Chapter 11:
Dead Woman Rising
Wade Salter slumped back on his bed and looked at the blonde girl opposite him. He had changed an awful lot since Gwyn had last seen the senshi of the sea; though not much physically - it was the slightly sunken look in his blue eyes, usually brimming with joy so exuberant it made people want to hit him very badly. His entire demeanor was different - sadder, slower, more thoughtful. All in all, it was really rather depressing.
His entire attitude and tone of voice had changed the most.
"You didn't need to come see me, Gwyn," he said sincerely. "Y'know, I'm fine. Nobody needs to worry. Honestly." Wade popped open a can of soda absently. "Lookit, I'm just... ducky."
"Okay, Wade," the blonde replied, slowly rolling her own can between her hands instead of opening it. She opened her mouth to say something, tilting her head and frowning her eyebrows. Her eyes skipped around his face, her mouth slightly on the verge of spoken word, before deciding against it and shrugging. "Okay." She looked out the window to the left of her booth.
Just when he thought he'd gotten away scott free, her head snapped back around, and she popped the top on her soda testilly. "Are you saying that out of guilt, low self-esteem, or because you're a sneaky liar?"
"Um." Wade went slightly pink and ducked his head forward, strands of blue falling over his cheeks. "Can I take a mix of all three?"
Gwyn smiled, propping an elbow up on he table and resting her chin on her hand. "Sure you can. It won't get you anywhere though." Her right hand swept lightly across her forehead as she tucked away an errant strand of hair from her face. "Don't you get tired of it?"
"Yeah. All the time." Wade sighed. "I'm such n'idiot - "
"Gwyn!" Livia's voice was shrill from her tank, the little turtle having climbed up to the top to glare out at both her charge and the blonde. "Yoo must trai too - oh, bother the accent. Kelly, can you do anything about him? He's been like this for days, ever since that trollop - "
"Livvy."
"Tart - "
"Livvy!"
"All right, all right - lady whose virtue is, ai'm sure, flawless - messed him up. The Romanus team is divided."
"Yuh-huh," Gwyn agreed, partly hoping it would get the turtle to quiet down and sink back into her tank. "We have to get the team back together, that's top priority." She looked at Wade sympathetically.
"You told Rayya how you felt, huh?"
He groaned, rubbing his forehead and looking injured. "Yeah. I shouldn'tve. I know."
Wade paused. "Hold on. How come you know all about how I feel for 'Ayya?"
Gwyn held up a hand as he asked that very, very stupid question. Anyone who had seen them together knew. "Why shouldn't you have told her?"
"... 'Cause she doesn't feel the same."
"No!" Gwyn bellowed suddenly, jumping up from her chair and stomping across the room. "That's not good enough! That's not right!" She looked around the room a bit frantically, then spied a pillow which she promptly picked up and threw at Wade. "Love doesn't work like that, it can't. You can't let it."
The blue-haired senshi blinked mildly, not pained from the pillow assault. "You can't make someone love you if they don', Gwyn, and 'Ayya just... doesn't. 'Cause I'm too young and too stupid and I say dumb things..."
"You retard, that's nothing. You just have to prove to Rayya that you've matured, and stuff."
"I've been trying!" He stood up, running a hand through his ponytail and setting down his soda. "Look, I'm not speaking all odd any more. I'm not saying 'hokay' every ten seconds 'cause I'm nervous. I'm not saying 'y'know'. I'm trying really hard not to sound like a redneck. But it's not going to work." Wade went over to sit by his window. "I'm just gonna... continue on. Y'know, patrol with you'n Theresa and Lissie and stuff, and... try not to get in her way."
"HA!" Gwyn answered, getting in his face and poking him in the chest with most of her following words. "That's your problem! You think she doesn't like you because of an accent? Get over it! She probably thinks it's cute." She stepped back a bit, rolling her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest. "No, your problem is that wussy-ass low self-esteem. How the hell can you be so tall and have such a tiny backbone?"
Wade blushed, ducking his head. "I... I was just born like it. I'm not like y'. I wish I was, Gwyn."
"You can be! In fact, you already are. You just haven't gotten in touch with that part of yourself. Like, the confident non-adolescent part."
"How do I manage that?"
A leer grew across Gwyn's face that would strike fear into the hearts of most people immediately. "Let's go out Wade. Let's go out and have some fucking fun."
"Um," Wade hazarded weakly, "Where?"
"Anywhere you want, as long as its fun!" She beamed innoncently, picking up her sweetly tanned suede jacket off the chair. "I just gotta make one little stop at Murphy's first. The absoulute, rest of the night all you."
"Cain't yoo wait faive minutes?" Livia suddenly complained from the tank. She had been oddly silent the entire conversation, almost. "Thair's something ai need yoo to do first."
"If you're gonna say patrol, you can forget it."Gwyn said immediately. "I patrol every damn night, and I'm sure Wade does more than his fair share. So tonight, Livvy, no."
"As much as ai'd reccommend that, no." Livvy rolled her eyes. "As useless as yoo all ahre... There's a Romanus a-comin' in the vicinity, and ai think... that they're coming doawn the road."
"Oh.... fuck." Gwyn answered, turning and walking to the window. She hung her herself half out of it and scanned the street below. The street seemed empty, but most of her view was blocked by the big oak tree next to Wade's window. "I don't see him!" Figuring that waiting for the person to come into view was stupid, she grabbed onto one of the larger tree limbs, climbing out the window. "Bring the turtle too!" She yelled from outside.
Wade turned to the little turtle, carefully tucking her inside her usual bucket. "Y'know, Liv, sometimes y'really pick the wrong moment," he muttered, before taking the handle inbetween his teeth and following Gwyn.
Jen had let her mind wander while she ran today, and when she finally pulled herself out of her thoughts and looked around, she didn’t recognise any of the houses at all. She stopped, then began to jog more slowly down the street, on the lookout for anything familiar. Nothing. She sighed, and reached down to the waist-bag she wore while running, intending to get her phone out and call Sandy with a plaintive ‘Help me, I’m lost again.’
She patted around her waist for a moment, then found that she wasn’t wearing the waist-bag. An image flashed into her mind, of the bag lying on her desk, just waiting for her to pick it up and put it on. More than likely, it was still there.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Now what?”
She ran one hand over her head, pushing back strands of hair that had escaped from her ponytail, and tried to figure out what she could do. She couldn’t retrace her footsteps, since she hadn’t been paying attention to where she was going. Perhaps someone around here would let her use their phone to call Sandy? Worth a try, at least. She caught some movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned to see a guy and a girl climbing down a tree from the window of one of the houses.
“Excuse me!” she called, waving and running over to them. “Do you live here?” she asked, even before they’d finished climbing down. “Could I use your phone? I’m new here and I got lost and I don’t have my phone with me and I need to call home and ask someone to pick me up,” she explained in a rush, and looked at them hopefully. “Please?”
With a slight hesitation, Gwyn dropped herself down a few feet from the final branch onto the lawn. She brushed her palms on the side of her thighs, and looked at Jen quizzically, not really paying attention to what she was saying. "Hey, it's another girl," she declared, as Wade dropped down next to her.
Wade looked her over, then pressed his ear down to the bucket. "Livvy says it's her," he told Gwyn, before turning back to Jen solemnly. "Uh, sure you can use our phone," he fumbled.
Gwyn slapped him angrily on the shoulder, shaking her head. "Wade, don't you think we need to talk to her just a little before she calls a cab and shit?" Wade kinda just hung his head a bit so Gwyn took initiative. She walked up to the other girl and looked her over mutely, stopping when she reached her eyes. "We need to talk to you before you do anything else. It's very important."
Jen looked at the blue-haired guy, then back at the girl. She was beginning to feel that perhaps it had been a mistake asking the first people she could see if she could use their phone -- or maybe they just liked trying to freak strangers out.
"Uh...okay...," she told the girl, then looked at the guy again and smiled. "And thanks," she added. She switched her gaze back to the girl. "Okay, so what do you need to talk to me about?"
"Why don' we go inside?" Wade suggested delicately, gesturing with the bucket and rubbing his shoulder goodnaturedly. "Too many people out here. Um, that sounded wrong, sounded like we were gonna murder you or something, but we ain't. And the telephone's inside, too. Aw - " The blue-haired teenager looked irritated. "Shit. I always muck this up, wakin' new senshi. I sound like a moron."
"Senshi?" Jen repeated, looking at him. "What's a senshi? And what does waking up whatever one is have to do with me?" She looked from one to the other, not sure whether this was all some big joke on their part or whether they were crazy.
"Um... look. Against my better judgement, I'm going to give you guys the benefite of the doubt, because hopelessly lost as I am I really need to use a phone if I want to get home. So...," she let out a deep sigh and ran her heand over her head again. "Lead on. Inside. Talk to me about whatever it is, and then I'll borrow your phone and never bother you again."
"Hey Wade!" Gwyn said, quickly tugging on his arm and pulling him away from the house.She secretly feared that him going back inside would get him comfy enough to forget about the stuff Gwyn had said and back out on their plans for the rest of the night. "She wants to get home and stuff. Why don't we just give her a ride? After she comes to hang out for a bit so we can explain everything, of course."
"Can you two stop behaving as if you're being lead by Julius, not me, and actually manage to awaken Orcus before she runs off?!" the bucket shouted.
"What the fuck...?" she said, taking a quick, nervous step backwards. "A talking bucket...um...nice meeting you and all, but maybe it would be better if I asked someone else...."
"No!" Gwyn exclaimed, closing the space the girl had tried to put between them. "I'm serious, you don't know it yet, but we're your friends. And if you don't listen to what we have to say you could be putting yourself in danger. Just hear us out. What's the worst that could happen if you listen to us for a few minutes?"
"My... friends. Right. And I'm putting myself in danger if I don't listen to you." Jen raised one eyebrow in disbelief. Normally she tried to be as polite as she could around strangers -- particularly ones she'd just asked for a favour -- but these two were making her feel pretty unnerved. And then there was that talking bucket...she had to have been hearing things. Buckets didn't talk. She folded her arms across her chest and sighed, shaking her head briefly. "The worst that could happen in a few minutes is you could shoot me or knife me, or something, but you don't look like you're carrying a concealed weapon or whatever. Okay. Three minutes, then I'm out of here." She looked from the girl to the guy. "Start talking, then."
Wade sighed deeply, running a hand through the blue spikes at his forehead before ushering both Gwyn and Jen inside the house. Luckily his brothers weren't home; they could have relative privacy. Standing in the hallway and shutting the door behind him with one long leg, he offered the two girls a weary half-smile as he dug around in the bucket.
"Sorry," he apologized. "She's been real grumpy lately. C'mon, Livvy, start talkin'."
A bright orange and black turtle crawled up on Wade's hand; he held her out to Jen. Immediately, she set up a coo, practically preening as she looked at the pale-haired girl.
"Salutations, mai deah Jennifer," she piped. "It's so naice to have another Romanus around, yoo won't believe the trouble ai'm having with these ones, they practi'cally need dahmage control. Look, ai know thaht nobody seems to be ahble to handle a talking turtle these days, but be a dahling and don't scream, hmm?"
Jen stared at the turtle, her mouth opening and closing soundlessy for a moment. Then she shook her head, and looked from the guy to the girl.
"One of you is a ventriloquist, right?" she said. "Not me," Wade confirmed. "You, Gwyn?"
Gwyn frowned, unamused, and crossed her arms indignantly. "You're supposed to be listening, Jen, not asking questions. Just tell yourself the whole situation is hypothetical so you can grasp the details through the madness." "Listening, right, I did say I would," Jen muttered. "I'll just listen to whichever of you is the ventriloquist talk through your turtle, and pretend it actually makes sense." She shook her head again. "Talking turtles, what next? Fine, go on, I'll try to stop interrupting."
"-Thenk- yoo," Livia said graciously. "If ai may continue - Jen, mai sweet, yoo ahre one of the Chosen of the Gods to be recie'ved as the reincarnated. Yoo ahre the god Orcus, senshi of D'eath, one of thee Romanus! - who are, by the way, the best team when they're not being utterly useless - the enemies and va'liant wahrriors who fight the Graaaaaikos, whose evil knows no bounds. Wade and Gwyn heah are also warrior senshi, Neptune and Fortuna. Wa'de, mai love, if yoo will?"
Livia crawled back into the bucket. When Wade dragged her out again, there was something else glittering in his hand; it was a small whale figurine, glistening crimson. Baffled, Wade held it out to Jen.
Jen stared at the turtle, then at the girl -- Gwyn, or whatever -- and the boy. Wade, apparently. Almost automatically, she took the figurine from Wade and turned it over in her fingers.
"I'm... a reincarnated... god," she said slowly. "A Romanus, here to fight the Graikos. Whatever Romanus and Graikos *are*, that is. And you two are also gods." She gave Gwyn and Wade a hard look. "Have you two seen anyone about these delusions of yours?"
"I hate this bit," Wade grumbled. "You shoulda seen the trouble I had with Asa'n all."
Gwyn nodded a bit in the direction of the figurine in Jen's hand. "That's your transformation item. It's what you use to become your other self. It makes you battle ready and enables you to use your powers."
"Gwyn is raight," Livia chimed in sweetly. "Foh once. Yo'h transformation phrase is 'Orcus Dea Power, Make-Up!' This will return yoo to yo'h natural form."
"What, stark naked?" Jen replied, a little flippantly. She looked at the figurine in her hand. "So, if I say that... transformation phrase, and nothing happens, will you leave me alone?" She looked at the figurine in her hand, then shrugged.
"Okay. Orcus Dea Power, Make Up," she said, rushing the phrase a little to get it over with. Who ever came up with such an embarrassing... the thought broke off as the figurine disappeared from her hand, then something began spinning around her, just abover her head. When it got down to eye level, she saw it was the figurine, leaving a trail of white...whatever...in it's wake. It continued circling down, and Jen smelled a stench like something had just died. Then the white light she was surrounded with seemed to melt onto her, and was gone. She blinked, and realised that somehow through all that she'd put one hand on her hip, and she was holding something in her other hand. She looked down and gasped.
The clothes she'd been wearing seemed to have disappeared, to be replaced by a totally white outfit. White bodysuit with a white bow on the front, white gloves, white boots with white laces, and a large white mallet in her hand with a white ribbon wrapped around the handle. She dropped the mallet on the floor, putting her hands up to her head and neck where she felt ribbons tied around her forehead and neck. She looked up at Gwyn, Wade, and the turtle.
"Wha...what the hell just happened?" she said, her question ending in a small squeak despite her trying to keep her voice under control.
"Wow, white on white." Gwyn smiled. "That's awesome. Her fuku doesn't suck at all." She stuck Wade with her elbow and winked. "Show her yours! Orcus, check out Neptune's outfit. He's dead sexy."
"Do I hafta?" Wade sighed. Grumbling goodnaturedly, he set Livia and the bucket down on a side table and ran a hand through his hair. "Neptune Deus Power, Make-Up!"
In a split second and the impression of sea spray and bubbles, he stood in front of them in tunic and long-legged bodysuit, boots making his already enormous 6'5" height into almost 6'7". "Hey, not bad," he rumbled in approval to Orcus. "You look pretty."
Orcus looked down at herself again. "Um, thanks," she replied, then looked up at Neptune again. "I think I'm going to get a sore neck being around you," she commented, then walked around him, inspecting his fuku.
"Okay, you look sexy for a guy," she allowed after she was finished, then grinned. "I love the tattoo. Do I get one, too? I want one!" She grinned some more, then turned to Gwyn. "What does your fancy dress costume look like?"
"Mine's just as embarrassing," She replied, almost excitedly. "Maybe more so. Check it out." She took a step back, one foot in the kitchen, and snagged a gold chain off her neck. "Fortuna Deus Power, Make up!" She proclaimed, sending spindles of golden light in every direction till they filled the room with a blinding light. They passed, and in their wake stood Sailor Fortuna in a fuku that consisted mainly of a brown leather bikini, some chains, and a really kickass cape cut into big strands.
"Yeah!" Fortuna said when finished. "This is some shit right here." She indicated her costume proudly.
"Ain't she cute?" Neptune beamed with perfect innocence. "Awww."
Orcus looked Fortuna over appreciatively, and nodded. "She is cute," she replied to Neptune. "And yeah, I suppose it would be embarrassing to wear," she said to Fortuna, and grinned. "But it's very nice to look at."
"I've grown rather fond of it." Gwyn agreed. She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, "Hey, are you starting to maybe believe us then?"
Orcus shrugged. "I held onto a little whale figurine and said some silly little phrase, and suddenly I get a costume change complete with an oversized mallet," she said, nudging the mallet with her foot. "Then you two shout out your own silly little phrases, and also get costume changes -- and he has a bloody trident that's as tall as he is," she added, indicating Neptune. "So, either you're telling the truth, or I'm going insane. And I'd prefer to believe that I'm not, sooo..." she sighed, "I guess I believe you, then. I have some more questions though, like did that," she pointed at the turtle, "*really* talk? And what's all this Graikos and Romanus stuff about?"
"Ai can answah that much." The little turtle peered out at Orcus again, looking extremely smug for a turtle. "Ask what you will of me, mai deah Romanus, and ai shall answah!"
Orcus blinked. "I, uh, guess you really are talking, huh?" She bent down so that she was down at the turtle's level, and gave a small smile that seemed to say 'I'm trying very hard to keep myself convinced that I'm not crazy'.
"We haven't been introduced," she said. "I'm Jennifer - Jen... or Orcus... or whatever, but you knew that. Of course. What's your name? And why did you call me 'Romanus' just before? And who's Graikos? And what was that stuff you said earlier about fighting?"
"Ai am Livia, Sailoh Orcus," the turtle piped up. "I called yoo Romanus because that is what yoo are - a reincarnation of the Romanus god ohf Death. The Graaaaaikos are the evil members ohf another group, the reincarnat'd Greek gods, and the Romanus' forebe'ahs. They want all our deaths, a'hnd we must faight back!"
Fortuna balked at the turtle immediately. "What the hell do you mean, forebe'ahs? Are you on crack or something, you little green goblin?"
"I'm the god of Death? Cool!" Orcus grinned, then briefly thought about the rest of what Livia had said. "Well, I'm all for fighting back against someone who wants to kill me....but why do they want to kill us? And what she said," she added, bodding at Fortuna. "Apart from the goblin bit, anyway. They're our forebears? What does that mean?"
Neptune also blinked. "I never heard -that- bit before."
Livia's grin was nigh-on evil; her accent almost disappeared. "Hadn't you guessed it by now, my deahs? The Romanus are the children of the Graikos. Orcus is related to Thanatos, if he was reborn; Neptune to Poseidon and Oceanus; Fortuna, my dahling, yoo are related to Crius, Themis, and - and ah, ai know - Tyche. We left the craidle long ago; now we war for who finally reigns, and for blood formerly spilt."
Fortuna glared down at the turtle. Her fists clenched menacingly, and her face glowed violently red. "Children? We are THEIR children!? What the hell is wrong with you! How could you not mention something like that!" She reached suddenly at the guardian in Wade's hands, stopping herself soon enough from crushing Livvy. Anger swelled in the air about her, and she quickly sent a strangling hand to the chain around her neck, de-transforming in a quick, dusting shimmer. She turned and headed back down the doorway.
"Leave that thing here Wade. We need to leave before I kill it."
"Wait, Fortuna!" Orcus called, then paused and frowned. "Umm... Gwyn? Is that right? Anyway, look, she's told you now, hasn't she? So you know. And why should them being our dear, darling 'parents' make any difference? If anything, it just makes me want to kill them more," she muttered, straightening up and running her hand over her head.
"Sailoh Orcus is such a naice girl," Livia said fondly, Jen immediately slipping into her Top Ten Senshi list.
Neptune shifted his triton from side to side in his hands before throwing it up; it disappeared into midair with a soft shower of seaspray. "Well, y'know," he muttered. "It kind of makes things different. The Graikos must've - loved us once."
"Well, they don't now," Livia snapped. "They want blood from the death of Sailor Hades."
"You said they wanted blood before that, though. Didn't you?" Gwyn called flippantly from down the hall. She jerked the door open and stepped half out. "Wade and Jen, c'mon. Livvy, go to hell."
"Ohf course," Livia called out sweetly. "Have fun, mai loves, ai'll just be sitting here and possibly go'ing out with Lissie."
"Look, Neptune," Orcus said, folding her arms across her chest. "They're family. So what? That *doesn't* mean they ever loved us. Family can treat you worse than anyone else." She looked down the hall at Gwyn, nodded, then looked back again. "And even if there was *ever* a time when they loved us, they want to kill us now. So it shouldn't change anything for us, 'cause it obviously hasn't for them." She paused and looked down at Livvy. "Who's Lissie?"
Gwyn leaned out the door for a moment wishing to walk away. With a growling sigh she turned and walked back in. She said as she headed past Orcus towards Livia. "She's another Romanus, one of us. Sailor Thalia." With a hard look she regarded the snide turtle. "You're really gonna see Lissie tonight, or are you just trying to see if I'll kill you or not?"
"Well, as much as ai laike antagonizing you, mai deah, I think ai actually maight go and see Miss di Rossi. Ai miss her." Livia sighed. "She gaive me alcohol. Ahnd Julius... well, not that ai laike him in any waiy, shaipe o'h form anymore."
"It's just so weird," Neptune murmured, walking a few steps forward and shimmering out of his fuku back into normal Wade. "Hyperion... being... my..." He shook his head, looking up at the girls. "C'mon, you guys. Let's go out an' get a drink or somethin'. Talk it over."
"Okay," Orcus agreed. "There's just this one little problem...." She gestured to herself. "How do I do what you just did and turn back to normal?"
"Just uh..." Gwyn gave the other girl a vague hand motion."Kinda think about what you were wearing before, and that you wanna go back to that." With a slight frown, she turned and headed finally out the door. "Tell Lissie I said 'Hey', if you do see her Livvy."
"Ai shall send ahll your love and good wishes, of c'ourse."
"Mmmmm, okay," Orcus said, and concentrated for a moment. Her normal clothes replaced her fuku as she did so, and when she looked down at herself again she gave a small nod. "Cool. Aw, hey, now I've lost the mallet," she said, a little disappointed as she looked at the spot on the floor where her mallet had been. "Well, ready now, I guess."
"Me too." Wade cocked his head and gave both a smile. "C'mon. My car."