[Episode 123113] [Episode 123113]Hotaru Tomoe sighed as she stared out into the dark and all encompassing void. It would be good to finally leave this accursed place, even if she doubted they would receive a warm welcome anywhere. The 'sky' such as it was only served to remind her of what she had done.
It had started out with a string of disappearances. Setsuna - Hotaru had been around far too long now to think of anyone as 'mama' or 'papa' like she used to - said she had no idea what was going on, but stressed that the senshi should be ready.
Hotaru hadn't been. She had been taken on her way home from school. Not that her abductors really had any clue about just who they'd stolen.
She was thrown in with several other abducted people. She couldn't have told anyone just how long her imprisonment had been, even back then; there was simply no way to tell time. One by one new people would arrive, people from all walks of life seemingly picked up at random whenever they were alone. And one by one they had each left, never to be seen again, again picked at random with no regard for how long some had been there.
They weren't kept well. Some had died of starvation or disease or what have you, and the rest - at least those who'd been there longest without getting 'selected' - had taken to cannibalism to survive. It was only thanks to her senshi transformation that she'd survived as long as she had.
Then came her time to go. She had passed by several horrific scenes, scenes she'd thankfully forgotten in the pain that soon followed. She was taken to a pole, and affixed to it with nails that radiated more evil that anything she'd ever fought as a senshi. The pain as her captors raised the pole was unlike anything she'd ever experienced, the cursed nails burning her blood, and her own heartbeat spreading that burning feeling throughout her body.
She had no idea how long she hung there - to her it felt like an eternity. But what finally roused her from the pain was not death.
It was Sailor Moon. Or, judging by the power she'd felt, Eternal Sailor Moon and all her entire court. She felt their presence in the way only a senshi could as Moon asked for her power to help stop the evil.
It was only much later that Hotaru learned Sailor Moon had used a portal and her most powerful attack to destroy the leaders of those who were torturing her so.
However, even without that knowledge, she had understood immediately what she had to do, and wasted little time doing it.
She brought down the Silence.
That should have been the end of the story. Bringing forth the Silence, especially as she did without her Glaive in hand and barely hanging on to life, should have destroyed her.
The ritual her captors had been performing on her was complete by then. She died, but rose so after, animate but not living. Her mentor called her a necropolitan, not that the term really meant anything to her.
Of course, the Silence did shatter the planet, and it did utterly destroy everyone associated with the deeds that had been done to her and the other captured humans. Those few who survived were like her, neither living nor dead, and as such didn't care about the sudden loss of atmosphere, the boiling hot days and bone-chilling nights, and other things that would have made living beyond the Silence impossible.
That had been a thousand years ago, give or take a hundred.
"Hotaru?"
Hotaru jumped a bit in surprise, and turned to see her best friend materialize out of thin air.
"She say's she's ready for us, Hotaru."
Hotaru nodded, and accepted the ghostly hand offered as she stood. "Alright, Ranma. Let's go. We don't want to keep her waiting."
The lich who had them in was ready to send them all somewhere else. Somewhere where they wouldn't be the only things still moving.
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(Posted Sat, 30 Oct 2004 19:20)
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