Ryouga forlornly gave the empty plastic bottle a final shake, and handed it back to Saturn with a nod.
"Thanks, that was good."
"You're welcome, um..."
"Oh, just call me 'Sia' for the time being, then."
"OK, Sia-san." Saturn smiled, tucking the bottle back into thin air without missing a beat.
Pluto waved her hand, then. "Ahh, I believe there was another name Uranus and A*0-1 were throwing around at each other... 'Silicon' or something like that?"
" - 'Silicore'." Ryouga groaned, remembering a young woman with flashy bouncing blood-red hair, even flashier clothes, and ... glasses. Well, technically, that thing she had on her nose all the time weren't really glasses, more like multi-level scanners connected to several different data banks and computers, but -
"Urgh..."
" - She wasn't very...nice?" Saturn suggested, delicately.
"Little Miss Mad Scientist's Assistant, yeah... And I should know, since I , or well, one of my past-selves was one of - well, not one of her flunkies to be precise, but I worked under her enough to know just how bloody callous and unthinking she could be. Not really a full-blown psychopath, I don't think, just uncaring and fanatical and with just enough real emotions to get actually lonely once in a while - " Ryouga stopped, then, sighing. He'd better explain this from the start, hadn't he.
"You see, once upon a time, in a Star System far, far away, there was such a thing called the Sailor Wars going on, destruction galore, and Certain People were getting sorta...antsy. And so, lo, this little ultra-secret project was born..."
"And then there was Silicore. Who was really a manipulative cold bitch, but - well, I don't know, Neptune, what do you do about people who can't help being manipulative cold bitches, anyway? I don't think she was really being that way on purpose at all, when push came to shove - she used to say she was lonely, and that I - well, Tanzanium that is - was her only friend, and the sad thing was, she meant it, I think. I mean, people just aren't that emotionally stunted on purpose, I don't think. It's no fun."
Neptune patted her on the arm, sadly. "Some people just are, Uranus..."
"Oh, I know. I wonder sometimes if Moon's mojo would work on that kind of thing, you know..."
"Well..." Neptune sat back and considered that. "If it was a brain or nerve disorder or something like that that was causing that kind of thing, probably. Ditto if it was most kinds of emotional trauma. But..."
"We just wouldn't know till we tried, and it'll be different with each person, probably, is my guess." Uranus sighed.
"The project, such as it was, was basically was in the business of trying to get insta-Senshi at low to no cost - just find de-Linked Senshi Starseeds and Link them to a spare planet without any Senshi at the moment."
Ryouga looked at Saturn and Pluto, and coughed.
"It really was an revolutionary idea at that time and place, you know? Well, it's quite possible we hadn't been the first or the only people trying something like that at that time, now that I think about it, but..."
"All new things have to start someplace."
Pluto commented colorlessly. Saturn simply gave a tight nod.
Ryouga wondered just what they had been before they'd become "Pluto" and "Saturn". Well, he could think about that later.
"Alright, let's see... Silicore. When A*0-1 was Silicore, your Uranus wasn't related to her, or her Significant Other, but - in some ways, it was even worse, I suppose. Tanzanium - as Silicore ended naming her - was one of the first experiments in artificially Linking De-Linked Senshi Starseeds to no-active-Senshi-for-the-moment planets and such, and well, Silicore really was a mad scientist's assistant in the worst way, then. Totally dedicated to the success of the project, not to mention utterly creepily adoring of the Princess of the planet we lived on then - Everything was in the name of the Princess, so she'll be able to do her duty better and keep safe doing it..."
Ryouga groaned inwardly, remembering.
"But the saddest thing is, in my opinion, that when Silicore said Tanza was her best friend, she probably wasn't lying, not really. Silicore did not have any friends worth speaking of. At all. Except somebody who she considered an experiment and a tool and was quite willing to kill once she had become 'inconvenient', that is."
Ryouga looked up at the skies. Silicore wasn't somebody he enjoyed thinking about.
"And so Silicore made me - well, it was she that found my Starseed drifting about, after all, she said I was her friend, and then she killed me when I became inconvenient, and..."
Uranus snorted.
"Come to think of it, fighting me was what outed her as 'Overkill' in that lifetime, probably. She'd done a pretty good job of pretending to be a minor Senshii Linked to one of the asteroids or something up to that point, as I recall... Serves her right. Heh."
"And then I heard the Princess had 'asked' her to leave, and she had, and that was the last I saw of Silicore - but..."
Ryouga paused, remembering.
"But - but what if she comes back? She knows almost everything about our Star System, and - "
And then, the Princess had smiled.
"I do not think she is going to be a problem for much longer, somehow..."
The Norzalia Princess, personal name Cyntharia. Why did he remember her so clearly, now? It was so long ago...
"Well, anyway, that was Silicore. And Tanzanium."
Uranus looked up at the stars, Neptune at her side.
For a long, long time, she/he/it had gotten reincarnated near - that one. Along with many others. Almost every single time.
Till Ha'shel.
Short dark blood-red hair, glinting red eyes, dark skinned and small-bodied - Hey, Twin, Twin, wait for me!
Ha'shel and Locraine, Locraine and Ha'shel, born together die together, that was how the story had been supposed to go -
Once.
And everything had been worthless and worse then worthless, in the end -
Uranus gritted her teeth, then, remembering what Ha'shel had become, in the end.
Ha'shel System-Killer. Who'd killed the Star System she'd been born in in that incarnation, and - went elsewhere. Because the others didn't kowtow to her worship her love her like she thought she needed deserved craved-
Ahhh, Ha'shel...
"Ummmm?" Neptune murmured, as her partner leaned over and gave her a hug.
"But it's interesting how things work out, eh?"
Uranus murmured, quietly.
" - For a long time, I reincarnated near that one almost every single time. And then, that stopped. And I wandered, through many lifetimes."
The moonlight was beautiful tonight, Uranus thought.
" And then, I met the others. And you."
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(Posted Tue, 12 Sep 2006 11:55)
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