Welcome to Gaia! ::

Scylla was getting used to patrolling in her bright red coat and those octopus leggings. They covered enough to keep her warm, with the exception of her feet. It was a careful balance in winter, keeping warm without covering herself up so much that she powered down. She envied those senshi with their winter coats and warm-looking fuku, but come summer.... Come summer she wouldn't be upset at all.

It was the sound of screaming which got her attention, the Kraken senshi's dark head jerking up, trying to identify where the sound was coming from. What? Screaming like that was not a good sign this late at night. A quick check put her at one of the only Order signatures she could feel- but she could feel Chaos.

What were the chances- no, if Chaos was the source of the screaming it would have cut off by now, starseed ripped. Unless... she could hardly ignore it. So she took off as fast as she could go in the direction of the aura, hoping she wouldn't be too late to save a life.

The scene she came upon was an unconscious woman and a dark moon senshi, and Scylla froze, watching the senshi wrap a blanket around her. Not something she thought might be done for someone whose starseed had been ripped. People didn't last very long without medical help, and even with, it would just be a cruelty to the family to let them last so long.

"Don't see many chaos agents wrapping up their victims in blankets," she drawled sweetly, keeping her stance loose and as non-aggressive as she could manage. "Then again, I haven't met as many of the Dark Mirror Court in a while." Close to the alley entrance, so she would be found before she froze, and a nice generic blanket. Someone who took the money and time to worry about the very people they preyed upon.

Interesting.

"You don't rob them," Scylla protested, taking a step forward. "You already took her energy, you don't need to steal her money too. Come on." this was ridiculous. Not even proper highway robbery, just a vulgar little abuse of power. Why had she thought that maybe there were some people in there- ugh. At least the woman was alive, even if she was now poorer. That was some small victory.

"You answer me, you're the one stealing from her purse. Isn't that a punishment?" Too caring for her own good- members of Chaos were so confusing. Their logic made so little sense to her, and her brow furrowed.

Still, she didn't make an action to attack, even though she came closer and flailed her hands at the DMC. Shoo, shoo. "Leave her alone."

Maybe if you knew more of us, you'd find out what we're not all so bad. Scylla actually laughed at that, tucking a black curl back behind her ear as she bent to double-check the woman's pulse, run a tanned hand over the lady's cheek. "Sorry, Acubens, I'm laughing because I have spent so long avoiding the Dark Mirror specifically because of who in that Court I know." she shook her head, rising, and took the other Eternal's hand.

"I'm Scylla, Senshi of the Kraken, and I was there the night your court was born."She may not know where the Dark Mirror was going, but she knew firsthand where it had come from. "Your Court has done me a few favors, but not so bad? A pity-blanket doesn't make up for robbery." yet still, she wasn't attacking, or being aggressive. Her hand didn't grasp Acubens with any tightness, and she released it easily. Just a casual handshake, as though she wasn't upset at all.

She gestured. "Go ahead, though. Tell me what you know. I'm always interested in a good story."

Scylla didn't put her head in her hands. It was a near thing.

"I wanna do some shots off the bartender," she mused aloud, staring at the sky. The thirst got progressively harder to resist every time she could see people being so casual about it. She'd been free. Uncaring.

"Your fee for-" she paused, as the other senshi's face seemed to shift from disdain? Perhaps? To something else entirely. Money was shoved back into the purse, the clutch being shoved in her direction, and the other woman shoving upward, spinning with excitement, and almost laughing with glee. What?

Apparently she had done something right, or- oh. Oh. She had apparently said something that was magical to the Dark Mirror Court member, and her head tilted. "You don't know the story?" she countered, instead of answering. Leto. Ares. Tw names that hurt her heart; one, a life she had saved, the other, a best friend she had failed to help.

"Tell me what you know, so I know where to start." the clutch had been tucked back into the woman's hand, and though it went against the grain of her to just... leave her there- ah! There came someone now, and she pushed into the alley quickly, out of sight before they could see her standing near the victim. "But not here. Up we go, Acubens."

Not of this reality. Someplace else. A home. We don't belong to chaos. Home. Choice.

As Acubens spoke, Scylla paled, nausea rebelling in her throat. Half-truths and outright deceptions. What this court had come from was nothing like Home, or Family. Choice.

In the name of Chaos. It had been the first thing Ares had said when she revealed herself as the Princess to replace Nehelenia. When she had corrupted Gaia, and Leto, and Requiem. And they tried to make it better, now? Somehow? What the ******** had Leto been feeding these poor senshi? Or had they tried to rewrite their own bloody history and make themselves...

No.

There was visible revulsion on her face as she said, "That isn't how your court started, let me assure you of that. Your court came from blood and betrayal."

For a moment, Scylla wondered if the other senshi would actually listen to her; for a moment, she seemed so startled, Scylla wondered if her ears would open wide. And then she laughed, and Scylla shook her head, actual pity and disgust on her face. She couldn't even stop it, and didn't even bother to hide it. Gods. Whatever it was, it was making her physically ill.

It was insanity, is what it was.

The girl didn't have a clue where they came from.

We don't belong to the Chaos.

In the name of Chaos.

We're a family.

I have been reborn -- and now we all can be too.

A home.

I have been living a lie since I set foot in this place, ever since I was ripped from the Black Kingdom.

Join me, or die.

If she had known then what she was learning right now, what might she have done to stop the Dark Mirro? Would she have told Ares she loved her, tried harder to be a better friend? Would she have let Leto die that night, and not live to the corruption; taken the beating that would have come from her Court, and put an early end to whatever this was? Or at least some small end; Ares would have taken someone else, but-

If you ignored the past you didn't learn from it. This appearance of the wiping away of a past that began with insanity, and betrayal, and-- She sucked in a breath, and her tongue was practically dripping with acid and bile and suppressed fury. Was that how they tried to collect their numbers?

But then, how many of the oldest were still there? Who was really to blame for this? Not Acubens- but Acubens was the one who got to handle it.

Her mind was whirling, and her thoughts made little sense in her anger. A mile a minute, a whirlwind of old betrayal and pain. "Who leads you, now?" she asked, but it was as much a demand as a question. There was no sign of the woman who had so sweetly drawled and tried to chide the Dark Mirror Senshi just a few minutes before. This- this level of ignorance was vile, and it was being done deliberately? Her eyes were cold, hard, and the nausea that poured through her veins stiffened her core.

She didn't even know where to start, but stuffing her fist through a face was progressively sounding better.

Where the violence of her rage was coming from, she'd worry about later.

Ares has not been seen since she brought the first brood home, but Leto wasn't fessing to up what was done either. Scylla's snort was loud. Remarque, at least, whoever that one was- he might have an excuse. She expected better of Leto.

"I'm going to give you the cliffs notes version, Acubens. A little night-night story to explain why someone who claims they aren't chaos still feels the need to steal energy and money from people." Not Chaos her a**. She shifted her weight, tasting the cold air and feeling it fill her lungs as she reached back to memories.

"Once upon a time, there were what we'll call the parallels. Alexandros. Nehelenia. Laocoon. Aphrodite. Ares. Gaia. Hector. Zirconia. There were more, but this is the only cast that matters. Nehelenia was the Queen, and Alexandros the Prince, much like the old White Moon had their Sailor Moon and Endymion. Parallel to them, you might say. They were like the White Moon, somewhat. Order. Clean. Then Helen and Alex died. Hector died. Aphrodite fell into a coma. The rest were..... lost. Angry. But not without friends."

Friends that hadn't mattered much, in the end. "Laocoon, Ares, Gaia, and Zirconia joined together and recruited white moon senshi to join them in their cause. They created a court of those who were willing to fight against the Negaverse. Fight and kill those who were infused with Chaos. They called it the Blood Moon Court. Not White Moon, not Parallel, but those who-"

We all have a star in our heart.

"It went downhill. Bloodshed in the name of necessity turned to bloodshed for glory. And always we were held to certain rules. The Inner Sanctum more than any. Ares broke those rules, and when the time came that she be held to account, she refused, deeming herself above them." Fallon. Jada had gotten a front-row ticket to watching the Captain of the Blood Moon change, watch her loving, proper friend become lost to whatever Ares had been. Fallon had been gone long, long before that punishment had come to pass.

She lifted her chin, and said clearly, "When she came back to us, she wasn't the same. Do you know what the first words she said were, before she- as you said- brought the first brood home? Including Gaia, but abandoning Laocoon. Abandoning Zirconia. Leaving Aphrodite behind. Abandoning her family?"

Scylla did, and she said it now, voice a soft, angry hiss.

"In the name of Chaos."

A step back, then another. "Whoever told you your court was about home, and family, was deliberately lying to you, or ignorant. Your Court is about revenge. From the night the Queen of the Parallels died, to the night Ares threw her allies through the mirror and created the first of- whatever you are. It was all about revenge. And nothing your leaders can lie to you about will clean the stain of betrayal and Chaos from the fact that your Court even exists at all. Only you can do that- and not by doing that."

Acubens should know exactly what Scylla meant, as the Senshi of the Kraken pointed in the direction from which they had come. Robbery. Draining Energy. Serving the Chaos that lived inside them.

Scylla was backing away, and she backed away further with every step the other woman took forward. The anger, and then that blank expression, that unthinking submission. She was speaking to a ******** cultist. Scylla had never seen such vacancy in the Negaverse. They knew what they were. This woman was the equivalent of a member of the goddamn Manson Family or something.

Dear God.

She kept backing away- the only direction she had gone since she had first approached Acubens on the street. The only way she could go, with the disdain and the disgust roping around her throat, trying to choke away her breath along with the panic and the fury. Don't give in, she told herself desperately a the other senshi practically chased her across the roof; Don't give in. Don't explode. She'll use it to victimize herself, to make you look like the cruel, evil White Moon senshi- She's a fanatic. A fanatic who had seen truth and threw it aside for their own delusions.

What had they done.

It might have been okay. It might have been fine.

But then Acubens touched her, and Scylla- she couldn't- there was too much frustration, and too much rage, and too much pain at the wounds she had opened to try and share with someone who didn't want to know. Acubens had been seeking some kind of validation, and Scylla had denied it, and now what she had shared was being fanaticized away. But Acubens touched her, and it meant little that the DMC wasn't a Princess, she could only see her friends being thrown through the mirror and coming out... changed.

Her voice fell clear and strong between them, full of fury and rage. "Scylla's Hunger!" she screamed, and tentacles rose from the ground around them, pushing the kneeling Dark Mirror senshi, shoving her back, shoving her away. Fury, and pain, and a rage that was responded to by the magic deep within her. Not an attack, but a barrier; she did not try and harm her, but she was not welcome so close.

"I'll believe it when I see it." she told the other woman, her power hovering between them, hungry to be unchained. "I have seen precious little from the Dark Mirror that isn't self-advantageous. You were created to serve Chaos- even your acts of kindness are built for your own self-interest. Prove me wrong if you think you can- and don't touch me."