - his soul was blue. His soul was made of light.
The world faded around that tiny, flickering point.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:11 pm
Spinel was going to just let them go. Avalon was stronger than he, more powerful than he, and she was glorious in her beauty--if a goddess, a goddess of death, someone he could never hope to match. But he watched that bright, burning blue starseed surface from the depths of Babylon’s chest and he remembered that same face twisted into a cruel laugh and he couldn’t let her do it. He couldn’t let her kill Babylon. He could protect Tallulah some other way, some other method--spring break was next week. She just had to be something else. He just had to find a princess, explain the situation.
He could… he could break up with her.
What he couldn’t do was hesitate for another moment. Avalon would be done gloating to herself in half a moment, done running her gloved fingertips over Babylon’s slack face--it was unnerving, was she reassuring herself that he was real?
Spinel flanked her and threw himself at her, slamming her against wall. The blue starseed went flying, and he caught it--senshi reflexes barely beating her recovery from the temporary stun. “What are you doing,” she demanded, “Freely given, freely taken! Give Babylon back!”
In his head, later, he knew he’d replay this with a witty one-liner right here. Maybe As you wish, or something like that. Instead, he slammed the starseed back into the knight’s chest and dragged him back as Avalon summoned her sword to hand. “If you give him back right now, I will forget you’ve done this,” she promised, and Spinel tried not to listen. “It will be just like it was forty-five ******** seconds ago.”
He wasn’t listening. He wasn’t listening. “Spinel!”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:13 pm
Babylon came to with a start and a wheeze, suddenly finding himself in the senshi’s pull and not Avalon’s discomforting embrace. He needed - he needed to barf, honestly, but that was going to have to wait, because Spinel had done exactly what Babylon had hoped he might do - a little faith in humanity could go a long way, provided you picked the right humans to depend on. “You saved my life,” he gasped to the senshi, bracing himself against his arm and hauling himself to his feet. “You saved my ******** life.”
Avalon was, of course and predictably, furious. “Not today!” Babylon called, and he thought - holy ******** s**t, we need to get out of here, now. Otherwise - otherwise, Avalon was going to kill them both.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:14 pm
They had to get out of there, but if Spinel didn’t do something now, when they got out of there Avalon was going to murder Tallulah. He couldn’t let that happen, he couldn’t--he lunged when Avalon charged him, dipping under the stroke of the blackened steel sword, and with a hand against her chest slammed her into the wall. Once--twice--he caught the blade of her sword in one hand, ignored the ice-cold burn, shoved it aside--blood dripped from his hands, pale pink frost crystals forming--and he got the right angle and cracked her head into the wall.
She slumped there, still and pale, a vicious doll cut from her strings. Spinel heaved a breath, and when she didn’t move, he took another, and then crossed the alleyway back to Babylon. “I’m not sure I can manage a teleport,” he said, “Is there anything--do you--I don’t know how long she’s going to stay under. Generals heal fast.”
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 10:14 pm
This had gone better than Babylon could have ever anticipated, and now they were both beyond ********. If he had to guess, Spinel’s girlfriend was the least of their worries at this point - when Avalon woke up, some civilian girl, regardless of how lovely she might be or how much Spinel might love her, was going to be the least of her concerns. The general was going to go for bigger game: Knight. Super Senshi.
So yeah, he definitely agreed with Spinel that they needed to get out of here and they needed to get out of here fast.
“I can get us off the planet,” he volunteered, thinking quickly. He didn’t know what the consequences would be for bringing a corrupt senshi to his Wonder, but right now, that was really the least of his worries. Spinel had saved his life and then some, and one good turn deserved another. He grabbed Spinel’s bloodied hand and held tight to it.. “She can look all over, but she’ll never make it to Babylon.”
He took a deep breath, urging focus into his scattered nerves. The world went quiet around him, and Babylon quickly uttered the oath that would carry them to safety.
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