Our planet found peace through death

[drinkandforget]

The desert is hot, a dry heat begging for relief, at least a drink. The world is turned to sand and dust, broken only by the dim, hazy horizon. Dust even coats the objects carefully uncovered and laid out, almost as quickly as they're brushed off. Even this deep pit, dug too well to be natural, provides scant shelter.

Lethe's scarves and veils keep her from breathing dust, even if they result in the eerie impression of a shroud. She works carefully at one corner of the dig, where she's patiently unearthing a small object. When it's free, she meticulously brushes away the dust and dirt.

"Come closer," she invites, "And see something from a place that was lost."

(ooc: not quite evented, though bad luck may show as things go wrong at the dig. feel free to find artifacts not just from her world, but from the other character's world as well.)

Comments

[drinkandforget]

It's rare for Lethe to say more than she has to; perhaps Mnemosyne is rubbing off on her, just a little, because she turns to John now, losing her intimidation while his weapon stays at rest.

"Galaxia-sama is the strongest in the galaxy," she says. Does he really think there's a power to match that? "There's nothing to stand against that. And once she rules, there will be order through the galaxy."

She stays oblivious to the statues and the growing glow as she faces him.

[one_one_se7en]

"Do you know how many times I've heard that?"

Some of the statues' eyes gain an orange glow.

"Every empire falls. And she will. -- When Chaos lets her go, or is killed."

Their hands materialize blades of hard light. They stare at the intruders.

"There are no unstoppable forces in this universe. There are no immovable objects. Everything gives if you push hard enough."

The cryptum shoots upwards. The Spartan turns his sight and weapon towards the source.

Seven creatures over ten feet tall that had awaited a hundred millennia awaken in fury.

In blurs almost as if teleported around, the leader bolts against the intruders.

[drinkandforget]

[The moment it happens, John no longer has Lethe's attention - no, the creatures have it all. This place may be sand and dust - not worth protecting when it's already dead, she'd probably say if it were anywhere else - but this is planet Lethe. This is the place tied to the star in her heart, for as long as that star seed still exists.

She doesn't hesitate for even a moment.]

Galactica Myosotis Alpestris!

[Her bracelets gleam in the light, brilliant gold, and the full brunt of the energy of her attack barrels straight for the charging leader.]

[one_one_se7en]

It's leader opens its' helm by its' sides to reveal an imprisoned entity -- and is thrown back several meters, holding its' own chest in pain with its' shields out.

But curls. From it's back, a levitating drone bursts out. The knight once again charges against Lethe, firing... But as long as its' shields were out, the Drone sends a light of energy to its' front, materializing a shield of hard light, akin to the remainders of roman centurions prior to the dark ages.


Likewise, the Spartan fires against the creatures, but he does not forget about Lethe -- Whenever if he killed her, or the... things that were coming out, he'd have to see.

His entire body whirls to fire around the pillars, taking note of their distance and their lines of fire. Right now, his attention focuses on the closest one. Let him see if Lethe can take out the rest of them--

The machine jolts to its' right -- then the left -- and front.

It tackles the Spartan, it draws a blade.

[drinkandforget]

[Lethe's only defense is the bracelets themselves, which absorb some of the blasts, and the protection afforded by her uniform - luckily, stronger than it seems, having held up through many battles before now. She notes that the comrade of Sailor Mercury has little concern for her welfare.

But the creatures are actively opposed to it. She keeps her attention on them, attacking again and again, over and over, a long chain of desperation as she fights to defend herself. (Mnemosyne- where is Mnemosyne? Not here. Safe?)

It turns out, she is strong; she holds her own and even takes out her first creature with a fierce joy. But it is doubtful whether she can take them all on at once.]

[one_one_se7en]

From the edge of his HUD, the leader of the pack de-materializes in a mist of blue. The leader is taken out.

The edge of the blade almost hits him -- The Spartan dents the groin of the machine before kicking it to his back and hurling himself against it, drawing his Blaster as he approaches. He vanishes the shields of the machine before it teleports to his back.

The Spartan reacts with a hand over its' head and a knife below its' throat. He grabs the right "hand" of the machine just as it vanishes... and the massive weapon reshapes in his very palm to better fit him.

He turns towards the rest. These things were strong... Too fast. Way stronger than Elites and Brutes. What were they?

The Master Chief runs to his side to assault the enemies focuses on him, and not Lethe. He tosses a grenade--

One of the drones catch it, levitate it below them as if it was a toy. And hurl it back against Lethe and John.

[drinkandforget]

Lethe attacks, not the enemy this time, but the grenade itself; the force of her attack blows it back towards its source, a power struggle that keeps the thing in the air somewhere between them, now gaining ground, now losing.

She can't do this for long without leaving herself vulnerable to the other creatures.

She's certain these aren't senshi, but there is a very slight chance they still have star seeds; all life in her world does: each planet and star, each person, each senshi. So when she finally abruptly releases her power from the grenade, she raises her arms with her bracelets - and aims them at her foe. Golden lights shoot from them, ready to extract the star seed, if it has one.

[one_one_se7en]

It was a wise movement by Lethe -- The shrapnels pierce through two of the figures by being too many fragments for the drones to catch.

As the Spartan fires against the unshielded remnant, he sees the treacherous senshi use another sort of attack of golden light... But beside the brief shock of the machine, it is not affected. Even the Master Chief is surprised.

They are not organic. Implanted thoughts and memories of ancient warriors into cases of metal, now bound to the defense of their cryptum.

It won't turn well. He focuses on destroying one of the unshielded targets, but the other two engage the Spartan and Lethe up-close -- once again thundering their way towards them.

The sphere is opening. He comes to understand what were they doing. They were winning time for the artifact to open.

He tries kicking one of them away to run towards the element. Whenever if they'll focus on him, or on Lethe, he doesn't know. He just needs to get close -- whatever they protect, destroy it before it kills them both.

[drinkandforget]

Shock writes itself on Lethe's face. How had it failed?! But it has, and she needs another plan, with a tentative ally at best.

Even she knows when the situation has become too much. She defends herself as best she can from the renewed attacks, and as John starts to run, she yells after him.

"This once, we may need to put our feelings aside and fight together!"

[one_one_se7en]

The Spartan sets his feet on front to a stop, the unnatural sand not even rising into the air as his heels dig into it.

One of the tall machines leaps over him. The Master Chief ducks and breaks its' stance as he rolls forward, then leaps back towards Lethe... His back set on her, and his weapon covering her flanks.

May there be no mistake. He hates her. Moreso now because she is right.

As he fires, the drones retreat in movements meant to evade his reticule. Having learned of the intruders' tactic, the mechanized beings organize as if one, with the drones behind them, to form a phalanx with their shields of hard light.

With an eerie coordination, they run forward.

[drinkandforget]

It isn't as if she offered it because she wanted to. Lethe, too, is displeased by the situation forcing her to the side of someone she neither likes nor trusts; but she's done it before.

She does it clumsily. Her movements aren't synched with his, her fighting isn't measured to enhance his. They are two people attacking the same enemy, but very disconnected. It can't last this way for long, not under that rush as the enemy hurries towards them.

[one_one_se7en]

It's already disappointing him. He picks his blaster along with his rifle to fire against the shields of hard light -- intentionally keeping the drones focused on the formation, and waiting for the shields to drop to destroy at least one of the three remaining.

"Take the drones. Drop their shields."

They're coming too close. The mechanized fighters soon won't need to use weapons with range.

[drinkandforget]

"Understood." There's no more to say, and no love lost between them. Lethe focuses her attacks on the drones, but though they provide an impressive blast, the things keep coming. Too quickly. Even with the power from Galaxia's bracelets behind her, she isn't destroying them quickly, as she'd hoped.

"Galactica Myosotis Alpestris!"

She has a cold feeling down her neck.

[one_one_se7en]

The Watchers attempt to fly to the back of the group upon reading the senshi's growing energy signature, leaving the Knights shieldless -- and vulnerable to their attacks.

The Spartan's rounds pierce the head of one of them. It falls and dematerializes -- and its' companion bolts forward. The Master Chief grapples the arm of the machine and hurls it to the ground, firing against it. He turns.

One is coming toward Lethe. He tries firing against the threat before it reaches her.

[drinkandforget]

He- was protecting her? Even briefly, even for all the obvious practical reasons, it surprises her that he would do it.

Before she can say anything, though, another of the group bolts towards her. Unlike the Spartan, she doesn't have the strength to grapple with them. Light flares and flashes as she fires off her attacks at every opportunity, but she's becoming exhausted. There are tears along the hem of her dress, and they show the broken skin of her injuries.

[one_one_se7en]

The Spartan attempts to bolt towards Lethe, driven by an instinct to protect his teammates, former enemies or no. He attempts to continue his fire to drop its' personal shields and destroy it.

John hated her. But if someone was on his side, he protected her.

The massive figure blurs several meters away -- And flanks him along with the other one.

Atop Lethe, the Spartan holds the blaster in his left hand, and the light rifle on his right, staring at both of them. He doesn't look down to Lethe, but the need is evident.

Stand up. Or we're both dead.

[drinkandforget]

But she doesn't stand up. The wounds make her stagger, and she misses her aim- and then it's all over, with a sudden searing pain that leaves a shocked expression on her face as her whole body stiffens in its suffering.

She gives a terrible gurgle, a hoarse cry that takes no shape or form, and then falls back to the ground, dizzily, shakily, barely breathing.

It feels... as though it ripped right through her body, clean through to the other side.

[one_one_se7en]

Lethe's vitals flatline. The Master Chief looks at the red silhouettes of his enemies behind his HUD. He was running low on munitions.

They were surrounding him. One of them was enough trouble as it, but two of them wasn't a fight he thought he could win. They were too fast, and too armed to fight them effectively.

He readies... But they freeze in place.

With their purpose accomplished, the lights in their shapes vanish into sterility. The orange glow of their eyes and limbs disappears, and slowly kneel back to their inert, sleeping existence.

The giant sphere's edges give a stronger glow. Its' humming shakes even the sands several kilometers around them... And the glow slowly turns into a familiar shade of blue.

It slowly opens. The Spartan aims... and lowers his weapon.

[waterfell]

Mercury steps forward. She does not seem horrified by the blasted body, the broken frame of a fallen soldier. She barely spares a look for the scene of carnage, and equally ignores the man still present. Rather than any of this, she has eyes only for a small object left in the dust: a glimmering crystal.

As she straightens up with the prize in her hand, the sun glints off a golden bracer on her wrist. Then, her eyes finally fall on John. Almost as though taunting him for the loss of the girl who'd been here a moment before, she praises him.

"Galaxia-sama will appreciate your gift."

[one_one_se7en]

It takes the Spartan too long to tighten back the hold of his weapon. John refuses to believe what he is seeing. Between the body that was taken, the corpse of Lethe, and the evidence of the Star Seeds he had heard from Nehelenia... Anger takes over.

Galaxia corrupted her. Took over her like the Gravemind.

He takes a stance. His eyes take note of the new item. The golden bracer. What worries him the most is the aura around Mercury.

It's even blacker than usual. The watery sight of it resembles oil -- polluted water. He had some trouble coming close to Mercury after he developed a sense for the supernatural. But now he feels an unnatural shiver when he's close to her.

Mercury is lost.

"You told me you would kill her."

[waterfell]

The hand at her side makes a fist, clenching the crystal safely, and Mercury tilts her head. The air is cold and frigid now, as though the desert of Lethe is nothing but a distant memory.

"I will bring the sailor crystal to her," she says simply, at once negating any idea that she might ever have said such a thing as a vow to see Galaxia dead. The suggestion that it had been otherwise is brushed aside easily, in her current state.

[one_one_se7en]

"You told me." He presses. "You would kill her."

It's not the fact he vowed to kill her regardless of how out of league she was against the entity, but that she would oppose Galaxia until the very end. This is not Mercury.

"You vowed to stop her."

[waterfell]

"I'll be leaving first."

There's no pause, not even so much as a flicker of recognition or doubt. Instead, as if his protests are no more than a monotonous tedium, leaving no impression, Mercury begins to walk away. She already has what she must have come for, the precious crystal, and John has none for her to take.

She has no memory of such words at all. She has no memory before awakening as a newly reborn senshi calling upon Galaxia with powers usurped from Mercury. She is Galaxia's mud puppet.

Her eyes do see the aftermath of the earlier battles, all the signs of chaos and death, but once again she treats them impassively, deliberately stepping over the debris in her path without even glancing downward. Once, she steps over a fallen body.

[one_one_se7en]

The Spartan continues to watch, knowing the aura, and the motions are far from those of the girl he knew. The one that gave her life fighting Galaxia.

She doesn't recognize him. She is no longer Mercury. She is no longer Ami. Any semblance to what she was is now lost. The definition becomes immediately clear to him. She is a servant of Galaxia. An enemy.

Threat.

SPARTAN-117 sets the sights of the light rifle on her. And fires.

[waterfell]

Mercury, the true Mercury, would have stepped boldly, confidently, straight to her goal and to the point. She would not have had this dullness, this impassive lethargy behind the movements.

She turns quickly enough, as John raises the rifle. Without missing a beat, without batting an eyelash, she fires, too, at nearly the same time:

"Mercury Galactic Rhapsody!" The chord is abrasive, somehow dissonant despite being played with perfect fingering. It sounds strangled. Water streams from the harp she uses as her focus, and the hum of energy saturating the air.