onepassingnight | Third Journey

Entry tags:

Third Journey :: Cosplay

He rises up through the stairs, his reticule levelled until his eyes readjust to the light, and sees instead masses of people... All dressed in curious regalia, reminiscent of the worlds he had explored, but in a more imitative style than cultural style he had seen in the nexii he had visited... Not to mention many of them seem to be feeding on snack foods rather than full meals they'd devour too quickly. Turning to the windows, he realizes it's a twentieth-first century Earth. No supernatural presences anywhere.

As he turns around, he realizes the cyan lines of the HUD are no longer there, and his eye level is lower. Something's off. Even as he walks, he doesn't so much hear thuds, but clicking. There is an advertisement on the wall about a “Convention” in oriental kanji, denoting the location as... Tokyo.

He puts a hand forward to lean on the wall to inspect the writing -- but the limb that moves forward is the delicate arm of a girl... and from the little he sees of the body, it's the gloved arm of a young senshi rather than the metal of the MJOLNIR.

...

He -rather, she- looks below.

"Not again."

Joan hears herself in a feminine voice.

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There's a certain irony to the fact she blends in perfectly. The blue sailor fuku with its black markings attracts no notice beyond a few quiet comments surprised at the boldness of someone mimicking the style of the strange, half-mythical soldier rumored to fight for the shitennou.

Mercury herself is more interested in the uniform she doesn't recognize. Subtly, she keeps tabs on the girl who seems just vaguely, oddly, familiar. Information about the soldiers beyond this solar system is highly classified. So where would a human have gotten the idea of other senshi from...?

Before long, Joan may notice the attention - a movement out of the corner of her eye, the same girl glancing at her from a few feet away, from across the room, while talking with someone else...

A hand tries reaching for her rifle. She immediately notices it -- but She doesn't have a weapon. Joan still has Leonidas' stiletto. The newfound senshi has no choice but to settle with it as she moves forward. She ignores the handful of boys that immediately noticed her.

Strange. The speed feels almost the same. She had lost twelve inches in height, and the body feels too light.

It unnerves him how well is he moving with heels, too.

The right glove seems to be a little different. There seems to be a pommel attached to her wrist, but with a design more similar to the handle of a human sword.

For now, as she runs further into the crowd, the white-pale senshi looks for whoever was studying him. Her supernatural sight was off, too.

So that's how it is. The quick reflexes, the awareness, the instincts. And at the very edge of her senses, the aura of stars and planets. Whoever this girl is, she's no human.

She's a senshi.

Now she's interested. Mercury keeps herself just at the edge of sight, just enough to make sure the stranger knows she's there. Once she has Joan's attention, she works her way carefully to a side hallway that seems to be empty; this isn't a confrontation to stir up in public. But they have a lot to say to each other.

Or rather, Mercury reflects with a certain dark amusement, she has a lot to say, and this senshi has a lot to listen to.

Edited 2012-08-23 08:47 (UTC)

She moves too lightly. Joan could swear she could be blown away by the wind if she let herself. She is not used to weight so little, even when outside of any sort of armor.

The senshi spots a hue of blue. She bolts to the location. However, the more she distances herself from the crowds wanting to speak to her (some taking photographs of her she ignores as she runs), the more she grows to suspect she is walking right into a trap.

A trap with only one piece of familiar equipment. The rest of it in a wholly unfamiliar body.

Before she crosses the door, she unsheathes her stiletto, and scans the second room from her side of the door -- a motion of 'slicing the pie'. No threats. Even then, the senshi knows the threat could be waiting just beside the door... or at the edge of the hallway.

She improvises.

Joan first has to actually let herself be photographed (although the smile is only a hard-earned privilege only friends of hers ever get to see), before she grabs a bag of groceries.

They drop, rolling through one of the entries of the hallway.

... Before the senshi moves through the other side, scanning for threats.

Not bad. This senshi is, at least, no fool. She is, however, running. Keen to the possibility of traps and threats. Just what was she intending to do here?

Now that they're finally out of the way of the crowds, Mercury doesn't tire herself by chasing the other girl down. That speed could give Uranus a race, for starters. She only moves fast enough not to lose sight of her target and calls out in a loud, clear voice as her sword is raised to a guard position, ready but not aggressive. Translucent ice glimmers in the light.

"Who's there?" It's not a question. It's an order: identify yourself.

Edited 2012-08-25 04:37 (UTC)

There is a beat as the green senshi spots a blue blade... in the hands of someone dressed as Mercury. Without her sight, and so many of the senses of her previous body thrown off, she doesn't know if she can identify her correctly.

The fact she had seen a few dressed as Mercury moments ago. And in spite of the blade being set in a guard position, the tall senshi just stares.

"Joan."

... She wonders if this girl would understand.

"What are you doing."

Joan? A civilian's name. Is she still pretending to be nothing but a con-goer? (And why is the name tugging at something in the back of her mind?)

"Just now," Mercury says, and the sword doesn't disappear yet, "I felt it. Why is a sailor senshi here?" Her tone suggests that sailor senshi - aside from herself - have very little place here.

It's no explanation of her own presence. It just feels natural. Hadn't she come for a reason...? What was it? (The very fact she has to ask herself that feels out of place. Disconcerting.)

Senshi. Either this girl is acting Mercury's part far too much... or she was referring to Joan. In her actual state.

She still has her own speed. She's become a senshi herself.

"Same reason people from other worlds show up."

Which is to say, sometimes it happens. As it all happens, the taller senshi still does not raise her guard against this Mercury's own. If it is a civilian, she was playing around. If it was Ami, Joan would tell her not to point that thing at her.

Same reason others show up, huh? The last senshi to travel across the galaxy to this planet did so because of a looming threat raising its hand against them all at once. Before that, there had been the nexus.

"And while you're here?" she's slow to let down her guard, slow to believe whatever answer she receives even though she asks the question. "What will you do?"

"Finding Mercury." Joan replies, looking with ease at the descending sword. "Unless I already have."

"Shouldn't that be clear?" An arrogant retort; but slowly, slowly, the expression changes to confusion, and then open surprise. That calm, that face with those familiar features, that voice - no matter that it's feminized now.

The name: not Joan, but John.

Her demeanor changes to that faint bemusement. "Next time, say something more quickly," she advises. "If you don't want a fight."

But the sword is lowered the rest of the way.

Edited 2012-08-31 06:54 (UTC)

"A civilian wouldn't have known how."

In either case, Joan would have been prepared for it. And at least he would have identified her faster. What she had to admit, however, was that the body was too different for her to fight against another senshi.

She walks to Ami's side, still disliking the distinct sounds of having heels clicking against the floor. Joan is bothered by the colours.

"I think I lost a lot of my powers." Her original ones, at least. No MJOLNIR. No Rifle. Only her stiletto. "And got new ones."

Different supernatural senses. And a different body.

That's not good news. Something unfamiliar means something not in its top form. She needs to think of a way to return things to normal.

Or maybe that's grabbing at the excuse to say she doesn't want John to be Joan. She isn't sure she's ready to call a senshi her companion.

"You should have the powers of your planet," she says, "if you've become a senshi."

Joan stops walking. She inspects her gloves and the entire suit covering her, almost in a homage of the Spartans' MJOLNIR in the form of the uniform of the senshi. It soon becomes clear what it is.

Reach. Sailor Reach.

It would be a new kind of strength. She'd have to rethink her tactics. Even then, the prospect of finally getting to wield powerful magic in exchange of her body unnerves her.

"How do you learn of them?"

Mercury finds herself glad for the privacy now if they're going to discuss senshi things. After a moment, she shakes her head.

"The sailor senshi learned from their past lives," she says simply; it can't help but be connected to her, but she speaks as though it's removed, distant. The air is heavy with more unspoken words: without that connection, Sailor Reach will have to awaken her powers a different way.

Then mischief takes Mercury with a sly smile. "Or," she suggests craftily, "there's special training I learned about."

She'd always wanted to know how to become even more powerful herself.

Edited 2012-08-31 08:06 (UTC)

Joan immediately understands. That she suddenly has a female mindset is staggering enough, but without a past life to gain any experience from -the word geas strangely wanders around her mind-, she would have to learn a senshi's powers and tactics as quickly as possible.

Though Ami's mocking grin is met with a blank stare once she mentions special training.

"What kind of training?"

Joan recalls Ami smiling rarely means dignity for those she knows.

"If you're interested," Mercury offers, "I'll show you."

The good news is that the offer is legitimate, and so is the training. The bad news is that it will seem as nonsensical as, say, pirouettes and tumbling. (Both of which, she's noted, Joan has been doing quite well at.)

"There's no point in staying here anyway." This is true; neither of them is particularly the type to be interested in the convention.

Joan nods. She disliked public places as it is. Right now in a body with a skirt far too short for her liking, she'd dig a seven feet-deep foxhole if the floor wasn't covered in concrete.

Her long hair weaves as she turns to Mercury. Only her head feels heavy.

"Training facilities?"

The question seems to amuse the other senshi, who pivots sharply and turns to go. The sharp tap of her heels against the hard floor doesn't seem to disturb her. She's used to it.

"I know somewhere," she says, letting the words carry over her shoulder back to Joan. "A place already ready for us." Somehow, she simply knows that Crown is nearby.

And she's long since emptied it of any other senshi. They'll have it to themselves.

At first, Joan assumes it may be something as such. Someplace to bring out whatever powers she may have at the moment.

"Here...? It's too public."

Her head turns from Ami, brown hair waving once again. Something feels really off, but she doesn't know what. She's not supposed to have Kurt's sixth sense.

"Not here," says Mercury, but then she, too, pauses. Her eyes narrow and she turns to Sailor Reach.

"You feel it, too, don't you?" she asks matter-of-factly, as if that back-of-the-mind nagging is something normal and expected. A hostile presence. A youma, not one that she might command but one that would be happy to end her life indiscriminately if it can.

Stupid beast.

Not here. It would be later, but...

Mercury feels it as well. Reach pulls out the stiletto, positioning herself behind her companion -- and hating herself a little for it. However, she knows that Ami is the one with the most abilities right now. As strong as she still is right now, setting herself in front would only hinder Mercury as Sailor Reach tried to understand her powers.

"What is it?"

She mutters to Mercury.

"It's a foolish creature that doesn't know just how bold it is to think it can match us." She smirks. "A youma."

There's another signal, just as reliable, to tell where exactly the creature might be: The screams start as people panic and run. Someone must have discovered the youma's 'costume' was a bit too real.

Or they were already its victim, flat on the ground with their energy already stolen. Mercury heads forward with a brisk, purposeful stride. After all, she has more pride than to let the youma challenge her.

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