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 Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 8:27 am
It had been a fortunate night in the field of starseed reaping; Amphitrite hoped that Umber would be pleased with her. The basic senshi, some no-name girl that honestly didn't look much older than Amphitrite herself claimed to be, lay on the ground with her eyes staring vacantly up into the sky, nothing beneath them.
The corrupt's eyes lingered on the body, and the vaguest touch of what resembled remorse and discomfort washed through her. It'd gotten easier, now; she'd mostly overcome her aversion to plucking starseeds from their hosts. She no longer had flashbacks to Leucite's hand in her chest, and she no longer gagged and recoiled when she did it.
It was just here and there, now and then - a prickle of something unsettling in the pit of her stomach. Maybe it was the upgrade to super? - no. Amphitrite preferred to think she had just gotten stronger, overcoming her demons and truly coming into her own.
Another prickle, a different kind, made the hairs on the back of her neck rise - an energy signature. A powerful one. Eternal level? Close, so close. She must have been distracted by the brief fight. Careless, she thought to herself with a cluck of her tongue.
Although.
She brought the starseed to her lips, without turning around. "I'll eat it if you come any closer."
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 8:50 am
Ganymede came upon the corrupted super Senshi at a time of night that rightly should have seen her sleeping.
Not so long ago, she'd sensed two auras in the area—one strong and dark, the other weaker but pure—and, assuming a battle might be taking place, aborted her walk home in order to check on things. Upon arriving, she was glad she had, for the second of the two aura's disappeared, and it did not take Ganymede long to realize why.
There was the corrupted Senshi, standing over her prey with her back to Ganymede. There was something familiar about her. The color of her hair. The tone of here voice. Ganymede came upon her from behind. With the girl's back to her, Ganymede could not immediately place her, but she knew she'd known this Senshi. Not Cyllene, not Azurite, not the pink hair corrupted Senshi she met once's so long ago.
Then who...?
“You don't have to do that,” Ganymede said carefully. She slowed her approach, lest her proximity encourage the Senshi to swallow the seed. “I'm not here to hurt you.”
Then, a memory. A battle which ended in a knight's corruption. Recognition sent a jolt through Ganymede's heart. She swallowed down the sick feeling of guilt, licked her dry lips and said, “Amphitrite...”
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 9:25 am
"Are you so sure?" Familiar bitterness seeped into her voice, as hard as she tried to keep it neutral. She clutched the starseed like it was her life support - in a way, it might prove to be true. Penthe had reacted violently enough to her, and she hadn't been clutching another senshi's starseed in her palm then.
Still.
She half-turned to peer at the senshi, glancing at her through locks of sea foam hair. Her eyes widened, just a fraction - it was her. The senshi from the corruption. The one with the golden glow and the knight by her side. The one who'd stood against Cinnabar, who'd hurt her.
The corrupt frowned deeply.
"How do you know my name?"
Yes, she remembered this senshi - vaguely - she'd seen flashes of her and her light in her dreams, nightmares, whatever you wanted to call them. But like everything else, it was fractured, fragmented. She had a place in Amphitrite's memory, but no name to match.
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2015 1:26 pm
Amphitrite was lost to her. Seeing her face again drove that fact home, like a heavy weight settling on her shoulders. Ganymede took a breath to ease the ache she felt deep down—the ache of guilt, and of loss, and of hopelessness.
She cringed to see the starseed so close to Amphitrite's lips. Ganymede would not soon forget what it felt like to swallow one.
“Don't you remember who I am?” she asked.
It hurt to go unrecognized, as much as it hurt to sense the aura which, to Ganymede, felt so wrong. She could not pretend that she and Amphitrite had been close, but Ganymede remembered her as she used to be. They could have been friends once. Now, they would be lucky to go without calling one another their enemy.
“My name is Ganymede,” she said. “We used to know one another, back before you were in the Negaverse. Do you remember that? It wasn't so long ago...”
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 3:29 am
Ganymede. The name was familiar, like deja vu - but it did nothing to dredge up any further memories. Secretly, Amphitrite was relieved. She had kept the journal originally since the surges were too strong, too overwhelming, too - too much of a liability given how often the flashbacks happened. Since she'd become a super, everything had just become so much easier.
"My memory's not what it used to be, " the corrupt remarked dryly, pointing to her temple with her free hand, posing it as though it were a gun. She tilted her head to a side as she pulled the 'trigger', then leveled out again, lowering the starseed, but keeping it in hand. "I know your glow."
She didn't know her situation was abnormal, that many corrupts kept half their memories intact - though her kind, the forced, wiped slates, were increasingly common. Amphitrite knew she had struggled against her corruption, crying and screaming as Laurelite had poured chaos into her. But she remembered the pain more than her reasons, all lost to her, and remembered she had opened her eyes to a world of relief and acceptance.
A long pause, a slight furrowing of her brows.
Finally, "I think I liked you." The past tense was deliberate, laced with a hint of callousness that'd never been there when she'd been Order. This from the same girl who'd looked at Ganymede not so long ago with a smile and uttered the words 'You'd make a better princess'.
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 7:19 am
The irony of what Amphitrite had once said to her was not lost on Ganymede, though whether or not she was truly “better” was a matter up for debate.
She frowned lightly as she observed Amphitrite, watching the motion Amphitrite made with her hand by her temple. That Amphitrite did not quite remember her hurt more than Ganymede thought it should. They'd barely known one another before, yet that did not stop the pain and the guilt over seeing Amphitrite as she was now.
Cyllene still remembered who she was. Cyllene still spoke to her as if they could be friends, and in some ways it was almost like they were allies still. Ganymede cared for Cyllene, felt protective of her, and she liked to think Cyllene returned the feeling.
But Amphitrite seemed to remember little, if anything, about her. What was the difference? Why could Cyllene remember where Amphitrite could not?
Ganymede wondered what she could have done to prevent it. If she'd known of Amphitrite's predicament, she would have done everything in her power to save her. It did not matter to her that at the time she could not have even saved herself. She could have done something. She knew she could have. After it was all over, Ganymede should have looked for her...
“I'm sorry,” she said. There was regret in her voice. Her expression looked sad and drawn. “I'm sorry for what happened to you. I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help you. I would have. I... if only I could have. What did they do to you?” she asked.
She thought she might know how things had gone. Amphitrite hadn't struck her at the type to go willingly.
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 6:29 pm
Amphitrite's brow arched, now, and she eased back onto shell heels and then forward again, regarding the eternal senshi through half-narrowed eyes. Ganymede wasn't the first person to apologize; Ash had, too, sobbing and desperate, imploring her to return to the people that had left her there to die - bitterness flared in her eyes, although it didn't slip from her lips, not yet. She'd learned from her encounter with Penthe how the glowing senshi could hurt, had seen what Ganymede did to Cinnabar. She wasn't stupid.
Besides - this apology was different from Ash's. Less desperate, more subdued, but still visibly upset. Less like she was in agony and more as though her suffering were subtle and prolonged.
It didn't change a damn thing. Apologies still meant less than dirt to her. But the way she offered it was intriguing
She was also the first person to ask, what did they do to you?
"New Year's, " and the corrupt said it more curtly today, more used to using her experience as a weapon than an answer. "Everyone else got rescued. I didn't. - I think I heard the rescue, but - no one ever came, not in enough time, " and she shrugged her shoulders, a hardness in her eyes. "They kept me for another month after that as bait. No one came."
Amphitrite bit her lip, one of the few gestures that had carried over after her corruption, and then laughed softly - but with that ever present edge of resentment, it was a chilling sound. "What didn't they do? - but I was an enemy." A sad excuse of one at that. "I was lucky, really. General-Queen Laurelite saw promise in me."
Now, she spoke with fondness, admiration, adoration - really, the same way she used to speak about Ganymede, back when she'd held her as the ideal. "I didn't deserve it - I begged for death, rejected her gift - but she made me better than I was." The corrupt extended her arms, stretching, pleased with the way her muscles had filled out and toned. "After that, they took care of me - like a family. And here I am."
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Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 8:05 am
Ganymede flinched at the mention of New Years. Even now, these eight months later, the memories haunted her. The cage. (Where had Amphitrite been kept?) The screams. (How many of those had belonged to her?) The starseed she thought she could still feel burning coldly in her gut. (What sorts of horrors had Amphitrite faced?)
She'd been beaten, branded, and burned, forced to make a choice between consuming another Senshi's starseed or leaving that fate to someone else. She'd seen her husband tortured, heard her friends' screams for help, for solace, and she could do nothing about it. Trapped, drained and weakened, locked in and abused, she hadn't had the power to save herself, much less anyone else.
But Amphitrite could have been saved. Someone... there had to have been someone who could have saved her.
Desperately, Ganymede tried to find someone to blame who wasn't herself.
Tears sprung into her eyes, but she was stubborn and held them back.
“I'm sorry,” she said again. This time her voice sounded strained. She was obviously struggling to keep back her emotions. “I would have come for you if I could have. I... I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't even save myself.
“I was there,” she explained. “I know what it was like. They wouldn't have been able to corrupt me even if they wanted to. I was going to die there...”
It sounded like an excuse, a way to ease her own guilt.
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Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 3:40 am
Seeing this woman, this senshi, with tears in her eyes did nothing to move Amphitrite. "Do you?" she said almost lightly, and felt bold enough to step closer to the glowing senshi, still clutching the starseed in the palm of her hand. "Do you know what it's like, Ganymede? - do you know how many times they threatened this?"
With her free hand, she reached into the hole on her chest and pulled out her corrupted starseed, with a sickeningly sweet smile on her face. "Do you know how many times they reached inside me to touch it? - do you, Ganymede? Do you know what that's like? That violation? Just for fun?"
It'd only been one, as far as she remembered. But she didn't know. And Ganymede certainly didn't.
The corrupt senshi slipped the starseed back into her chest with a short, bitter laugh. "You weren't strong enough. No one was. - bullshit. No one cared enough to notice. That's all there was to it. You probably didn't even know I was gone, did you?"
Ash had, or said she had. - the thought nagged at the back of her mind, but again, Ganymede didn't have to know that either. "The Negaverse notices when one of their own is gone. - if I'd known from the start, maybe - " Maybe she would have done it willingly. Maybe she would have retained some of her life, her memories, in the process.
But this was fine. This was better. Even the fragments of memories she had were nothing but twisted little pieces of glass that didn't come together in any way that was good. "But thank you. Really. If you'd rescued me - given what you people do - " All of them, every senshi lumped together, " - I'd probably be dead by now. So thank you, Ganymede."
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Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 6:30 am
“Of course I know what it was like!” Ganymede insisted.
She had the memories. She remembered the hand on her chest during Elysion, the Negaverse Captain whose name she still did not know looking down at her as he prepared to pluck her starseed. She remembered Avalon reaching in to do the same, only to be thwarted by whatever power it was that protected her now. And Laurelite, of course. She remembered that with such stark clarity it was like it had happened yesterday.
“I was there, too! They tortured me, too! Only they couldn't threaten me with my own starseed so they beat and branded me and forced me to eat someone else's starseed instead! You think I didn't wonder whose it was, if it could be someone I know?”
Ganymede cringed back when Amphitrite reached into the hole in her chest and pulled out her own starseed, as horrified by it as she was by the thought of something similar happening to her.
You weren't strong enough. No one cared enough to notice, those words hurt because they were almost true. Ganymede hadn't noticed. Once again, she'd been too self-involved to know when one of her allies was in trouble. She hadn't noticed that Amphitrite was missing until seeing her during the battle with Cinnabar, and by then it was already much too late.
“I don't know what you want me to say,” she said. “I can apologize as many times as you want me to, but we both know that isn't going to make a difference. I'm sorry, Amphitrite, I really am. I can't imagine how alone you must have felt. I... but I can save you now. If you let me. I have that power.”
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Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 4:40 am
Amphitrite just smiled sweetly back, toying with the starseed between her fingers, like it were a coin instead of a senshi's life, their very essence. "I'm sorry, Ganymede - I didn't realize you had a worse time of it than me." She laughed then, flipping her hair casually out of her eyes. "Really, I mean, you remember all of it - I've just had nightmares, flashbacks, things like that - I think I'm actually pretty lucky, don't you?"
Although as she circled closer, still, something did perk her interest - it couldn't help but to do it. "I'd heard something about that - about you and that starseed - " Back when she'd had a description and a name, not exactly a face to go with it. She feigned something that might have passed for concern, although it really fringed more on morbid curiosity. For herself, and for Umber. "What was that like? - did it hurt you?"
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "I've already been saved. - can you honestly look at me and tell me there's any reason for me to go back to you and your people?" She'd filled out since her days as an order senshi, her body visibly more toned, her chin tilted with a kind of poise and confidence she'd never had - yes, she'd once been happy-go-luck, naively thrilled with senshi life and the potential for friends and adventure. That had crumbled into nothing under the weight of her father's rejection, under a plethora of failures, and even if she'd never told Ganymede the true depths of her anguish - the difference between the girl then and the woman now was stark, warped as she was.
"But you can make it up to me." Her eyes glinted; an opportunity, maybe? "Maybe we can still be friends, Ganymede. - but there's something you need to do for me." She tilted her head, chin held higher still. "Stay out of my way - if you see me, in a street, on a battlefield, anywhere - you are not to interfere with what I'm doing, and you are not to harm my friends. And I can, in return, promise you the same. I will not attack you, your loved ones - " Her smile grew a fraction. " - your knight." She remembered the way he hadn't done a damn thing to her in the last battle, back she had been a basic and he easily could have.
As she was right now, she couldn't stand against Ganymede anyway; Amphitrite knew that. And by the time she could, well - "Who knows. Maybe you can still convince me." She shrugged her shoulders; honey laced words that would never be. "So? Do we have a deal?"
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Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 9:16 am
Ganymede didn't like the sweet smiles or the honeyed words. They looked and sounded fake. Whoever Amphitrite had been before her corruption, there was little of that girl left now. That was becoming abundantly clear to Ganymede they longer they conversed.
“Of course it hurt me,” she snapped, her nerves fraying under the guilt. “We're not meant to eat starseeds. It made me sick. I thought it was going to kill me.”
It very nearly did, but as Amphitrite no longer seemed to care about Ganymede or what had happened to her, or to any of the others, Ganymede didn't feel the need to go into further detail. She didn't mention the nightmares she had still, how it often felt as if the starseed remained within her, and there was nothing she could do to force it back out. None of her efforts had worked thus far. She assumed it was something she would have to live with for the rest of her life.
The longer they spoke to one another, the less Ganymede knew what to say. It was obvious that her apologies meant nothing to Amphitrite, nor did her offer to help. After what Amphitrite had been through, Ganymede assumed the offer to save her came much too late.
“I can't do that,” she said. It was a struggle for her to look and feel determined, when there was a part of her that wanted to do what Amphitrite said if it meant making up for her previous lack of action. “If you can promise you won't hurt anyone, be they a civilian, or another Senshi or Knight, then I won't have any business bothering you. But as long as you collect energy and starseeds, as long as you're hurting my people, I don't have any choice but to stand against you.”
Ganymede's fists clenched at the mention of Valhalla, but she said nothing of it. The Negaverse was already well aware of what he meant to her.
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Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 6:00 pm
Maybe Ganymede had seen through her sweetness, but if there was one thing Amphitrite was good at, it was exuding sadness. The same kind of sadness she had when Ash had rejected her offer to come stand beside her on the other side. Although the offer was simply for her own gain, rejection was something she did not take to well, from anyone.
"You do have a choice, Ganymede." A bitten lip. A bitter smile. "I'm just not worth the risk. Too bad, huh?"
She took a step backwards, her gaze dropping to the ground.
"I'll see you again."
The words were uttered cooly, face unreadable, mere moments before she teleported away to parts unseen.
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