[wc: 2086 words]
It had been, to say the least, a weird couple of weeks for Asmodeus.
She hadn't seen much of the Dark Mirror Court since she purified, but she'd been forced to deal with them quite a lot lately--with them, and with her feelings about them, and with so many things she really, really hated.
She didn't like remembering that she'd been Chaos once. That she'd looked at her memories of that terrible future and still gone to find Remarque, still decided to join the Mirror, still chosen Chaos and darkness and cowardice. She'd thought, then, that maybe she could change things. Maybe if she was in the Mirror, she could make it different. But she didn't. Couldn't. Saw that the rot was far, far too entrenched--that everyone was far, far too scared to do what they needed to do.
And wasn't that the heart of it. Fear. Everyone in the Dark Mirror was ******** afraid, of one thing or another, she was pretty sure. Afraid of confronting something. Of losing something. Of being overrun by Order or by the Negaverse or whoever else, if they took a real stand and fought for something. And that just wasn't who Asmodeus was. Couldn't be who she was. She was not, on the whole, a person given to being afraid, or to letting fear run her, and so she had found the Mirror devastatingly unsatisfying.
And so she'd left. Found her Mirrorseal. Called Cosmos. Gotten out, all by herself, like a big, strong Senshi who didn't need any outside help. Had built herself something new, on the other side, left her old life and her parents' expectations and the person Faith MacKenna had been forced to be all behind.
Things were better now, no question. She liked being order. Loved Hati and Skoll. Adored her planet, adored getting to explore it.
She'd been doing more of it, since that first visit. The world was starting to recover from the Blight infection, though she'd forced herself throguh digging out all the plants that had overgrown the plaza fountain. Someday, she wanted to figure out how to make it work again, see it as it was supposed to be. She'd even found some life there, besides plants--butterflies that looked like brass themselves, strange white grasshoppers that lived in steam vents, beetles that looked like gemstones or precious metals. The place felt like it was coming to life, and part of her couldn't help but wonder if one day, when things were better, she might arrive and find strange, varicolored pigeons or something. Certainly it seemed like a possibility, and her world seemed like it was mostly suited for urban-adapted wildlife.
Honestly, the dream was deer, or something like them.
But that would have to come with time.
She wondered if other worlds were like this, too, or even better, buzzing with renewed life. Just sitting on her asteroid, on some beautiful balcony on some brilliant old building, made her fo9rget all her regrets about purification. She was truly free, and she'd gotten her world for it.
What could possibly make that trade anything but the best decision she had ever made?
She exhaled, and pulled out her phone. Reminiscing about her planet made it feel like a good time to visit. There was still so much she didn't know, after all--so much of her world that needed deeper investigation, and she would just have to go exploring.
Her memories had shown her flashes of what it was like, once upon a time. The constant hum of machinery. Brightly colored people who reminded her of good old Dungeons and Dragons tieflings, with their colorful skin and horns and sometimes even little tails, running around. And ever at the center of things, a beautiful woman and her tall, handsome husband--
Asmodeus and Hati.
Or, their past selves, at least.
It seemed that at least one of the twins was....well, calling him her "soulmate" felt cheesy, and what did she know about soulmates, anyway. But at the least, they'd had a love that lasted two lifetimes, and more than a few children, if the little ones she'd sometimes glimpsed in her memories once she found the manor-house that had once been theirs meant anything.
It had been a happy life, it seemed to her, though she'd only seen it in bits and pieces. Liliana always seemed to be so happy, whether she was walking the city or wrangling her children. It was the kind of life a girl could aspire to, and Asmodeus did.
And okay, maybe she was projecting, just a little bit. She had only seen so much, after all, even visiting once every couple weeks for months on end. But one could forgive a girl a little projection, when she only had pieces to make up the picture and she had to fill in the gaps herself.
And filling in the gaps was something she was all too glad to do.
Maybe when she remembered more, this would seem silly. Feel like childish daydreaming that she had let herself indulge in. But for now, it felt like a repayment of what she had given up, leaving the Mirror and coming to the other side. Trading one life for memories of another, and a whole world to explore.
Asmodeus sighed, looking out at the city lights of Destiny City. This was her home, still, but in some ways...it almost felt like it just couldn't compare to the world that was waiting for her. Even if Destiny City was vibrant and alive, and her world was dead...Asmodeus still believed that could change. After all, there were plants growing between the cobblestones and steamhoppers living inside the vents attached to the great machines that seemed to run the world. There was life to the world, even if it needed some time to finish waking up.
And time was something Asmodeus had in abundance. Time, and patience, and a willingness to commit herself to doing the work. To building something real, and beautiful, and all her own.
She pressed the button to carry herself to her world, and exhaled. She was going with a goal, today: on her last visit, two weeks prior, she'd found a door that had rusted shut. She'd heard mentions in her memories of something called an "Eternal Engine," and she suspected that she might have encountered a way into one of the maintenance tunnels for it--but the door was stuck shut, and she had been stymied last time. While she had gardening tools, none of them were enough of a wedge--a spade was great for digging plants out of places they shouldn't be, but not so good for wedging open a stuck door. So, she'd given up and gone home, and resolved to come back with better equipment.
This time, then, she was prepared, with a little backpack slung over her shoulders full of all sorts of items that she expected would make her little adventure easier. WD-40, a crowbar, even a lockpicking set, a screwdriver, and a few other tools to hopefully get her through that damn door, whatever it took. She was going to find the Eternal Engine, and figure out how to get it going again, and bring her planet back to life.
Something in her heart told her she needed to--that if she did this, she would be on the road to making things right. That her world wasn't itself without that, without the steamworks and the sounds of gears and machines and, in its mechanical way, a special sort of life.
She landed in the central plaza from her first visit, and she took a moment to pause and check the fountain. It was still clear, and as she walked, she checked the red-gold grass that was beginning to grow in the lovely plant-lined medians of the grand boulevard that led her away from the central square, looking for any signs that the Blight might have returned somehow. Yes, she'd been there to see the monster defeated, but that didn't mean that there wasn't a certain fear in her heart, that this poison might come back and sink its claws into her world all over again. But ever since, it had been clear, and so she was hopeful that it really was purged--at least from her planet.
Hopefully from the universe as a whole. A Princess and the power of everyone present had to be enough to have burned it out.
It took her a few turns off the main boulevard, into slightly more hidden alleyways, but she finally found her way back to the door, with its sign that signalled, even without being able to read the text, an aura of RESTRICTED AREA, DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION, or something to that general effect.
"I'm the ******** Senshi," Asmodeus grumbled under her breath, pulling out the WD-40, "I think I'm ******** authorized."
Greasing the hinges and the edges of the door was not as effective as she wanted it to be. She still struggled to pull it, and it still stuck fast. She tried pushing, too, just in case she missed her guess, but that did little more.
"I didn't want to do this," she told the door, very solemnly, as she produced her crowbar, "but you've left me with no choice."
The door did not respond to her threats.
She wedged the crowbar in place, and pushed, leaning on it with all her Super Senshi strength. She felt the door wiggle...wiggle...unwedge...start to give...
The crowbar gave first.
Asmodeus pushed, and it popped out of place, and the sudden lack of resistance left her stumbling forward and smacking into the brick wall in front of her.
"Son of a b***h," she gasped, and then she glared at the door with all the frustration in the world. "******** stupid, ridiculous, awful goddamn--"
With all the frustration of being denied, she flung an angry burst of magic at it. Maybe some fire would melt the stupid thing, and it would open for her then, and let her into the bowels of her own ******** planet.
Or maybe she was just a petulant child throwing a tantrum, nothing like her visions of a regal, controlled woman who wielded political and magical power like she was born into it. Probably because she had been, and Hope Mayfair, formerly Faith Mackenna, was just a rich girl with delusions of grandeur.
Her magic struck the door.
Something within it came to life.
There was a clicking of gears, a clunking of metal, and the door swung open on its own.
"Are you ******** kidding me," she said.
But she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe the door was keyed to Asmodeus's magic, or something, or maybe she was just lucky, or maybe she was right about the heat and the magical fire had provided some kind of energy to the internal steamworks. Either way, she had her entry into whatever tunnels were below her.
There was a flash.
For the first time Asmodeus had seen, Liliana did not look happy.
In fact, she looked stressed.
"They're coming," she said. "I won't let them have the Engine."
She ducked into the tunnels, and Hati fell in step beside her, closing the door, and they began to descend.
Asmodeus inhaled tensely.
She was right. This was the way to the Eternal Engine. The knowledge made her heart race, and she darted forward, ducking into the tunnels herself.
As soon as she stepped on the surface inside, she heard a click.
There was a whir, and the sound of metal scraping, and that was all the warning she got to jump back, before a gout of flame burst from the wall in front fo her, blowing right over where she was standing.
A pressure plate. Defenses.
Deeper in the tunnels, she could hear the sound of movement.
Apparently, whatever threat Liliana had sworn would not have the Engine had inspired her, or her people or...someone to put up, at minimum, traps. Possibly more than that.
Asmodeus's heart lodged in her throat.
She couldn't do this alone. And she didn't want to risk doing it with just Hati and Skoll. What if there was something down there they couldn't handle alone?
No, better to find help. There was no sense dying for her pride.
