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 Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2023 11:58 pm
Daedalus shuddered.
He had to find someone to talk to—someone who could explain things to him. But as he slowly pushed himself up, he felt his legs wobble, and he collapsed back to the ground.
s**t, s**t, s**t. However long he had been in his own sarcophagus, it had clearly done quite a lot of damage to him, and trying to escape had only done more. The end result was that he was weak, and exhausted, and also incredibly thirsty and terribly hungry.
He reached up to clutch his own head, feeling a wave of dizziness and nausea. Not that there was anything to bring up, he was pretty sure, but…ugh. This was miserable.
Worst of all, he could feel someone approaching. Someone Chaos. Strange and slick and cold and dark, like sludge escaped into water—
Daedalus groaned. He couldn’t get away fast enough. Whatever this person carrying a Chaos taint wanted to do, he was essentially at their mercy.
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 3:00 am
The White Moon aura had come out of nowhere, and more than that, something about it hadn’t felt right. Something had felt……weaker than it should have. Or maybe Reiki was imagining things because he wanted to believe that someone could be saved in this universe.
Maybe he was letting his imagination get the better of him because of what Kerberos had told him about Faustite. How Lysithea had tried to purify him—which would’ve removed the youma from his hybrid existence and saved his life at the cost of something singularly unique that made people treat Faustite as lesser-than—but everything had gone wrong. In the end, he’d nearly died, then run out of time and disappeared right as he started youmafying.
All the work that so many people had done to save him—not least Faustite himself, working tirelessly to find explanations for what was happening to him when no one knew—and it had been for nothing.
Reiki had been at church before this patrol. Second time in one day when normally, weeknights didn’t see him anywhere Christ the Good Shepherd. Mass, “Confession,” and praying over a rainbow of votive candles hadn’t helped settle Reiki’s heart any, though, so he’d powered up in an alley halfway between church and this park. He’d been prepared for this plan to turn out pointless too, for something as simple and straightforward as “get myself lost in the patrol and out of my own head” to fail him—and then that White Moon aura had flared up on his senses.
Maybe Reiki just wanted to believe that someone could be saved, that there was something in the universe worth fighting for.
Following the aura led Reiki to a heap of person in the middle of the park’s green, wrapped in a long brown jacket, matching thigh-highs, thotty short-shorts. Their braided violet hair looked some serious kind of mess……and then, Reiki’s eyes settled on the long, elfin-looking pointy ears. On the twisty horns protruding from this person’s head.
Another alien senshi. Someone like Fang, like Dagon, like Daphne.
“Hey,” Reiki said softly, keeping both his voice and his touch gentle as he nudged the other senshi’s shoulders. “Hey, can you hear me? I’m so sorry about the Chaos aura—I?” I can’t really do anything about it right this second. I didn’t know I’d get an evil omened aura when I signed up for this. I only ever wanted to be a magical girl and get a boy to like me. Reiki sighed. “I know you don’t have any reason to trust me? But I only want to help, okay? I promise.”
Oh, please let this kinda dragon-looking senshi be okay.
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 8:33 am
There was something strangely familiar about the person whose hands were on Daedalus’s shoulder. It took him a moment to place it, and he had to blink once, twice, but—
He knew the symbol on the brooch on Senshi's chest. He knew that face, too, almost.
“….Airan?” His voice came out cracked, pained. Strained by dehydration and by screaming. It actually sort of hurt to talk, just like it hurt to focus on what Airan(???) was actually saying.
And why would Airan be here, wherever here was—certainly not Murikabushi, it wasn’t right for there, and he could think of no reason that so many powered auras would be concentrated on that world.
….Or any other, truth be told.
And the longer he looked, and listened—the voice wasn’t the same. The face was close, but not identical. He blinked. Frowned.
“….You aren’t Airan. But you are Murikabushi.” That, at least, was undeniable.
Which meant…
It hit him, all at once, a crushing tide of realization.
Airan was dead. Someone new had the starseed. Had been alive long enough to be about Daedalus’s age, again, which meant he had been asleep for far, far longer than he thought.
In the back of his mind, he could feel rising panic, but he quashed it, for the moment.
“Where….are we? And why is there so much Chaos here?”
And, he wanted to ask, but he wasn’t sure if this strange new Murikabushi would have the answer, how long was I unconscious?
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 2:02 pm
……Oh. Oh, no. This poor guy—Reiki’s own throat sort of hurt, listening to him try to talk. Without needing to think about it, he reached into his subspace for some of the water that he kept stashed there to share with people who needed it (or else just wanted it).
……Oh. And the other senshi knew Airan. Had known Airan? Thought that Reiki was Airan, for a moment, though at least the other senshi did the math himself, despite……not doing so well right now. Whatever he’d been through—whatever Chaos had done to his world and however he’d survived to make it here—must have been horrific.…… He’d probably want Reiki gone as soon as possible (or anyway, that sounded to Reiki like a very fair thing for him to want), but……Reiki had to make sure he was okay, first.
Should I…… Should I tell him…… I could give him a name that isn’t real, couldn’t I? I mean, “Murikabushi” doesn’t feel like My Name anyway— Reiki started to wonder, before quashing the thought and smothering it with a pillow. Of course he couldn’t tell this guy his real name. Even giving him a fake civilian alias probably risked too much. Anything Reiki told him would probably, even if unintentionally, trace back to his real self eventually, like him calling Aunt Satomi “Aunt Sayuri” when talking about her with Kerberos, as if he didn’t call himself “Sayuri” while dolled up onstage at Scandals.
Nodding slowly, Reiki……choked down his litany of objections to the name and agreed, “Yeah.… I’m Murikabushi—the current one, anyway.” Deep breath. Sighs. “……I’m sorry. That I’m not Airan. And for whatever happened to him.…… And if you don’t know that either, then…? I’m sorry for being the bad news……about your……friend?”
Maybe? Airan had apparently had other friends among the senshi back then?
Either way, the cute dragon senshi had asked questions. “This planet is called Earth? Or ‘Terra,’ I guess? I’m……not sure what name it used back when you knew Airan?” Reiki shrugged, shifting into a slightly better position for the offer he was going to make. “And I don’t know why there’s so much Chaos here? But……I have some water? It sounds like you really need it? So, I could maybe help you sit up, you could drink it, and I could tell you some about how all of the Chaos here works? It…… It’s not the same as answering ‘why’ but……an introduction to it all could help, right?”
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 2:41 pm
All of this was almost too much to think about, especially when Daedalus felt like he was barely staying awake.
To fall asleep again, though--Murikabushi was being kind, yes. Chaos or not, he didn't seem to be a danger. But that didn't mean that Daedalus wouldn't be vulnerable if he fell asleep again.
Or, perhaps worse, he would sleep for further decades, and wake to a world even stranger than this one.
"I....had no idea," he said, softly. "Lost contact with the wider universe." But the offer of water was far too tempting to refuse, and frankly, he would be stupid not to take it, anyway. So he shifted, into a position that was more "sitting" and less "somewhat pathetically collapsed on the ground," and reached for the strange bottle that Murikabushi was offering.
It was unlike anything he was used to--even through his gloves, he could tell it had much more give than metal or glass. And it seemed to be clear, wrapped with paper, with strange lettering on it that Daedalus vaguely recognized--English, maybe? Not that any of the words made any sense. But if he was indeed on Earth, it made sense to encounter an Earth language.
Earth. Of all places. How strange.
"Water would be...helpful, yes. And explanations."
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 4:53 pm
Reiki nodded, keeping track of what details he could glean from what Sailor Rhaegar of House [Planet Name Here, If/When He Decided To Share It] told him. So, it seemed like he and Airan had definitely been friends (which didn’t guarantee anything, Reiki realized, but……he hoped that meant the two of them could be friends in this life also). Whatever Chaos had done to Rhaegar’s planet, it had cut him off from the rest of the universe (so he hadn’t known a damn thing about Airan, and……ugh, having Reiki be the bearer of bad news could not be easy).
“Do you need help with the bottle?” He shifted to sit more beside Rhaegar, and extended the offer without judgment. “I have another friend like you? Meaning, a senshi who didn’t get reincarnated but came to Earth after somehow surviving the Chaos on his planet? His name is Fang, senshi of chrysocyon, and he can have a lot of trouble opening stuff designed for humans, too.”
Sensing that his explanation might take a while, Reiki got two more bottles out of his subspace: another of the plastic ones for Rhaegar, and his own metal water bottle. After taking a sip, he continued.… For that matter, Rhaegar might have needed a snack or something, too. If he was as dehydrated as he sounded, then maybe he hadn’t eaten in a long time, either. At least Reiki had gotten in the habit of packing a ziploc container or two of sandwich before going out.
“Sorry it’s not much,” he said, opening the container and offering Rhaegar a pair of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches. “I can’t cook very well.… This is one of the only things I know how to make without setting something on fire.”
After that, Reiki needed a deep breath……and honestly, a few more after that to help steady himself so he could explain things. “So, for context, I’ve only been Awakened as a senshi for a year—” Eleven months, but close enough. “—so there’s still a lot that I’m learning, too? But as far as I can tell, a lot of the people who were active back when you knew Airan? They fell, somehow. But their starseeds got reincarnated here on Earth. There are some other senshi who came from space, like I said? But most of us are human now and were born here. I’d guess a lot of the Knights probably work the same way? But then, I’m friends with a Cosmos Knight who inherited his Knight status instead, so reincarnation doesn’t seem to be wholly universal, there.”
Well, maybe it was in the larger sense of starseeds and souls and samsara, but that was beside the point.
“So, the current state of Chaos on Earth is that……yeah, there’s kind of a lot of it. We have two full-on Chaos factions, and then sometimes, other unrelated Chaos shows up out of nowhere. Last summer, some unknown Chaos entity started making dead spots on different Wonders and home-worlds, then spread to Earth. One of the White Moon senshi I know led a whole battle against the heart of the Blight and unlocked her Princess senshi powers during it?” Reiki felt like a fangirl in how he sighed about that, but what could he say? Ida-hime-sama was amazing and deserved ridiculous fangirl sighs. “Sailor Ida of Orchids, if you run into her? She’s amazing. Like, everything that a magical girl princess should be.
“But that’s not the point.” Another deep breath, another drink of water, and Reiki went on, “The Chaos guys you’re most likely to run into are the Negaverse, I find their Chaos auras feel sort of sharp and menacing, and they’re……complicated.” Or at least, Reiki’s feelings on the people who made up the Negaverse had gotten more so, due in no small part to the one of them who’d grown on him like a forest fire. “The people are, anyway. Because some of them got drafted into the Negaverse by being lied to, or people took advantage of them being in bad situations, or all kinds of things. Some people didn’t have a choice, either. At least two senshi I know—they’ve gotten back to the White Moon now, but they got dragged into the Negaverse against their will.
“The Negaverse as an institution, though? That’s a lot less complicated. They’re militaristic in structure; their senshi work like normal senshi as far as I know, but they have their own kind of agent who’s sort of like Knights without magic? They all have ranks like Lieutenant, Captain, and General. Negaverse senshi are easy to spot: black outfits, super long hair down to the floor, and cracks here—” Reiki pointed at his forehead. “—and here.” He pointed at his chest.
“From what I’ve heard from a White Moon senshi who got out of the Negaverse? The heart of it is this being called Metallia, and she’s some kind of eldritch world-eating nightmare monster of Chaos or something. Her big goal is to drain Earth and its people of energy and resources, straight up consume it all, and leave it a dead, empty shell when she moves on to the next world. So, to that end, any Negaverse agent you run into will most likely be draining people. Also, guard your chest if you get in a fight with them because they can steal starseeds. Some agents even eat them.”
Simply saying that made Reiki blench and look like he could be sick. Bowing his head, he explained, “There’s—one of them that I’ve met? He was a General. And when I was still only a couple weeks into this and didn’t know what my magic did? He asked to see it. So, I used it on him, and he just……” Reiki shivered. His grip tightened on his water bottle. “Someone in the Negaverse got him addicted to starseeds. I don’t know how long he’d been clean. But my magic shoved him right back into the grip of that addiction, and—the cracks? In Nega-Senshi’s chests? They make those senshi’s starseeds super accessible.”
His breath hitched. Even using the past tense about Faustite felt so wrong. And just—why? Why had things gone how they had for him? It wasn’t fair. No, nobody ever said that life was fair, only eventful, but it wasn’t right for Faustite to lose himself to the youma—for Albite, Heliodor, and Alkmene to lose their Firebrand; for his team to lose their General—all because of terrible things that other people had done to Faustite when he’d been a teenager.
It wasn’t right.
“Faustite had a whole team with a lot of senshi on it,” Reiki said, idly fidgeting with the charm of Hisuian Zorua dangling off his water bottle. “He’s romantically entangled—or he was romantically entangled—with some of those Nega-Senshi. All of them were in danger from him until he got clean again because of how Chaos cracks those senshi’s chests open.”
And now, none of them could be around him at all. Because youma did not, as far as Reiki knew, care about the difference between any particular flavor of senshi. They only cared about energy and eating starseeds.
“If you don’t run into one of the Negaverse’s people, you might run into their beasts; they’re called youma.” Tucking his bangs behind his ear, Reiki made himself look back up at Rhaegar. “Youma can look like all kinds of different things. I’ve run into a lot of them that looked like scantily clad women fused onto some kind of giant insect, or snake, or whatever? But I’ve also seen some that looked like really messed up hybrid animals, or clusters of fireflies—they’re a sort of flying Earth insect that lights up, or……yeah. They’ll wear a lot of faces. They drain energy and eat starseeds. Very easy to distract by yelling at them and being a senshi, though. Most of the ones I’ve met are sort of like wild animals? But some of them can speak, or do some kind of verbal communication.”
Like Faustite’s firefly youma flashing “SLUTTACIOUS” at him.
“Then……some of their officers?” Reiki swallowed thickly. “I don’t know how they end up this way? They’re called half-youma, but it’s sort of a misnomer? Expect they all have unique experiences of it, but I’ve heard that they’re more of a third state of being unto themselves, rather than being like a true midway point between human and youma. And……” Reiki sighed, wilting slightly. “I think that’s everything about the Negaverse? At least, the parts I know. I’m sure there’s more that I don’t, though.”
And it was all probably……A ******** Lot. Best to let Rhaegar sit with it a few minutes before trying to explain the Dark Mirror Court.
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2023 6:50 pm
It was a little embarrassing to admit, but at least it seemed that, one, he was not alone, and two, Murikabushi was used to providing help to lost Senshi unfamiliar with the world they had come to. So, he nodded at the offer of help, and once he had the opened bottle, he took a long drink, and was glad for it.
The water was clear, cool, refreshing. None of the taint of contaminants that he was used to from his own world. It was almsot alarming, for a moment, but whatever else was going on on Earth--at least they had clean water. Or some way to produce it, like the water purifiers that the wealthiest Daedalans had set up, so they could avoid the consequences of their own actions.
Ugh. Best not to think too hard about it.
That there were others was heartening, in a way, even if "Fang" wasn't a name he knew off the top of his head. There were so many worlds, so many Senshi. Not knowing one was hardly strange. But it was also.....complicated. Apparently, they were fewer of them than there should be, and they were, in fact, the outliers.
What had happened, while Daedalus was locked away from the universe?
Something in his chest squeezed. Where was Merak? Was it long enough that he, too, had died and been reborn? Was he like Daedalus, still alive somehow?
He wasn't sure which would be worse. Not least when he didn't know the circumstances. Not really. Just bits and pieces.
The good news was, there was food, too. Airan's reincarnation was clearly generous, and thoughtful besides.
"You're very well prepared," Daedalus said, and was relieved that it no longer hurt quite so much. "Meet lots of lost strangers from other worlds?" Perhaps he did. What did Daedalus know, really. "Sailor Daedalus, by the way. I know your name, seems only fair that you know mine, especially if we're sharing food."
While he let Murikabushi talk, he took one of the sandwiches, and checked it briefly--nothing leafy or fruity looking, good. He was never excited to find out how his body reacted to new fruits and vegetables; Daedalans were, generally, just not designed to consume some of the sugars that tended to appear in them. But grains, dairy, meat, all of those were fine.
Before he bit in, he casually peeled off his gloves and set them aside; no reason to be silly about eating with them on.
When he took a bite, he gasped aloud in pleased surprise.
Whatever was on this sandwich--it was distinctly unfamiliar, but incredibly delicious. Crispy fried meat, a cheese he'd never tasted before, and a preparation of....egg, perhaps? That had a gooey center that created a sort of sauce for the whole thing.
It was a pleasant counterpart to hearing deeply unpleasant news. Chaos, it seemed, had taken frightening forms on this world, and in the system all around them. As he finished the first sandwich, he paused, thoughtful.
"...It wasn't infecting people, on my world. Or, we didn't think so," he said. "Maybe it just wasn't changing them enough for us to notice." He sighed. "This Negaverse...they sound powerful, and dangerous." Never mind the very real, very horrifying threat embodied by anyone that could extract a starseed and destroy it. Consume it. End a life, and all other lives, in an instant. Just thinking about it made Daedalus's hand come up to his chest, half-consciously, as if he could protect himself from such a fate so easily. "Able to create monsters, and to make people into them..." He shuddered. "Unnatural. Awful."
It occurred to him, briefly, that describing Chaos in such a way might be hurtful to Murikabushi, and he exhaled.
"....I'm sorry. I'm not....used to the prospect of Chaos being so strong. On my world, it..." His shoulders sagged, and his gaze became, briefly, distant. "We were already destroying it, and Chaos made it all break down faster." He took another drink, and shivered. "So...quite different, it seems, than what's happening on this world."
Miserable.
"Ah, and. You're clearly not Negaverse," he said. "No holes, and your hair is long, but reasonably so. What, then, are you?"
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Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2023 1:45 am
For all Reiki could so easily talk—and talk……and talk……and talk……and talk……all day even, whether you wanted him to or not—he was equally grateful to listen to Daedalus right now. Any time with an alien senshi was time to learn something. Time with Fang usually meant learning a new way of looking at things because Fang could think outside the bullshit boxes imposed on people by simply growing up in society. Listening to Daedalus now meant getting to learn more about the bigger universe outside of Earth. Not very much yet, but he must’ve gone through a lot of awful to get to Earth in the first place. If he couldn’t talk about it all yet, then that felt more than fair to Reiki.
“I’ve met a few senshi like you, yeah,” Reiki told him, giving Daedalus a small smile. “I doubt I’ve met all of you, but I’ve met a few. Plus, I grew up watching these popular Earth stories? They’re called Star Trek.… I could talk about them all day, but I won’t right now, just—? The important part is that, for a lonely kid who had a lot of trouble making friends with other humans? The magical space future in Star Trek, with all the cool aliens? Seemed like exactly where I wanted to be. Traveling around all the galaxies and helping people, making friends with folks other than humans since……” Reiki shrugged. “A lot of other humans didn’t like me over petty garbage like me being a boy in a dress.… So, yeah, I’ve been ready to make friends with non-Terran people since I was five or six.”
None of which addressed Daedalus’s actual questions or the issues at hand, but relative to how much Reiki could talk about Star Trek, he felt that he was being perfectly restrained.
Still, he needed to explain his own faction. So, smoothing his hands down his skirts and the floaty purple overlay, Reiki took a deep breath. “The group that I wound up with, we’re called the Dark Mirror Court. We’re still Chaos, but not as numerous or even a fraction as organized as the Negaverse. I’ve met more people from the White Moon than I’ve met in my own Court. And in the Negaverse, for that matter. I know of more people than I’ve actually met, but even then, it’s not very many? Like, the boy who brought me in has a sister who’s in the Court as well, and a girl I know in the Court, her older brother is one of us too. Maybe also his husband? It’s been a while since she told me though, and I could be wrong about her brother-in-law.
“I’ve learned more about our history from a Negaverse officer, too, than from anyone in our own Court. Most of the White Moon senshi and Knights don’t know anything about us—or what they do know is bad, but like……?” Making a noncommittal noise, Reiki shook his head. “The girl I’ve met who had the most specific beef with us? Her problem was that she caught romantic feelings for one of my friends, who already had a girlfriend—and like, she didn’t mean to lead this girl on, but she did flirt with someone else while still having a girlfriend, and……ugh. The situation was a mess but it was exclusively about personal feelings and relationship drama……until the jilted Order senshi in question started using Order vs. Chaos to justify attacking random Dark Mirrors for existing when it’s really about her broken heart. I feel for her about it, but she seriously needs to self-reflect about all this. Or at least own the fact that she hates us for personal reasons, not ideological ones.”
With a soft sigh, Reiki curled one leg up to his chest and placed his chin on his knee. “The other Order folks who hit first and ask questions later? Some of them are annoyingly self-righteous about it, when it’s like ‘Excuse you, some of us weren’t actually given a chance for informed consent about which Faction we got brought into’? But I don’t overall have a problem with them because, like……how can they know, right? No matter what flavor it comes in, Chaos demands that you drain energy off people. And it’s nice that not all of us give in to that request—” Reiki raised a hand to indicate that he meant himself, “—but if someone takes a chance on any given Dark Mirror and they aren’t on the level, someone could get hurt. There’s too much of a chance for that harm to fall on the innocents and people who don’t have powers, right? The worst burden of harm always falls on the people who have the fewest resources.”
Reiki made a discontented, grumbly sound. “And it’s nice to think ‘Oh, but we’re different from the Negaverse. They drain energy because they’re destroying the planet; we’re giving it to Mirrorspace, so we can make it self-sustaining’ but like……okay, one, please tell that to the people who get drained by one of our god-awful Mirrorwraiths because I’m sure that will just make everything better. Two………b***h, where? Mirrorspace isn’t even real—or, like? The realm itself is, I guess? But nothing inside it really is. And three, uh, do we not have a sense of triage? There are people that are dying out here. People we could help. Even if Mirrorspace can become self-sustaining—which I don’t believe for a damn minute—then what is it actually doing for the people who get caught in the crossfire?
“Like……” Reiki trembled, balling a hand up in his overlay, desperately wishing he could rip it off. Would that even accomplish anything, if he could? Or would the damn thing immediately repair itself, like pretty little doll vampire Claudia chopping off her hair only for it to grow back, exactly how it had been before? “I mean, like……how long exactly do we get to call ourselves senshi if the only thing we do when innocent people are dying? People who don’t know what’s really going on, people can’t protect themselves, people who need us to fight for them—and all we ******** do? Is drain people with our weird, ghostly wraith-things like that’s helping literally anybody and <******** around in ******** Mirrorspace, having tea parties in the void? Isn’t it our ******** responsibility to do ******** better?”
Well, Reiki certainly felt like it was.
But he also felt like……maybe, he’d let himself get too intense. Too Much. Like always, because he always did Too Much. And maybe Daedalus couldn’t handle that right now. He……he’d only just gotten to Earth after some kind of untold, horrific space-trauma, and he probably didn’t want to listen to all kinds of buyer’s remorse from a stupid boy with stupid dreams who never learned and sold his soul for a boy he didn’t have a chance with anyway.
“……Sorry that’s not as helpful a primer as I gave the Negaverse,” Reiki murmured, hugging himself around the shin and looking away. “And that the latest reincarnation of your friend did something so stupid by ending up here.” He sighed. “And that I just……vented it all on you like that. When you only just got here. But……probably the only useful thing I know about the Court is that our leader is Prince Remarque. I try not to bother him because he’s probably busy with more important things than, like……‘I know one of our Chaos Mauvians said that I was almost too old to have been Awakened at all, and I guess that does bad things to your starseed or something? But maybe those bad things would’ve been better than being such a ******** excuse for a senshi.’”
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Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2023 12:03 am
Daedalus nodded along at the explanation, and pondered, for a long moment. "....So Earth is out of contact with the broader universe, then. If contact with other planets is the domain of your stories and aspirations."
How long had it been? Had many other planets fallen, like Daedalus, eaten from the inside out by Chaos? All the pieces of information he was getting seemed to indicate that.
He sohuld ask. He knew that eh should ask. But how did he? How did one phrase the question "how long was I asleep" to someone who had no way of knowing that answer, but who was also the only one available to give anything even close to it?
He set the question aside, for the moment, to listen to Reiki's explanation of his own Court. It wasn't exactly hard to see that this wasn't nearly as easy for him to talk about as the Negaverse--Daedalus remembered him apologizing for being Chaos, and wondered if he was discontented there. If it weighed on him, in some way, and that was why he seemed so...un-eager to talk about the deeper details.
"It seems to me," Daedalus said, voice soft, "that you have a very strong grasp of what a Senshi should be." He smiled, wryly. "There are people on my world who would have hated you, and trust me, that's very much a compliment." Just like they'd hated him--and it seemed right to past tense. It seemed...unlikely that any of those people were still alive. Because it must have been a very, very, very long time.
"And I think," Daedalus said, "that even being a Chaos Senshi is better than entirely denying the destiny in your soul. I....don't want to guess what would happen to a Senshi that went unawakened for too long. But this way, you know who you are, and who you want to be, and you have a chance."
Finally, he exhaled.
"You said you've met others like me. How long....were they trapped for? I...nearly died, and I think I spent whatever time there was between then and now in a sort of magical stasis, so I'm afraid I don't know."
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Posted: Mon May 29, 2023 3:59 pm
Trying to calm down, for Reiki, was always easier said than done. It had been easier said than done since he’d been a child with a chronically understimulated brain that had constantly itched for him to do things!!! and to do STUFF!!!! and to not be quiet or still or anything like that because he would literally WITHER AND DIE!!!!! if he had to sit in one place and behave himself!!!! Regardless, he was making an effort right now. Daedalus deserved that from him, after Reiki had……well, in his own mind, he’d spectacularly failed to give Daedalus as good a rundown as he deserved on the Dark Mirror Court. Instead of being helpful, Reiki had gotten in his feelings and allowed them to drag down the quality of his explanation.
So extremely not a good look right now……and yet, somehow, Reiki had managed to make a good impression on Daedalus regardless, which……? At least that got a small, tired smile out of Reiki. “Well, I’m glad to know that I’d have been a thorn in such major sides,” he said with a small chuckle. “Obaasan—my grandmother, that is—she’d be pretty proud of that, too.… She and my grandfather met each other in the first place because she was out on the local university’s campus, getting in people’s faces about trying to end this country’s involvement in another country’s war.”
Which was……probably all that Reiki could say about the Vietnam War without getting Daedalus way too bogged down in things that he hadn’t asked about and didn’t need to know right now.
“We’re kinda cut off from the broader universe, yeah?” Idly, Reiki fussed with his bangs, getting them off his face and combing his fingers through them. “Most non-magical people don’t know anything about contacting any other worlds. They only get anywhere off-world by studying and physically training for years and years, and by ‘off-world,’ I mostly mean ‘either Earth’s moon or one of the low-Earth orbit space stations.’ They haven’t even made it to Mars yet. As I understand, White Moon senshi and Knights might have better contact with at least their worlds, or the places where the Knights’ Wonders are? But……” Reiki shrugged. “Kinda cut off from that, personally. Everything I know is just from other people’s stories, or them being kind enough to let me visit. Mirrorspace is supposed to have its own benefits, but……”
Making a discontented little noise, Reiki shook his head. “I’m not…? Or I don’t feel like I’m really the kind of senshi it wants? Which isn’t the biggest point right now at all, I just…” As much as he would’ve liked to continue being an authority, Reiki had to admit, “I’m really not sure how long it’s been? None of the senshi like you who I’ve met have seemed to know for sure themselves. It’s definitely been a long time, but……even Fang? The one I know who was awake the whole time? He lost his entire civilization when he was a child, so there wasn’t anybody really tracking things anymore, so he knows that he was alone for a very long time? But not a precise number of years, as far as I know.”
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2023 2:58 am
There was, Daedalus supposed, something at the core of a soul. A piece of a person that might, in some way, always be there. Or maybe he was just biased, trying to see his old friend in this blackened mirror-version, but...it felt, to him, as if Airan's desire to do right lived on in the modern Murikabushi.
"Your obaasan sounds like someone I would very much like to meet." If that was even possible. It probably wasn't, if there was a proper war going on between Order and Chaos.
...That was unfortunate. But perhaps if Murikabushi ever found his answer, ever escaped Chaos, it could be.
His explanation of the state of things on earth made Daedalus frown, deeply. "So much lost. Earth was once the heart of so very many things--Knights trained here, at their Academy. For it to have lost contact....the state of the universe must be dire indeed."
How many had survived? How many were lost?
He let out a breath.
"I appreciate your honesty. I'll...have to keep asking." And perhaps see if he could find a way home, so that he might see for himself what was left of his world.
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Posted: Tue May 30, 2023 3:13 am
Reiki nodded, giving Daedalus a small, soft smile, more than a little bit sad around the edges.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “there are a lot of knowledgeable people on the White Moon side, and they might have the answers you’re looking for? There’s Kerberos of asphodel, who I hang out with a lot. There’s Ida of orchids and Lysithea of unicorns; they’re both Princess senshi. Lysithea’s memory can be a little fuzzy on some things, I think? She got forcibly dragged into the Negaverse, but then found her way back out again. I kinda think the memories most affected by that were from her personal life outside of being a senshi, but I only know a little bit of her story, so I might be wrong? But there’s also Encke of plasma, and Dagon of dread, another one of the senshi like you? Her memory of things from the old days seems to be pretty solid? And……I don’t know any of the White Moon’s Mauvians, but? Maybe, if you can find one of them, they’ll know something?”
In the meantime, though, there was one thing Reiki could still help with: “Are you still hungry? There are plenty of diners around here that can make you something more substantial than my egg sandwich. I could get you something, if you want?”
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Posted: Wed May 31, 2023 12:22 am
Daedalus took in every one of those names. Kerberos. Ida. Lysithea. Encke. Dagon. All people who might be able to help him get more acclimated to the strange new world he found himself in.
"Thank you," he said, genuinely. "And...I appreciate the offer, but I think I'll make it. Don't put yourself out on my account."
He forced himself to stand, found it much easier than before. His feet felt much steadier under him, and his lungs no longer felt like screaming, and his throat no longer felt like sandpaper.
"But I hope we find each other again, Murikabushi."
Ideally, once he'd found a way to free himself from Chaos's grip.
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