"Well, alright, then. Now it's my turn to ask questions, right?"
Nope, nope, curiosity comes first. Ryouga knew better then to let a chance to get additional info slip away because he was tired, anyway. Especially after he'd talked his head off first, remembering all those incarnations of A*0-1 and 'Uranus' and all the other stuff...
Thinking of Uranus...well, she and Neptune were still talking behind those trees, as far as he could tell. Ahh, well.
"What was that, about Galaxia? We could feel she was coming, and some of us were all set to start running, too - and then there was this weird Space-Time blimp, and then she's going away. And she just doesn't feel any more like the ol' Galaxia we all loved to hate, either. So, what gives?"
Pluto and Saturn looked at each other, with slightly perplexed expressions.
"A - Space-Time blimp? Hmmm. Well, with all those energies being thrown about..." Pluto mused.
"Well, there was a fair bit of strangeness going on..." Saturn murmured.
"To say the least. Well, to make a long story short - Galaxia came, she turned out to be badly Chaos-infested, well, alright, some of us sort of knew that already but whatever, we all, um, played our part but our Sailor Moon - you've seen her in action already, I believe - "
"Oh, the Senshi with the odangos, right?" Ryouga said, remembering the girl and the utterly massive healing and purifying attack she had sent against the Lobster-things.
"Yes, her. Well, she, plus a certain little girl that turned out to be Galaxia's own Starseed, managed to join forces and enable Galaxia to throw the Chaos out. So Galaxia was healed and reunited with her Starseed, and is now busy 'rebooting' all those De-Lifed Systems, as far as we know. - I think, anyway." Pluto frowned a little, then.
"Well, that's about it, I think?"
Ryouga groaned. What?
"No, no, no, wait a minute - you mean to say, the Galaxia we knew, who went about smashing entire Star Systems - she - she didn't even have her own Starseed in her when she was doing all that?"
"Well." Saturn sighed. "She really didn't, it seems."
Ryouga buried his face in his hands. "That's crazy...all that power, and - she didn't even have a Starseed?"
Pluto sighed, too. "Well, it seems like she actually sent off her own Starseed when it looked like she just couldn't fight off the mental contamination any more - which was a good idea in some ways, as it kept her Starseed more or less safe, and slashed down her own powers massively, which meant there was that just much less of that for the Chaos to take advantage of, of course."
Saturn looked pensive. "On the other hand, she couldn't really starve off the contimation itself at all once her Starseed was gone, so..."
"And that was why she kept stealing other people's Starseeds, of course - she - or maybe the Chaos inside her - wanted extra energy, badly. Even though she was quite possibly one of the most powerful Senshi in existence, even without her Starseed. More, more, more, more..."
Pluto bit her lip, remembering...
"Let me try, anyway." Sarika offered, wondering just why the hell she was taking such risks. For one of Galaxia's thralled Commanders, no less.
But they had fought the good fight that day. Together.
"...Why?" Lodnus grinned. "I thought you needed every bit of 'rep' you could get your hands on?"
"Phooey. I'll get more 'rep' then I'll need in a thousand years if I was the first one who 'un-thralled' a Galaxia thrall, y'numbskull."
Lodnus sighed, and then smiled. "Well alright - try, then."
Sarika took a good look at the long streams of Starseeds they had 'librated' out of Galaxia's 'spared Starseed containers' - three of them. She still couldn't believe they'd actually managed to do that - floating out into space, and frankly wished they'd go float away faster, as pretty as they were. She didn't believe for a moment that Galaxia was actually gone, even though that Trap that Sailor Barrett had apparently set up had managed to disintegrate most of her thralls within the 'blast zone' - if she was, Lodnus should feel something even if she didn't, after all...
And then she looked at those two particular Starseeds which were following them at a distance, and sighed. One of them was Lodnus's own Starseed, according to Lodnus herself, who should know such things, at least. And the other...
Well, that really wasn't her business, was it now?
"I hope you don't mind if I take both your arms off, Lodnus? You could regrow them, afterwards, can't you?"
Lodnus just sighed. "I'm afraid that's been tried before too, Sarika..."
Damn. She should have guessed that.
"- Let me see those things, anyway."
"Alright?" Lodnus put out her hands readily enough. Sarika forced herself to study the bracelets closely, though the sense of wrongness was making her faintly nauseous.
"Damn. If I had something like a really, really, really powerful purifying and healing spell or something..."
"Eh?" Lodnus blinked. "Purifying and healing? Why?"
"I just might be able to just overload the circut here, and keep you from disintegrating into sparkles till your Starseed manages to get back into you. It'll be easier for it to get back inside if you were all sparkly-clean inside too, probably..."
"...Oh, yeah. Probably." Lodnus sighed. "But that kind of thing wasn't your speciality, I don't think, Sarika..."
"No." Sarika muttered. People with powerful purifying and healing powers were rather rare, all things considering. But - no, wait. Wasn't there something...?...
"But you see, I do have a pretty damn powerful healing and purifying crystal, here. And it's still more then half charged, to boot..."
But in the end, it was not to be. Pluto closed her eyes.
If only they'd had even a few more minutes...
It might have worked, and it might not have. Probably not, but it wasn't like there was much chances lying about to try that kind of thing with the Galaxia-thrall in question's Starseed just floating about at hand, so - well, they'd never know now, would they?
Pluto remembered Galaxia's rage and laughter, and shuddered. Because she'd come back, and - she didn't kill Lodnus.
Which was maybe the worst part of it, all things considered.
She remembered Lodnus struggling to point her sword at her own neck, till her eyes blanked out and she turned on her - Sarika - full force. And running and running, something feeding her energy...
It was only when she was far from the Nokia System that she realized that the two Starseeds that had been following Lodnus were now following her.
"Sarika?"
"Hmmmm?" Sarika turned to her comrade - well, comrade for the moment, anyway. "Yes, Yithi?"
"What's between you and Galaxia's Lodnus?"
Sarika smiled blankly, brushing her hair away from her eyes. "We're enemies?"
"Stop that, Sarika." Ythi made a face.
"Her life is mine, if you must know."
Ythi blinked. "Contract?"
Sarika sighed. "A bargain... Sort of. No. Maybe. - I should have..."
"Killed her while you had the chance?" Ythi said softly.
Sarika shrugged, walking away.
(Leave Lodnus to Sarika) Ythi had told the others, while she thought Sarika wasn't listening.
(...Why?)
(They're... I don't know, but...)
And now she faced Lodnus across the starry gulf. Two twinkling Starseeds at her side.
Which whispered, now.
Lodnus with her Sword. And Sarika with her Lance.
The fight had been long and hard, but both had somehow known it would end that day.
And it had.
World Shaking!
Gravity Lance Nova!
Lodnus had grinned at her, like that day so long ago, just before turning to sparkling dust...
And the Starseeds had spoken, for the first and last time - Thank you -
Pluto closed her eyes, and remembered the dark starry skies...
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Sun, 17 Sep 2006 17:47)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.