[Mid-November 2013]


There was only one person who knew more about the crazy stuff that senshi and knights got themselves tangled in than Tara did. So she made a phone call, arranging to meet her contact. Not at the house. It was too risky, considering Kent’s recent arguments. If he suspected anything, she would probably be back home before she could come up with a decent defense. Instead, she henshined up and went over to the HITS campus. The school was already deserted, its workers having flocked home to begin their Thanksgiving preparations.

Aquarius perched on the roof of the science hall. It was a short enough building for a senshi to leap to the top of it, but also featured an easily-accessible fire escape. She was sitting on the top of it, looking at the school and what lay beyond. Heights, even low ones, made her comfortable. If she could see what was in front of her, maybe she wouldn’t be ambushed. Maybe she wouldn’t have to die again.

”There’s more to self-preservation than seeing what’s coming. And I’m not convinced you can do even that yet.”

“Shut up, Exidor.”

”I do wish you would stop calling me that. It’s not my name. And it sounds silly.” From the way her past self spoke, it was clear that his true objection was to the latter point. He hated being viewed as silly.

Which was too bad for him, because Aquarius found him hilarious. Or else she found him so annoying that she wanted to kill him, which was impossible since he was already dead. “I told you, I can’t call you Aquarius. It’s too weird.” If she let him have her name, her identity, then who was she supposed to be? “And since you won’t tell me your other name-”

”I already informed you that I have no other name!”

“- then you’re stuck with what I give you.” The name was inspired by an old sitcom she watched with Kent sometimes, about an alien who lived on Earth. One of the supporting characters was a guy who was believed to be crazy, and talked to a number of invisible followers. Even though her spiritual stalker was the apparition, rather than the seer, she found the name appropriate. Besides, it was fun to watch him squirm when she used it. “I’ll stop calling you that when you stop hounding me, okay?”

Aquarius- or rather, Exidor- rolled his eyes. ”As I have already explained repeatedly, I’m trying to help you. And even when my services are no longer required, I’ll still be here. I will always be here. Because-”

“Yeah yeah, I know. You’re me. I get the picture, Exidor.” Aquarius pulled out her phone and checked the time. Not that her contact was late, particularly, but it gave her something more productive to do than argue with herself.


There was something about the semantics of ‘point of contact’ that Zia liked and would have been irrationally giddy over if she knew it had been used to refer to her. Wasn’t she special.

Aquarius’ propensity for high perches presented something of a problem, though, since she wasn’t good at making an entrance on those. She was good at laying in wait on those, but her reluctance to go full cat form and lack of general grace and coordination made it hard to be impressive and enter dramatically.

Caught between practicality and the need to be intrusive and demand attention, she opted to just stroll up to and around campus until she meandered over to the science building with her hands in her pockets.

“Hey, chicky, you up there?” She called with no sense of stealth or tact.


Aquarius was beginning to feel like Rapunzel, being called to on her tower. First Thraen, now Zia. At least neither of them wanted her to let down her hair. It wasn’t long enough to be of much use to anyone, unless they were a cat or something. (Well, Zia was, but that wasn’t really the point.) Besides, hauling someone up with only your head for support sounded all kinds of painful.

Instead, she took one last look at the scenery and pushed herself forward, enjoying the moment’s weightless feeling before sticking her landing. Practicing jumping off of buildings had really helped. She looked over her shoulder, to see if Exidor would fall. Obnoxiously, he landed just as cleanly, and flashed her a smug expression.

“Oh, shut up,” she grunted.

”I didn’t say anything.”

“I bet you were thinking it. So Zia, have you heard of something like this before?”

Exidor rolled his eyes. ”Since you are the only one who can see me, your friend might appreciate some sort of further explanation.”

Aquarius really hated when he was right. And since he usually was, she was usually cranky. “The guy there-” she gestured to the empty space next to her- “who you apparently can’t see, claims to be Sailor Aquarius. The older model. I thought senshi didn’t get harassed by ghosts, so what gives?”


Zia’s brow raised slightly, but other than that, her normally dynamic expression seemed frozen as Aquarius started awkwardly jumping right into a conversation…

And Zia was already lost. She glanced over to the empty space and back to Aquarius a few times, blinking slowly as she tried desperately to process information that wasn’t actually there.

:”I… what?” Her brow finally knitted at the realization something was a little off here as she looked back at the empty space.

“They do. And only at their wonder, not on the planet Earth proper. Are you… seeing something? Are you okay?”


Sure enough, Zia couldn’t see her visitor. Not that Aquarius had expected her too, but having some sort of confirmation that she hadn’t gone Section 8 would be nice. She only had Exidor’s word on that, and since he claimed to be her, that didn’t mean much.

“I’m fine,” she said, dismissing the concern impatiently. “I had a fight with Kent, but we worked it out and it’s all okay. I mean, he saw me, but he doesn’t know it was me, and I saved him from his dark evil twin. Do you know what the deal with those is? They sure looked dark and mirror-y.” She wasn’t trying to cast any blame, but figured that since Zia was interested in what the Dark Mirrors were up to, she might have more information. Her general network was also way bigger than Aquarius’, which said almost nothing since Aquarius was a hermit.

Exidor coughed gently. “Is that what you called your friend here to discuss?”

“I was getting to that! Stop interrupting.” To Zia, she probably did look nuts. But Zia would, she hoped, understand. “So yeah, uh, this guy. I had some sort of past-life regression at the Outpost, and when I snapped out of it, he was there. Said something about wanting to help me, but I don’t know what with. And he has not shut up since.”

”My presence would be wasted if I simply followed you around without speaking. And you would no doubt find that even more disturbing.” He folded his arms triumphantly, then looked at Zia as if he weren’t quite sure what to make of her.

That would, Aquarius silently agreed, be much freakier. “It’s not even just when I’m powered up, either. He nags me even when I’m, y’know.” Sure, they seemed to have the area to themselves, but she wasn’t about to say her real name out loud. Her meaning was clear enough.



“I heard they had something to do with the eclipses, and I think that’s too close to the classics for the Dark Mirrors to worry about,” Zia said with a light brush off. She hadn’t really done her due diligence in investigating the shadow clones, and this show of shocking irresponsibility in the pursuit of knowledge had a little something to do with the fact it was very possible it could be Dark Mirror related, and she was afraid of finding out. Her awkward disinterest was something of a self preservation mechanism in her brain.

Just don’t look at it and it’ll go away.

She glanced at the empty space again, looking almost tired. She wanted there to be something there because that would mean so many more good things, as opposed to if there was nothing at all. But then Aquarius clinched it when she said he was still there when she powered down. Just when Zia was starting to reason out some not-awful reason for this behavior like how maybe Zodiacs were different, maybe there was some facet of the outposts not yet discovered, Aquarius had gone ahead and crushed it with extra details.

Later Zia would regret it, but she looked almost irritated that she had gone and ruined the little safe wall of ‘everything it totally fine’ Zia had already been mentally building up.

Inside she only felt frustrated at her lacking ability to understand and help, but outwardly, yeah, that was irritation. Oops.

“I… that shouldn’t happen...” She exhaled. “When you power down, you’re unplugged from your wonder or outpost or whatever. You shouldn’t…”

She shouldn’t be seeing anything at all. Especially since she was reincarnated like every other senshi. There was no ghost.

“Okay… Aquarius. I know we live in a weird world where people do see ghosts of the past and get magical cosmic guides and stuff but… maybe you should consider that…. isn’t what’s happening here.”


It was a little bit disappointing that Zia didn’t have more information about the weird clone effect, but as Exidor had reminded her, that wasn’t why they were there. Aquarius filed away the information about the eclipse connection for later, when she wasn’t being haunted by a dead guy who claimed to be her.

She was about to ask another question, but stopped before she could form it. Was Zia… annoyed with her? Aquarius took a step back, trying to get her bearings. She thought that Zia would find this interesting. Or at least not annoying. Was she supposed to keep their talks limited to language-based information? That seemed like such a waste.

”She’s wrong, you know.”

Aquarius stopped second-guessing herself long enough to stare at Exidor. “What?”

”About this ‘unplugging’ or whatever she calls it.” Exidor came closer to Aquarius and scrutinized Zia even more thoroughly. ”Even when you are not directly calling on the power of Aquarius, you are always connected. It’s a part of who you are.”

Why did Exidor always seem to be right? It was seriously frustrating. But Aquarius felt that, once again, he was telling the truth. When she had run away from being a senshi, the monsters kept coming after her. Wasn’t that because they could tell who she really was?

The fact that Zia seemed to be questioning her sanity didn’t help matters. She gave a short laugh at the suggestion that this wasn’t normal. “Of course I’ve considered that. It’s the obvious answer.” Magic or not, it was way more likely that she was crazy than channelling her past life. “But the things he says always make sense, even if I don’t agree with them.” Man, that sounded like she was letting him control her. That wasn’t the real issue. “Zia, let’s face it: even if I have taken a trip to crazytown, what am I supposed to do about it? Tell a shrink about all the times I’ve died or been attacked by monsters? Break into a pharmacy and steal psychotropic drugs? Let the guy yammering in my ear drive me even more nuts?”

Exidor huffed. ”I resent that remark.”

“You resemble that remark, Exidor,” Aquarius shot back, too ticked off to care if she looked crazy anymore. Zia clearly thought she was. Why bother with a charade?


Zia opened her mouth to argue, but promptly closed it again when she realized she had no argument. Not one she could put into words anyway. It had been a couple of months now that she moved in with Caroline, who easily recognized the disturbed and unhealthy behavioral changes in her daughter and had been pushing her to get help, something, see a doctor. And Zia had been continuously defiant, reasoning out a similar argument in her head that Aquarius had just given her.

That didn’t change the twisting feeling of anxiety and dread. In fact it only made it worse. Zia knew she was a time bomb, she didn’t want to similarize her mental state with her younger friend’s in any way, especially since Tara seemed to devolve into something much worse.

At the very least Zia wasn’t hallucinating Aphrodite standing next to her or anything.

Still, her jaw clenched as the irritated frustration continued to twist her guts. Something was wrong, Aquarius was wrong, they needed someone more capable or at least not as cracked. Zia certainly was not capable of handling as she mentally wrestled with the fact she had no counter attack, and couldn’t justify sticking with her old solution. She was at a loss, a total loss, and eventually what had outwardly looked like irritation melted into weakness and distress.

“I just…” She whimpered, and didn’t even have the capacity to be disgusted with herself as she roughly twisted her fingers and avoided eye contact. At the very least she managed not to blatantly request Aquarius stop it and stop stressing her out. “I don’t really know…”


“Then say you don’t know,” Aquarius snapped. “Don’t make me feel like I’m insane just because you don’t have the answers for a change.”

Exidor frowned and put his ghostly hand on Aquarius’ shoulder, making her shudder. ”That was uncalled for. She was most likely just trying to help.”

With a great deal of effort, she managed not to respond to that. She also refrained from putting her hands over her ears and yelling about how she couldn’t hear him, because the last time she’d tried that, the results had been quite unsatisfactory. She did, however, shut her eyes until she felt certain she had control over herself. Even if this ghost, or whatever he was, wasn’t possessing her, his words still inspired her to do things she’d rather not. Like bite off the heads of her friends, due to a frayed temper and worn-out nerves.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. There. “Look, just forget about it.” Aquarius opened her eyes again and shrugged. “I’ll figure it out, one way or another.” What choice did she have? She certainly didn’t intend to go on being haunted for the rest of her life. “What about you? Any news on your end, research-wise?”

”That change of subject was more transparent than I am,” Exidor commented, but Aquarius gave no indication of hearing him. The time for talking about ghosts was clearly over.


It wasn’t often Zia didn’t have answers, and the feeling was an unpleasant one. However, she was still very certain Exidor did not exist, and was not a supernatural being or piece of the past. She was more convinced Aquarius had passed some sort of breaking point or mental line and was falling to pieces in a way she didn’t know how to put back together and it was unsettling and distressing.

She didn’t know how to handle it, not for herself, and certainly not for the younger girl in front of her.

The change of subject did nothing to sooth her, and Zia was still cycling through anxious and upset tics with rapid and rough pacing as she raked her fingers through her curls and twisted her fingertips and scratched off her nail polish at less than casual pacing.

“...Research,” She mumbled, trying to acquiesce the change in topic regardless. “I met a Negaverse officer that’s trying to become a youma.”

Well she thought Bischofite’s goals were interesting, if only in how they related the human struggle to the options Chaos granted.

“Nothing… nothing important or helpful, though,” She said, fiddling with her necklace as she looked down at it and her shoes. Certainly nothing helpful in this situation.


There. Something totally unrelated to her current situation. Aquarius happily latched onto the subject. Disturbing as the concept was, it wasn’t anywhere near as freaky as what was happening to her, and so it was relatively safe to discuss.

“One who wants to be a youma? I thought that the officers ordered the youma around. What perks would there be to becoming one?” She thought back to her own time spent as a zombie, wondering if anything about it had been worth sacrificing one’s humanity for. “Being unkillable was interesting, but I think in our case it was only because nobody had any worthwhile weapons in the barrier. And the only senshi were the Zodiacs.” Many of whom were dead or zombified at the time, herself included. “There was accelerated healing too, but I thought that was something everyone involved in this warped battle got. Like a door prize. And the negatives…” Images she had long been suppressing bubbled to the surface, of lunging after people, gnawing on corpses. With it rose a feeling of hunger she wished she could forget.

”I would hazard a guess that this ‘officer’ she speaks of wants to become a more powerful variety of youma. Something closer to the chaos monsters that plagued the Surrounding.” Exidor seemed interested in spite of himself, and had no qualms about interrupting the conversation.

“Huh. That could be it, I guess.” Aquarius looked, then realized who had spoken and scowled. Now she was going to have to ruin things, or else pass it off as her own idea. “I mean, I was just thinking that maybe this dude- or gal, whatever- wants to become a more powerful youma. But is that kind of thing even possible?”

Here she was, taking suggestions from what may or may not have been a dead guy. Who was she to say what was and wasn’t possible?


”I don’t think it’s a power thing…” Zia murmured, her brain still lingering behind in past piece of conversation that didn’t matter in the here and now. “Maybe, I’m not sure. He called them an evolution of mankind, I am assuming he is misinterpreting the mutation caused by improper Chaos dosages. He said he wants to shed the unnecessary, and live a streamlined existence.”

She rolled back on her heels a little, and as guilty as it made her, her brainspace did shift away from Aquarius’ problems to puzzles she’d rather be working out. For some reason Aquarius was not a puzzle, just a horrible mess that only had despair waiting if she didn’t think of answers. Answers she had no way of having.

“I thought it was an interesting development, that the mistake would suddenly become desirable, because I’ve known people who have considered and pursued corruption for similar reasons. Not entirely seeking to streamline, but forget. I think it all comes down to erasure, and when one reaches a certain level of humanity, it becomes attractive. So first corrupting to the Chaos side and this is like… the next step. A more final one, beyond simple corruption. He I don’t think he sees it that way, though…”

She tapped the stone pendant that hung around her neck in a steady rhythm as she thought, versus the frantic and haphazard way she did when she was panicking. “I want to see it happen, though, just to see… Development is development.” And stagnation was deadly.


“It does give credibility to your analogy of Chaos as a drug. The more you have, the more you want. So this guy- what rank was he, anyway?- wants even more, even though he knows it would overload him. The question is, does he want it because of that overload, or in spite of it?” If it wasn’t such a deadly toxin, Chaos would probably be fascinating to study. It was, in some ways, a shame that Aquarius was too close to the situation to feel that rush of scientific curiosity. She could not want someone to try taking that step, the way that Zia did, knowing that it would probably kill them. Or worse. But if they were determined to do it anyway, not that she could easily imagine such a thing, would she try to stop them?

Something else to be added to the list of things she didn’t know.

Exidor coughed. “I’m curious as to what she means by ‘erasure.’ Surely, one tainted by Chaos is not the person they were before, but I’m not sure that’s the whole story.”

“So what’s this about erasure?” Aquarius asked, a little too loudly. Mostly to get the voice to shut up. And maybe a bit because she was curious too. “I’ve never met anyone who actually sought out corruption.” Maybe she was too isolated (no, she was definitely too isolated), but she thought that those who ended up on the side of the Negaverse did so because they were preyed upon and taken, not because they wanted it for themselves.


”He’s a general!” Zia quipped and nodded. “So from some perspectives it is clearly the next logical step. If one wants more Chaos.. then, welp.”

Maybe it was unsympathetic to think of him as a great experiment rather than a person who was about to destroy themselves. But she didn’t know Bischofite, and she was certain he didn’t end up that highly ranked in the Negaverse for nothing. He was not an individual she had any love or attachment to. He had value, and she would miss him if she caught news of his death.

But that value was in what twisted monster he might become, his great potential, and how that might affect the landscape. She had no urge to stop him and felt no grief for whatever his grisly fate might be.

“Oh, well… You know, how it destroys your identity and affects your memories,” She had to pull herself out of her inappropriately gleeful thoughts. “You become unrecognizable as a human and have to start over, when you change sides, because of the way Chaos disturbs your starseed. I’m not so sure about corruption but I’ve heard that purification, when it removes the Chaos… sometimes memories go with it. Quite a few memories. And I think when you corrupt it erases a lot. Like… it’s…”

She had to stop and think for what she had accused Kallichore of seeking when she entrusted her with her corruption plans. “It’s a magical lobotomy, really. Makes you nice and dumb and happy and compliant.”

She shrugged a little. “And some people, I guess, don’t mind being compliant slaves if they are happy slaves with no more pain.”


Now that she thought about it, Aquarius knew very little about corruption and purification. She knew that she had been corrupted, in a way, but apparently it wasn’t the standard. Though that would help explain why her memories of Barren Pines were so fuzzy. She had been purified too- obviously, since she wasn’t a zombie anymore- but that had also been unusual. Which just figured, didn’t it? Like she really needed more ways that the Zodiacs were freaks of nature.

“I’ve never met anyone who was purified or corrupted the way you’re talking about,” she admitted. “But that does make sense. It’s like what you were saying about the Dark Mirrors too, isn’t it? And since Chaos is behind all of it, even if its form is different, that the end result is so similar is to be expected.” She paused, considering something. “So if you overloaded a Dark Mirror Senshi’s starseed with Chaos energy, would they become a youma too? Or something different? Not that I want to try it,” she added hastily. “I just kind of wonder where the similarities end and the differences begin.”

Sort of like with the Zodiacs and the White Moon Senshi, she realized. For a brief moment she felt a pang of sympathy for the Dark Mirror Court, freaks of nature bound to a princess without much say in the matter. Then the moment ended, as she remembered that Zia had told her of senshi clamoring to join their cause. They still had each other, regardless of their ruler’s whims. Though her isolation was largely of her own making, Aquarius was still alone.

”Only because you choose to be,” Exidor reminded her, refusing to let her run from that fact. ”And even then, you’re not alone. Isn’t this girl your ally?”

“She won’t be if you keep butting in!” Aquarius shot back, then froze. Of course, Zia would have to notice that. And then things would get uncomfortable again. It was silly to think they could hold a normal conversation when one of them kept hearing a third party. If she kept this behavior up, she really would be alone. “I, uh, I should go.” She didn’t even bother coming up with an excuse. “Thanks for the help, though. Keep me posted, okay?”

It was hard not to apologize for making things weird, but she couldn’t. Maybe Zia was wrong, and this was a normal part of being a Zodiac. She couldn’t apologize for seeing something normal. And she couldn’t deal with thinking about what it would mean if this wasn’t normal. So she ran, first leaping back onto the roof, and then off towards her house.

”If she wanted to,” Exidor said softly, easily keeping up, ”she could come find you at your home.”

“Yes,” Aquarius admitted, wishing yet again that he would stop being right all the time. “But Zia’s got better things to do than worry about you.”

”She’s worried about you.”

There was no snappy comeback to that, so Aquarius simply kept running. By now, she was very good at it.


”I… um… I’m not really sure how their starseeds work,” Zia admitted, which was sort of a painful confession considering who and what she was. If anyone had any idea, it should be her, but it wasn’t.

She would’ve drifted off into her own thoughts if Aquarius hadn’t snapped at their non-existent third party, which made her eyes glance up from her nervous fidgeting, wide and concerned. And then she was leaving.

“Wait, please don’t-- !”

Aquarius being out of her mind and out of Zia’s sight was extremely troubling for the Mauvian hybrid, but when she reached out, she was already far out of her grasp and gone, leaving Zia there helpless and unsure about what to do.

“Oh god,” She exhaled shakily and glanced around, trying to think of some course of action as she gripped both sides of her head. Home would probably be good. Regroup her thoughts, ruminate on this a little. She would head home. After she spent some time slumped against a wall resting her head on her knees trying to get a grip.