It was a blur.
Delilah could hardly think, hardly speak, hardly function, and it was a miracle she remembered such simple tasks as eating microwavable ramen and taking herself to the bathroom. It all felt like a disaster to her, a tragedy, and she wasn't sure if she was grieving or simply numb.
She knew that forcible corruption was something the Negaverse eagerly partook in, removing the ability of a person to reject the concept of joining their side. It had sat uncomfortably in her gut for years, especially once she found out that she was one of those who had been one of the forced. She told herself that it was okay, that perhaps it was only some of them, that there were good people in this organization that had done questionable things and it was easier to simply stay with them. Why uproot herself when she could simply listen to the commands of her new general now that she had rid herself of the original--a myth she told herself to make herself feel better when she had simply been left behind--and continue to operate in a way that at least gave her a loosely functional if empty life of three years?
Albite, for his part, had come off as absolutely determined to rid the Negaverse of these things. He wanted to convince those of the White Moon over. He wanted to show them that there was a better way -- Chaos, that was. Her own team seemed more interested in recruitment than any of the questionable tactics of removing agency.
Yet, they had participated all the same.
They all had.
They had all been in the room, she had seen, when they had been summoned back from the mission to stand in front of the haughty Queen Laurelite who was so proud of her work. Individual beliefs be damned, the Negaverse itself was determined to continue ripping people from their very own lives. It was determined to trap them into boxes and hit them until they submitted. It was determined to partner with aliens, of all things, to do so.
Aliens.
One of the first things she had been told of the Negaverse's mission when she had been unwillingly recruited was that they were there to protect the Earth from invaders of space. Protection of Earth from Aliens was supposed to be their priority, but they were instead willingly laying in bed with them so long as they were able to use them to remove the minds of their opponents. It was a sick notion and it exposed what the Negaverse was, underneath their words and their attempts at seeming kindness, no matter how much she tried to tell herself that it was okay to stay and remain and let herself be with them.
It was okay, she had a team. They loved her, to a degree, or at least respected and relied on her in a way she was unused to. She had even found sympathy with her general, Faustite, someone who similarly found himself removed from humanity albeit from a different angle. He was now merged with a monstrous being, whereas Nembus had lost herself to the tactics of the war. She had variant underlings who had either once depended on her or depended on her now. Her job was to guide them, was it not? To guide all of them? To shield them from the worst of the evils of the Negaverse, perhaps, because one organization did not damn them all, and to say she was damned for being part of them would have been a farce.
But wasn't she?
It had seemed so easy when she had first entered the Negaverse. In an attempt to find herself an identity, Delilah would slip into the guise of Nembus and take energy until people fainted to steal their belongings. Occasionally, she would even slip their starseed out of their chest. To kill for the sake of some other entity and to advantage herself may have personally damned her, too.
And to say that it was fine that she continued to abide it, even if she no longer partook in any of it, was enough to personally damn her, too.
It was different for them, was it not?
She wasn't sure if any of them could with full knowledge choose to be there, at any point, considering what the Negaverse did and what it held over their heads, but it seemed that many of them had chosen it. Albite certainly had. From what she had understood, Alkmene had chosen to swap sides to join his sister. Lilith appeared to be happy. Celadonite had nearly demanded his admission. Haymitch was young, but he seemed content. It was only Faustite that brought her question, but to some degree, Nembus wondered if he found comfort in his inhumanity.
Did it damn them too?
Somehow, she could not bring herself to believe that, and perhaps it was something worth her consideration.
Delilah felt the way it pushed against her brain, the way it pushed her to believe that everything she had witnessed was okay and fine and normal, the way that it begged her to let it go and to simply remain as the team's Den Mother of a sort, the way it eased her heart and reminded her that not everyone in the Negaverse was like that, the way it reminded her that she had been saved from a certain death instead of simply being murdered for her sins against Captain Marcasite and the Negaverse, the way that it reminded her that the Negaverse would take care of everyone it brought it, and soon, that would be everyone on Earth--
And it seemed easy to accept.
It had been easy to accept for years. It was the path of least resistance.
It was complacency.
She remembered the way Sedna had looked into her eyes after holding her as she cried.
"I'm telling you about Chaos' influence on your thoughts and actions because it gets worse and more controlling as you advance in rank."
It eased her mind. It told her to accept it. It told her to accept the way that it tried to corrupt everything around it, even at the cost of themselves. It told her to accept the way they stole starseeds and energy and relied on it when normal humanity did not require it. It told them that shifting mission was okay, that at one point it was to prevent the invaders and at another point it was to work with other invaders but still corrupt and take into possession the current so-called invaders, who were just as Earthbound as the rest of them. It told her it was normal to be unable to reach her namesake, that place out there in the sky that Kurma had told her was just waiting for her to reach back out. It told her that her value was in what the Negaverse asked of her, and not in what she herself was, no matter what Cybele had said to her.
It told her that Phaethon's laughter on the battlefield had been right, because he felt the joy of submitting to Chaos, the joy that being part of Chaos would bring him.
It told her that the risk of leaving was too great. It told her that she had been granted a second chance once, and a second chance would not come again. It told her that if she left, she would suffer gravely. It reminded her that she had seen the results of that.
It told her that General Jet, General Faustite, General--
It told her that they would leave her head rolling across the ground that didn't ask to be fertilized by her blood.
It felt easy to give in, to remind herself that the instinct that Chaos gave her was right, that attempting an exit was a fool's errand at best. What benefit would it give her to breathe with lungs she had chosen to breathe with for a simple ten minutes when she could proceed in infinity in Chaos' embrace?
... But perhaps that was it, overall.
Had she chosen to breathe with these lungs? Had she chosen to speak her own words? Had she chosen anything of her own future in the last three years?
The answer was glaring in front of her, a neon sign like one she might have seen outside of the halls of the Anthemusa Convention.
No.
She hadn't.
But now she was going to.
backdated to November 5th
