Welcome to Gaia! ::

Though some of the days in Destiny City stubbornly remained hotter than Sailor Bacchus would have liked (despite his many explicit statements that he would prefer that they cool down), the rain brought with it some welcome relief. The frogs seemed to like it too, even if they were moving a bit more slowly as the temperatures dropped. He’d been bitterly disappointed to find out that they hibernated during the winter so it only made sense to look for them while they were still around. Maybe he’d even get a chance to see one going into hibernation, burrowing into the mud to wait out the cold. It was, after all, why he’d made his way to the edge of the park in the autumn damp.

Carefully picking his way around the pond, he stopped short at the sight of an oddly shaped mud puddle. The deep space senshi hadn’t been on Earth anywhere near long enough to be familiar with every variety of sludge it had to offer, but something about this one looked strange. Curiosity piqued, he gave the edge a light prod with the toe of his boot. Before he could quite register what exactly was happening, something had engulfed him up to his left ankle.

“Son of a ********>

A string of further colorful expletives escaped Bacchus as he realized that despite his best efforts, the mud thing was pulling him closer.

LP

The arrival of another Order senshi was more than a small relief for the trapped senshi of revelry. Embarrassing as his situation was, if the newcomer could haul him out he would take a little embarrassment. A dull, distant memory tugged at him. Teasing Nuada before grasping his brother’s hand in his own, helping him shimmy his way out of a similar pit near a glacier. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember which one. A scowl crossed his face as he noted yet another thing this eternity had taken. Somehow the loss of the small, stupid things hit harder.

“Not unless I can trick it into feeling drunk, think mud can feel drunk?” He weighed his options for several long seconds, “If you give me a hand, I can probably squirm free.” He huffed slightly, trying to relax. That’s what they always said to do here.

Oh. It was hardening. Mud wasn’t supposed to do that. Of course Earth had weird mud that was an a*****e that didn’t follow the mud rules.

“Bloody thing. Bloody stupid bloody mud monster.”

He groaned in agitation as he tried to pull himself out.

“It grabbed me!” Bacchus’ tone was indignant, though he couldn’t be entirely sure that certain factors hadn’t enhanced his experience. But it had most definitely seemed like some kind of arm or some equally shitty thing had pulled him in. He couldn’t fault its taste when it came to food, he probably tasted better than the average human around here. But still. Dragging him into a pit was a d**k move at best.

“And if it does have feelings I hope it’s offended! Like. The. a*****e. It. Is!”

He accompanied each word with a kick to the mud around him, doing his best to push himself upward as the other senshi tugged his arm. If the mud did want to eat him it did a piss poor job of keeping him in its mouth or stomach or whatever the pit was. Its incompetence was a comfort as he staggered over the edge and landed painfully on his chest.

“Ah ********. Thank you.”

Hauling himself to his feet, he didn’t bother trying to clean off the gallons of mud he knew covered him. At least the fuku would clean itself.

A rakish grin accompanied the dramatic bow he directed at his rescuer “Hello! Sailor Bacchus. New to Earth and not an enthusiastic lover of whatever that was.”

“So that’s not something you’ve seen around then?” Bacchus hoped he hadn’t stumbled into some new plague or something equally horrifying. It didn’t feel like Chaos but he hadn’t known what that felt like before his own planet ate itself so he could hardly say that he was certain that he knew what every aspect of that parasite felt like. Still, there was no point in worrying his new acquaintance if he wasn’t sure that everyone was going to die.

His expression turned mischievous, “It might be fun to wait around to see if some Negas show up. We could trick them into falling in.” He was still a just a wee bit miffed over the fact that the Chaos on this planet had an entire army of murderous assholes at its disposal. It seemed the least he could do to shove a few of them into a hungry mud monster.

“Oh, hey! Vizi told me about you. Thanks for telling me about the squeaking frogs. There’s nothing like that on my planet. Well, there’s not much of anything on my planet, but even before that we didn’t have anything like that. No reptiles, no frogs. None of it.” He paused briefly, still not entirely understanding why that was. “But I sat around the most boring places for centuries. Waiting a few weeks is almost instant gratification next to that. So, thank you. For that and for pulling me out of that pit.”

Bacchus made a face as Cardinal spoke, entirely confused as to why anyone would want to help those parasites. They made their choice and that choice happened to be a ******** stupid one. Greed, power, stupidity, their motivations didn’t matter when they were serving a militarized murder machine. “I’m sure their next victim will be very glad they’re not stuck in a mud hole.” he replied drily, unable to summon even the smallest modicum of sympathy. Tempesti had mentioned some who were forcibly corrupted but even they made a conscious decision to continue destroying souls and siphoning the life from their own planet, so ******** ‘em. “If someone being mean to them makes them even more unwilling to stop feeding on their home then they wouldn’t have changed either way.”

That she would ask a question about his planet after expressing that sentiment grated on him. She lived with a deep space senshi, she had to know what Chaos did to entire worlds “The dead kind. A crackling pile of bones and decay sprinkled along the glaciers. I’ll spare you the gory details but Chaos made life there eat itself. I do appreciate your help, really, but I don’t give a <********> about anyone’s excuses for making it more powerful.”