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 Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:10 pm
If ever a Pride Season had worn on too long, it had been this year’s.
Reiki felt guilty even thinking that, but it was true. For him, at least; he couldn’t speak for any of the other performers he knew who’d provided entertainment for all the myriad festivities in Destiny City as well as surrounding places (he’d been lucky enough to book a few gigs in Washington, DC, this year, which had involved a commute but had also meant a significantly nicer paycheck). As he packed up backstage at Scandals—heading home after his second number again, rather than staying until last call—every inch of him ached with the desire to just……go home and collapse into bed.
He still couldn’t do that, though. Not tonight. Just two more gigs tomorrow—one around lunchtime, for some local office who’d decided to book drag queens to host their boss’s birthday for one reason or another, and one standard nighttime show at the bar—and then, finally, Reiki would get his nap. His break. His more than well-earned rest.
(Hopefully, he’d earn a text back from Toráin by then, as well.…… It was more than slightly worrisome, how long it had been since Reiki had heard from him. He didn’t know whether to be worried that some magical girl nonsense had gotten Toráin sucked into its grip, or that he’d done or said something wrong and hurt his friend somehow, but whatever it was, Reiki just. wanted a chance to fix it, and to hopefully avoid having another friend just……disappear, one day, like Alex and so many others from their graduating class had done.)
If not for how much easier it made both makeup removal and getting home, he wouldn’t have bothered powering up. Arguably, it took too much energy that he did not much feel like he had……but walking home like a normal person who had to respect crosswalk signals or get hit by a car would’ve taken more, so……overall, it was for the better. And as he roof-hopped around Hamilton Street, Reiki wasn’t sure if he felt more relief or regret over his choice to do so.
Mostly because he felt the shining light of an Order aura nearby.
Not that he fixated much on where he felt it coming from, but……nearby. More powerful than he was, definitely, though it didn’t feel quite as powerful as Kerberos, Ida, or Encke (or, for that matter, Sailor Untitled Goose Game, but……eugh, Reiki had no desire to dwell on her when he still felt annoyed about how she’d treated him but couldn’t entirely justify staying upset with a teenager who was clearly some kind of traumatized, not matter how much he wanted her to not take it out on him).… Had it been Kerberos, he might’ve gone closer without reservation, but aside from the energy signature feeling different, Reiki wasn’t close enough to North End Park to think that it might’ve been.
Mostly, he wound up dithering, moving in and out of the shadows on the roof, unsure of how to proceed.… Getting too close to the Order aura could’ve been dangerous, if it belonged to someone more aggressive like Goose Game, but staying still also afforded them the chance to get one over on him.… Dimly, he wondered what Akemi Homura-chan would do, but……that thought helped about as much as getting hit in the face with a brick, since the answer was probably “Tell Reiki to drag Levi into a parallel dimension with him and keep Levi there forever and ever.”
Which, aside from being disrespectful and rude, had exactly ******** to do with trying to decide how best to sneak home past the weirdo with the high-watt fluorescent aura. Hrmmm……
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 5:53 pm
Those of the Dark Mirror Court didn’t bother Lysithea. Or rather, she had absolutely no experience with them, but they didn’t feel like a standard corrupt aura, so she wasn’t too worried. The fact that the aura was weaker than her meant that they couldn’t teleport either, so that was yet another mark in their favor, even if they were a corrupt.
She had an idea that this was going to be one of the Dark Mirrors, she hadn’t had the chance to meet one in her…well. Recent memory, so with a soft sigh and a deep breath, she headed towards the aura, pausing when she was close enough to see them.
The first thing Lysithea noticed was the fact that there were no tell tale holes in the senshi’s forehead or chest, and that caused a ripple of relief to flow through her, though she didn’t move closer or speak until she had finished sizing the other senshi up.
But finally, giving a little nod, Lysiteha sighed. “I love your fuku, and I’m going to assume that you’re a part of the Dark Mirror Court? I’ve been told about you, but I’m not sure if I’ve met any before this. Might have but. Corruption ruins the memories, as I’m sure you know.”
…And if he didn’t? Well. He would now.
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 6:23 pm
Damn. Busted—Reiki sighed between clenched teeth, but……this was okay. This was fine. The Order senshi did seem to have a horn coming out of her forehead, like she thought she was going to BronyCon or something, but……this was fine. She hadn’t just swooped in to attack him, so……maybe if he just……kept his hands where she could see them, and tried to give her the best smile he could manage at the moment while nodding (yes, he was a member of the Dark Mirror Court), and didn’t make any sudden movements? Maybe everything would be okay.
……Well, kept his hands where she could see them, but also cracked into his subspace very briefly. It was, however, only to pull out one of the (unopened and therefore hopefully non-nefarious) bottles of water he was getting used to handing out to her team. Summer had been scorching hot, after all, and who knew how long she’d been out on patrol? Dehydration seemed like a pretty massive risk.… Plus, as with Encke and Amsvartnir, hopefully Sailor Twilight Sparkle over here would take the bottle of water as something of a peace offering? A sign that Reiki wasn’t up to no good or to be met with hostility?
“Yeah, I’ve heard. About the memory-erasure. Pretty much every current or former Nega-Senshi I’ve met has some kind of horror story or other about that.… Even if they don’t really see it as a horror story.” Which still boggled the mind about Valjean, but Reiki hadn’t seen him around in weeks, so hopefully, he, his piss poor attitude, and his apparent lack of understanding of how to treat non-senshi people decently were all busy being someone else’s ******** problem.
With a shrug, Reiki said, “Good on you for getting out of the Negaverse, though. Very like……I’d say ‘******** them’? But I wouldn’t want to wish for something they might actively enjoy……not most of them, anyway.” Mostly meaning not Toráin and not Soyala, but they were special. Toráin didn’t belong in the Negaverse in the first place, and maybe Soya was with them officially, but it was just work, right? Otherwise, why would she have so many Dark Mirror senshi in her litter?
“Your fuku’s pretty cute, too. Definitely better than some of the other ones I’ve seen out there.” Genuinely: where the ******** were Sailor Goose Game’s parents, and why didn’t they care that their teenager was running around in the middle of the night, probably getting heat stroke or something under all those layers of feathers? “But, don’t tell me, let me guess,” Reiki deadpanned, pointing at the horn, “senshi of unicorns?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 6:34 pm
He was offering her water. For a moment, Lysithea was rather touched, and after a second, she reached into her own subspace pocket and pulled out two apples, grinning at him. “Two can play at this game, you know.” Holding one out, she took the bottle from him and opened it while taking a bite of her own apple, nodding at the rest of his words.
“Got forced over last…October or November. Honestly, it’s all fuzzy but. My friends helped me come back so…here I am. But I’m weaker than I had been. Need to talk to my Guardian Cat partner about that but. I’m lazy and just. DOn’t want to hear that I’ll never get back to where I was.”
She winced and looked at him, giving a grimace. “Keep that to yourself. I know that you don’t even know my name or any of my friends but. That’s not something I’ve spoken out loud before. But. Yeah. I’m Lysithea, Senshi of Unicorns. It’s a pleasure to meet you…and you…”
Taking another bite of her apple, she hummed softly. “...Senshi of…dancing?”
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Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:05 pm
How Reiki managed to catch the apple, he had no idea. Considering how long he’d been burning the candle at both ends with not nearly enough rest, it probably should’ve hit him in the face—especially since he’d spent most of his time at Meadowview trying to find excuses to get out of gym (constantly picked last for team games, made a target even by his own teammates, forced to change in front of people, and getting his uniform stolen out of his locker often enough to be A Thing? No, thanks. He passed as often as he could back then, and he’d still pass now).
And yet, his hands snapped right up to catch the apple……though he didn’t know if he could handle eating it in front of a stranger right now. Still, he didn’t want to be rude, so he just nodded. “Thanks, and……well, I can’t really justify telling you not to worry, all things considered? But I won’t go running and blabbing about that. Feels like it probably falls under the ‘don’t go blabbing about other people’s trauma without their consent’ rule of basic interpersonal decency, y’know?” So, he could just add this to the list of things it wasn’t his business to talk about—a list that felt like it had grown exponentially in the past two months.
Moving to sit on a wall by the edge of the roof, he shrugged. “So, like, I don’t know all the ins and outs and all of that? About how all this works? But for what it’s worth, I don’t want to believe it’s all hopeless or anything? I mean, the only ex-Negaverse Eternal I actually know was with them first before he got out, so it doesn’t have the ‘there and back again’ extra step? But……he still got his cute little tramp-stamp wings, so……if that’s what you’re missing, then I’m sure you can get back there. And if your cat doesn’t believe in you, maybe you need a new one.”
In good conscience, he couldn’t recommend Soyala for Miss Lysithea, because she probably wouldn’t believe in an Order senshi either, just on principle? But……surely, the Order had magical talking cats who wouldn’t be mean to her about something that sounded like it wasn’t even her fault.
Her guess about his sphere made him giggle a bit, though. “The fuku does look a bit ballerina-ish, doesn’t it? …It’s the panniers, probably. The silhouette they make doesn’t necessarily read as ancien régime French nobility with the skirt being this short, but longer could be hard to fight in, but…” He shook his head. “Sailor Murikabushi, senshi of hunger, actually? …I dunno if the great invisible costume designer had this in mind exactly, but I was thinking they went for a Marie Antoinette kinda vibe because of the whole ‘Let them eat cake’ thing?”
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:18 pm
She snorted, and then choked on the small piece of apple that she was chewing, though after a moment managed to cough it back up again, shaking her head. “Fair enough. I’m glad that you’re decent in that way.” Opening the water, Lysithea took a long swig, swiping away the few tears that had sprang to her eyes with the apple deciding to hang out in her airway but…it had been a relief to just say it. Hearing it out loud meant that it was real and that now it was something she could face or.
…Or whatever.
“I don’t know the ins and outs either, though I suppose I must have before all of the drama happened. Everyone tells me how I was so great and had all of my life’s s**t together. Past me sure was lucky. I guess.”
Something about the sphere made her pause and she frowned slightly, wondering if it was rude to ask but.
“...Do you know someone by the name of Monoceros, by chance? He mentioned having a friend who was the senshi of hunger but…Murikabushi wasn’t the name he gave. Not that I can remember the name he gave but…I know it wasn’t something that fancy. Or that long. And I’m pretty sure it didn’t start with an M, either…”
Still frowning, Lysithea took another bite of her apple, determined not to choke again this time.
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:38 pm
Listening attentively, Reiki nodded. Although he didn’t want to say so outright, there was a sort of comfort to be found in the fact that Miss Lysithea also didn’t have her s**t together. Hearing that Kerberos only seemed so cool, and composed, and with-it because he’d been doing this magical girl s**t for a good ten years? That was one thing. True, it carried the implication that he’d been a hot mess in his own right, once. True, that seemed supported by other things Kerberos had said about his history (and arguably, by his general patience with everything from Reiki being huffy with him while calling him “Blossom” rather than his proper name, to Reiki showing up at his bench out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, to complain about how teenagers were the reason he couldn’t have nice things).
But it was all very different from being in the presence of someone like Lysithea—someone else who was struggling against an idea of what she should have been and how things were supposed to work, even if her problems and Reiki’s were ultimately rather different.
More importantly, however, hearing the name Monoceros made Reiki go wide-eyed and knot his brow with concern. Even if he’d wanted to pretend that he didn’t know Toráin, he probably couldn’t have lied about it convincingly. Not with his face acting this way. “Was it ‘Tagame,’ maybe? Or does that name ring any kind of bells? Because…” Bashfully, Reiki rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “If so, uh…I sort of…gave that name…to Monoceros’s brother, once? Arsenolite. He…we ran into each other while I was on my way home, and he annoyed me, so I didn’t feel obligated to give him my actual name and told him the name of a mangaka I like instead.
“Who you should absolutely not look up on Google while at work,” he added, with a slight smirk, “or on any computers you have to share with other Order senshi, or your knights, or your talking cats. I didn’t warn Arsenolite because if he gets in trouble, I kinda don’t care? But most of Tagame-sensei’s manga is really intense smut.” Reiki shrugged. “Don’t want to traumatize any Mauvians, right?
“But Monoceros—” Briefly, Reiki’s breath hitched. “Have you heard from him? Because I haven’t. Not in a while, and it’s…… That kind of absence is never a good sign in Destiny City, y’know?”
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:49 pm
Nodding, Lysithea hurried to swallow her mouthful. “Yeah! Yeah that was it. OKay cool, so it was you he was talking about. He spoke well of you. Um. He was with me until a few days ago. I kind of kidnapped him with a friend of mine. He was acting strange and…I wanted to help. But…then he wanted to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble with it, we beat him up so it looked convincing.”
She didn’t say who beat him up, wouldn’t call out Michel for that, not when it wasn’t his fault.
“But hopefully you’ll see him soon. He mentioned you quite a bit. I’d reach out if you have his information.”
It took all of the willpower she had not to mention that he was going to purify, not to get excited about it, not to try to convince this Murikabushi himself to leave the chaos that was polluting him, even if it didn’t seem to be as strong as those in the Negaverse…instead, she took another bite of her apple and forced a smile.
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2022 12:25 pm
Lysithea’s story took a moment for Reiki to really parse through, partly because, in order to understand what she was saying, he needed to work through the haze of exhaustion that was going to dog him until he could finally take a nap. On the other hand, part of his struggle came down to this all seeming……too easy. Like there had to be something missing here, something that she was leaving out, because for how many unanswered texts he’d sent Toráin, having him just turn up with someone he knew—someone who wasn’t in the Negaverse, had gotten out of that Hell-hole, at that—safe and okay and not in any real danger (allegedly).
(The idea that Lysithea was leaving out anything to do with Monoceros also wanting to leave the Negaverse did not occur to Reiki, and frankly, if it had, he wouldn’t have given it much consideration. Not because he didn’t believe it could happen—quite the opposite: he knew that it could, and he wanted that for his friend—but because that simply wouldn’t have seemed, to him, like anything that would feel like a weird omission, looming over the rest of the conversation.)
“……If not for my interactions with every other Nega-idiot I’ve met except him,” Reiki said, thinking out loud more than anything else, “I’d really have some questions about why you needed to beat him up? But……yeah, no. In light of them, that……makes an unfortunate amount of sense.” Idly, he rubbed his apple on his bodice and overlay, but didn’t make any moves to eat it. “Pretty sure the only language some of those people speak is violence, so if it looked like he didn’t put up a fight to resist you taking him……”
Putting words to what the Negaverse might have done didn’t help anyone. Even thinking about it felt like Reiki was at risk of willing those horrible potentials into existence, and actually naming them might have done so even more.
Still, he nodded. “I have his cell, though.… I’ve been texting, though…if he’s been with you, then…that’d be why he hasn’t texted back.” Which honestly could’ve been enough, but as a thought reared up, Reiki couldn’t help asking, “Did you take him to space? While you were helping him? Not like—I don’t really know a lot about how that works, but…? The ex-Negaverse Eternal I know? He’s offered to take me to his planet a couple times.… Apparently, he has bioluminescent bunnies?”
Why Reiki thought to mention Kerberos’s bioluminescent bunnies instead of his name, he couldn’t have explained. Mostly, in the haze of badly needed to sleep, he was increasingly consumed by jealousy about how Order senshi could just go to space, ostensibly whenever they wanted, and snuggle with cute alien creatures, and make friends with aliens without traumatizing them first.
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2022 1:28 pm
“I’m not sure what’s going on with him after he left me, I’m so sorry…I hope that nothing bad has happened to him. He’s really sweet and…he doesn’t belong with chaos, I hope you don’t mind me saying. But he fits in with them about as much as I did…which is to say not at all.” Perhaps that was too much to say, but honestly, Murikabushi didn’t seem to be too thrilled with those in the Negaverse that he had met so…perhaps it wasn’t such a dangerous statement after all.
“Bioluminescent bunnies? Oh, that’s rather fantastic. I haven’t…well. I keep hearing that there should be life up there but I haven’t seen anything yet. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps getting corrupted…if that might…”
Lysithea broke off, drawing in a breath and then shaking her head. “But I haven’t looked either. Yes, though. To answer your question he was up on Lysithea with my friend and I. We had food and just relaxed. It’s safe up on our homeworlds. Nobody can get us. Nobody can just teleport in and steal us. Nobody can cause any harm. It’s…I don’t know about the bunnies or anything, but if you ever want to come up to Lysiteha…you’re welcome. It’s a lot of purple grass and some lovely trees. It’s a very pastel world, I dare say. Very good for napping.”
She would have to go and see if she could find any animals. Any signs of life. If it was all gone again because of what had happened…
Well. She simply would never forgive herself.
“Call him, please. Make sure he’s okay. If you want to meet up again sometime, just let me know, but you…no offense, you look dead on your feet and I feel like I should let you go get a nice nap. Or just sleep for the night. I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:25 am
At the potentially controversial statement, Reiki gave her a small, almost shy smile and waved a hand in a way he hoped came off like It’s no trouble. It made sense for Lysithea to say things like that, considering the attitude other Order senshi had displayed about the issue of Chaos being anywhere near their general vicinity. At least she was being significantly nicer about it than Daphne had been, and so much nicer than Sailor Untitled Goose Game that they might as well have been playing different games entirely.
“No worries, I actually totally agree with you.… Like, the Dark Mirror might be nicer for him than the Negaverse? We’d definitely be nicer to him, but…” Sadly, Reiki shook his head. “He told me, the first night we met—not quite directly, but he confirmed it later? He told me that the Negaverse brought him in by force. That Arsenolite did that to him—to his own brother. That’s just…” A heated sigh. “Listen, I love my brother but he would probably kill me from shock if he wound up being any kind of magical. If he were, though, I wouldn’t force him to join the Dark Mirror if it wasn’t what he wanted. And Monoceros……he’s been saying stuff? About how it was for his own good that he got forced into the Negaverse? But none of it sounded like him, not really.”
Not that Reiki knew for sure what had caused it, but he had a theory. Namely, that someone in the Negaverse was treating Monoceros even worse than Greg had treated Reiki. It made perfect sense, as far as he could tell. Abuse could’ve gotten Toráin’s head twisted around, made him feel like he deserved what the Negaverse had done to him, even made him feel indebted to the Negaverse for hurting him in the first place. Treating him like he wasn’t even a person, just something for them to possess.
The offer of visiting her planet, Reiki mostly filed away in the Nice thought, never gonna happen box with the thought of visiting Kerberos’s world and any ideas about ever not getting stuck in the role of universe-assigned villain. “Well, if the taint of corruption might hurt your planet, then…I appreciate the offer and all, but…I should probably just stay away, right? Dark Mirrors can’t just…purify and stop being Chaos, like Negaverse senshi can. And I wouldn’t want to……get my Chaos germs all over your world and set back all your progress with it, or however that works.”
Must’ve been nice, having a planet that actually wanted you for its senshi. No matter how badly he wished that were him, Reiki was happy for Lysithea, happy that she got to have that kind of special relationship with her planet and that it had given her somewhere to hide Toráin while he got help.
One thing did get Reiki to laugh, though, namely her acknowledgement of how he looked. “Yeah, it…… Pride is a busy season for me. At, like, my work work? As opposed to senshi work? But……” He tried to give her a smile. It was small, and quite exhausted, but overall genuine. “I wouldn’t be opposed to running into each other again? After I sleep?”
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2022 12:02 pm
Lysithea shrugged. “The chaos that would hurt my planet would only if I got corrupted again, not if I brought someone to visit. Nothing bad happened with Monoceros.” And she doubted that would be any kind of…but. If he didn’t want to visit, she wouldn’t force him.
“I’d be happy to meet up with you again sometime. It’s always nice to make new friends. Also, you don’t have Chaos germs, don’t think so lowly of yourself. You’re the first member of your Court that I can remember meeting, and you don’t seem bad at all. But…I’ll reserve all of that for another day. Sleep well, Murikabushi. I’ll see you again sometime soon, I hope.”
With a small wave, Lysithea smiled and headed off into the night, wanting to give him the peace of mind that she wasn’t following…and also wanting to get home so she could talk to someone about what they knew about the Dark Mirror Court…just…to be on the safe side.
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