[Backdated to after the tussle with Ceraskia, but using the standard two-week buffer.]
Cor landed on his planet and slumped over, thoroughly exhausted. The silence and desolation of his planet was a welcome diversion from the hubbub he’d just been through. He realized that he was in a grassy area, a change from the street he normally found himself on. Looking around, the area was enclosed by a building, or at least walls; perhaps it was a courtyard of some sort. He took a moment to lay back and stare up at the sky, wondering if he could see his fellow senshis’ stars from here.
The quiet was broken by Eri’s voice asking a question. “Alcene, what do you think about the Great Will? On a personal level, I mean, not a scientific or religious one.”
Cor turned to his side, and he spotted Eri and Alcene laying on their backs in the courtyard, much like he was. “That’s an odd question. A personal level encapsulates all levels, I’d say,” Alcene answered. “Could you be more specific?”
Eri sighed at Alcene turning the question on its head. “Do you really think the Great Will exists, and if it does, do you think it would really be willing to regenerate the world if something happened?”
It was Alcene’s turn to sigh now. “Such a philosophical question. The short answer to both parts is yes, I do believe in the Great Will and its ability to regenerate the world, if not necessarily its willingness.”
“Why?” Eri asked.
“The Great Will created humans on this planet. By extension, it created you, our senshi, the one who would deliver the Will of the Species back to it. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I feel as though the senshi is the answer to a question of what humanity desires most of its world. The Great Will is waiting for you to come back and answer it when the time comes.” Alcene shifted and stretched after speaking.
“The part about its willingness… you don’t think it’ll be willing to do it if it talks to me, do you?” Eri sounded put out by the implication.
“Don’t think that way. That’s not what I meant,” Alcene said quickly. “I think that the Great Will will certainly listen to you. You have a bright, pure spirit. And, as your partner in this quest, I will make sure you are ready for the end and rebirth of the world, no matter what.”
Eri seemed to want to object to something, but the vision was gone soon after. Cor sucked in a breath and exhaled it heavily. There was the Great Will again. The idea of a great force waiting for his “answer” to humanity’s desires tickled him some and supported that growing sense of purpose inside him. And yet, as Eri had said in an earlier vision, it was a lot of responsibility for one person. Even if he survived the Negaverse’s occasional pummelings of him, would he have a strong enough will to really satisfy the Great Will?
He hadn’t felt doubts like this in a while, and it worried him. Suffice to say that he was discouraged by his near-death experience with that Corrupt. Not only was he worried about the doubts in his heart, but the way he wavered in his decisions every time he came up here. He went from so sure that he was going to corrupt to “save” himself, to so sure that his planet held the answers to his salvation, to unsure of what would happen to him. For all he knew, a third force could very well scoop him up and that would be that.
He wanted to have answers, or so he thought. If it were possible to get answers without looking too far into the future, he would gladly do that. Even so, he knew better than to think that the answers to his fate would come to him if he just sat there. He had to investigate actively.
Cor Caroli slowly pulled himself up and found the door that lead to the inside of the building from the courtyard. He wasn’t sure if this was the same building he’d been exploring before, one in a similar location, or a totally different building in a different region. Still, there was time to explore, and he was in no hurry to go back down to Earth. With some more effort, he got up and went through the door to the inside of the building.
The compound he was in seemed kind of boxy all around, with right angles being the only changes in the straight hallways. Cor picked the hallway to his right to explore. For a while, he saw nothing but empty, doorless rooms. In a room at the very end of the hallway, though, some ruined tables and shelves remained, covered in dust. Even those little things made a contrast between this room and the rooms before it. Curiously, on the other side of this room was one door that hadn’t been taken off at all. It appeared to be heavily reinforced.
At that point, Cor heard Eri’s voice from his left. “So what are these supposed to do?” He asked. When Cor turned around, Eri and Alcene were holding what appeared to be bright green, palm-sized, egg-shaped crystals.
“These crystals should amplify your natural ability to conduct energy,” Alcene explained. “They'll be vital in capturing the energy stream of the planet for our purposes.”
“I always wondered if it'd be bad to suck energy directly out from the planet to protect ourselves, but I guess if the world is going to be regenerated anyway, it might not matter that much,” Eri mused allowed. “So, this is how we'd attack and defend against the monsters that the Great Will would test us with, huh?”
Alcene nodded. “Yes. With your natural magic ability, you should at least be able to make barriers using the planet’s energy.”
“Just with these little crystals?” The skepticism was heavy in Eri’s voice. “I'll take your word for it.”
“You are the only one who can do this,” Alcene said.
Eri huffed. “That's a lot of responsibility.”
Then, the two figures were gone.
Eri’s skepticism concerned Cor. He seemed to be the relaxed type, kind of like himself, but he seemed to be struggling with his responsibilities as the senshi, and with the idea that someday he’d have heavy tasks to handle when catastrophe came to pass. If he’d happened upon these visions earlier, Cor figured that he might have the same reaction. It occurred to him that perhaps he was romanticizing the idea of being an ambassador to a powerful being at the end of the world, and that by all means, the idea should be really damn stressful to anyone who just wanted to live their life.
Eri probably hadn’t asked to become the senshi in the first place. It wasn’t entirely clear what rank he was at from this vision, but there was no indication that he’d really grown into or gotten acclimated to his power and purpose, and perhaps that was okay. Just because Cor was gung-ho about having finally received a purpose didn’t mean that everyone would be that way, not even his past self. It kind of made his heart ache. It wasn’t so long ago that he was in that position, too.
In the silence that followed, Cor’s attention wandered to the door at the end of the room. Maybe he could force it open? He was very curious about what lay on the other side. He went up to the door and pulled on it with all his Super Senshi might, and while he thought he heard something give a little, he just wasn’t strong enough. Someone had put a lot of thought into making sure the door wouldn’t budge. Maybe, if Cor was a bit stronger, he’d be able to pull the door some more.
Maybe Eternal-type stronger?
Either way, he was going to have to come back later. He turned around and began making his way back down the hallway, hoping to explore the other angle of the boxy compound, when he heard the distinct sound of footsteps behind him. He nearly jumped into the ceiling, terrified that someone had somehow followed him up to his planet and that he was now at that mystery person’s mercy. However, he caught his breath as he assured himself that it was probably just another vision. Indeed, that point was proven by Eri and Alcene walking right through him.
“We sure do focus a lot on the apocalypse, especially up here,” Eri said, leaving Cor to wonder what ‘up here’ referred to.
“It’s true. Some say we spend as much time preparing for the end of the world as we do its life and rebirth,” Alcene replied. “What do you mean by ‘up here,’ though?”
“On the top stratum. I have a feeling that, if I stayed in the middle stratum, I would have gone for my entire life without hearing about half of the wacky apocalypse survival plans the government and the past senshi have made. Of course, being awoken as the senshi caused me to get kicked upstairs and be privy to all this information.” Eri sounded like he wanted to add something, but was unsure of what. It seemed to Cor that this city was divided into strata, and he hoped to investigate that more thoroughly later.
“‘Kicked upstairs?’” Alcene questioned the turn of phrase. “You sound awfully resentful.”
Eri shrugged as the duo reached the end of the hall. “Nah. It’s just kind of what happened.”
The two disappeared again before any further explanation could be given. Cor let out a heavy sigh, as though he was feeling the weight of Eri’s doubts. Somehow, even despite his own doubts, he just felt more determined to realize in the present what his past self had failed to do. He had to find out the truth behind the Great Will and see if, perhaps, it held any ability to influence the war in the White Moon’s favor.
He received an unpleasant reminder that he had, in fact, just been beaten up when one of his injuries started throbbing. Grumbling, he hobbled back into the courtyard and was about to just collapse into the grass when he thought he saw a glint of light somewhere on the ground. He exerted that extra bit of effort to investigate it, and he was rewarded with the very same crystals that Eri and Alcene had discussed, just lying in the grass. He picked them up, and he thought he felt a tingling in his palms. The sensation drew a grin out of him; it seemed that he might have found something very interesting indeed. He placed them near the door so that they could easily be found if he was able to return to this place. The crystals and the locked door provided a sense of mystery to this place, and he wanted to solve that.
Unsure of whether he wanted to spend the night recovering on a dead planet or not, Cor ultimately made the call to drag himself home. He was in pain, not really tired anymore. He’d make it home, but once he did, some rest was in order.
[Two-week buffer ends on 8/24/18. 3x solo bonus.]
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