But when, in the middle of a shift waitressing at her mother’s restaurant, she had been suddenly - unexpectedly - slammed with memories of a future that could not be, slammed so hard that she hurt and that she nearly dropped the tray of plates she was holding, she realized it was time to run.
She lied to her mother, said she was feeling sick, and bolted out the back door, but she did not go home.
No, instead, she whispered her henshin phrase and powered up, and took a breath of relief when she felt her new Eternal fuku settle around her. It had been hard-won in battle, against a General-Queen, and she had nearly died, but luck and the presence of Faust (Faust who she had killed in that awful future that could not be hers) had saved her.
When she ran, she ran to her place of solace - to her planet, to the one place where she could be sure no General-Sovereign’s hand could grasp her starseed and turn her into a monster.
Even though she was Eternal now, even though the warm weight of new power sat on her like a cloak and comforted her in her fears that she was not worthy of being a Senshi, Penthesilea expected that nothing on her planet would have changed when she returned to it. The Colosseum would still be empty - because she still was not sure her deeds were great enough to merit the final trial. What was she, but a tiny human girl trying to be more than that? A violent soul with blood on her hands and murder in her heart, who knew no better?
She stepped into the Colosseum, and as she expected, it was empty. But this time - well, this time she was prepared for that. And this time, she walked to its center and stared down, at the ground beneath her feet, at the remains of her world.
“Look,” she said, and she didn’t know who she thought she was speaking to. “I know I ain’t perfect. I let myself get swept up in what the war looked like on its face, an’ I was arrogant and stupid, an’ it was Vulcan that paid for it, not me. But I’m learnin’. I’m tryin’ so hard. I know I can’t burn Chaos outta the universe on my own, an’ I’m tryin’ t’get allies t’gether, an I’m even tryin’ t’reach out t’the other side. But you know that already - I brought a Corrupt here, an’ I’d do it again, an’ again, an’ again, until every one that’s got even the slightest hope’a bein’ saved has seen a little slice of the universe.
“I’m fightin’ my version of th’good fight, an’ I need your help t’get better at it. Gimme the final Trial. Let me try.”
The ground beneath her feet opened up, and she jumped back, and with a low rumble of machinery, the column she had seen in the book rose up in front of her. Sitting on it were the two knives from the Trial of First Blood.
She stared at it for a moment, shocked. She hadn’t expected that to actually work, but there it was, and she reached out, pressing her hand to the button-like thing on top. There was a flash of red light, and suddenly she was surrounded by strange creatures - the insects from the first page of the book.
She reached out and grabbed the knives, fingers curling comfortably around the hilts.
“Alright, ********,” she growled, “let’s dance.” And then she launched forward, driving her knife into ones’ thorax, and it screamed and vanished with a pop of strange green liquid like blood, and they were on her.
There were more of them than she could count. They bit and scratched and clawed at her, and she stabbed and slashed and cut and fought desperately against the seemingly endless tide. When she cleared one wave, a second appeared, and then a third - again and again, and while they didn’t do much damage individually, their sheer numbers meant that the fight was incredibly difficult. Without the blades, she would have been doomed.
Finally, finally when she was sure that she could fight them no longer, she drove her knife into one and realized that it was the last. Her legs wobbled underneath her and she drew in several breaths, frowning. If that was the first battle, well. Maybe she wasn’t ready.
She didn’t notice the slow gathering of dark clouds above her head.
But there was no stopping now. She walked back to the switch, and slammed the hilt of her dagger into it, and this time, the flash of light brought the pack of cat-things from the book.
They were vicious and aggressive, and didn’t wait for her to attack them. Instead, one leapt at her almost immediately, and she had to duck and roll out of the way, right into a second one.
Five, there were five, she could kill five leopard things and then she would be two-thirds of the way done and she could take a breath before the last part of the trial. So she dove into it with the same force and violent enthusiasm she had used on the insect things, aiming for what would be vulnerabilities on an earth-cat. Throat, underbelly, anywhere she could reach.
It was a good strategy, and one by one, they fell before her blades, until it was just her and the largest of the pack, both of them bloody and breathing heavily.
She leapt forward, and drove her knife into its chest, and with a gurgle of surprise, it dissipated into red mist.
She finally noticed the clouds, because they had gathered dark enough to blot out the sun.
“Damn it,” she growled. That was ominous - would a bolt from the sky strike her down if she failed?
She hoped not.
She leaned against the column for a long moment, gasping for breath. She was bloody from a dozen wounds, hurting, and already exhausted.
But there was one more piece.
One more Trial.
She pressed the switch for the third time, and the massive chimera-creature, a winged hydra with a scorpion’s tail, appeared with a bellow of rage. Penthe swallowed, and a whisper of remembered instruction echoed in her mind.
“Survive,” Andromache’s voice said, “survive five minutes with the beast and you will be master of your world.”
“Well,” she said, to no one in particular, “at least if this thing eats me I’ll be goin’ out like a badass,” she said, and then she ducked in low and attacked.
The battle was pitched and aggressive. One lucky shot severed a head, but two more immediately grew in its place - it was a true hydra, with all the associated regenerative ********,” she swore, and then thought, ‘new tactic,’ and went for its underbelly instead. She would not just survive, she would slay the beast, lay it low at her feet, as she had for the horde and the pack before it. She kept an eye on the tail-stinger -- it would be a nasty thing to discover that could paralyze or worse, and it was big enough to do some serious damage anyway.
Her existing injuries slowed her, and she realized that was part of the test. She had to be strong enough to endure, to fight through pain and suffering and overcome the nastiest thing her planet had to offer (she hoped.)
And so she pressed on, fitting her blades between scales and dodging its teeth and its claws and its stinger, which - finally, with a dive roll at the right time, it landed close enough, stuck in the dirt instead of in her, that she could swing her blade and hack it off, and the beast roared its pain to the sky. When it was distracted, she dove in, driving both blades into its chest where she suspected its heart ought to be.
She was right. It wailed, and then dissolved into mist, and Penthe collapsed. Her eyes went to the column, and the switch, pulsing red - and desperately, she dragged herself there, pulled herself up, and pressed.
Power surged into her, incredible magic. For a moment, she could feel everything - could feel her planet’s rivers, running as the barest of trickles with a thousand years without fresh water; could feel its lands crying out for the approaching storm, could feel the promise of rain in the air and everything it brought. And she could feel her planet’s core, its beating heart, the living magic that gave her her power and her title.
And she could feel Evadne, her rush of triumph because she, too, had slain the beast, could hear the cheers of the crowd and feel her joyous, settled knowledge that she was a true Senshi, a child no longer, and everything she was meant to be.
All at once, she was Jeanne and Evadne and her planet --
She was Penthesilea.
And when the feeling ended, when she was herself in her own body again -- as she breathed heavily, leaning on the the strange columned switch because her legs could not hold her, exhausted, but somehow, at the same time, incredibly invigorated, there was a crack of thunder and the sky opened up, and for the first time in a thousand years, it stormed on Penthesilea, a roiling cracking powerful thunderstorm that brought the rain the dead lands were missing.
For the first time in a thousand years, there was life.
