Apsyrtus pushed his way out of the wrecked pieces of ship, looking around. "Fiducius! Gaussia! Thais!" he shouted loudly, trying to crawl free from the wreckage, only to discover his leg was stuck and bent at a bad angle, one that made him cry out as he tried to move. "Are you okay?"
From nearby, there was coughing, and then Thais wormed his way out, pulling himself free. "What the hell happened now?" he grumbled, rubbing at his neck as he peered down into the hallway--well, former hallway, anyway--where Apsyrtus was trapped. "I thought we were scot free."
"Apparently our enemy disagreed." Apsyrtus shuddered, trying not to think about the fact that their ally ships had been lost, or that with the crash of their ship onto the small asteroid, they were now stranded. Coughing himself in the thin atmosphere, he called out raggedly, "Thais, see if you can find some air tanks. Fiducius!" he called again.
"How the hell am I supposed to do that?" Thais asked with a scowl.
"Just do it!" Apsyrtus let out another cry, sagging against the wreckage and hoping that Fiducius was okay.
It was Tsaria that found him next, the girl bleeding freely from a wound on her head, the red streaking into her golden hair. "Gaussia," he gasped out, trying to ignore the pain and the inability to breathe. "Where's Fiducius?"
"I don't know. I'm looking. Are you all right, Colchis?"
"I'll be better once I know he's okay," he panted. "Damn it, where is Thais with those tanks."
Tsaria leaned forward, so close that their faces were almost touching, and exhaled. Suddenly the air around him felt clean and sharp, and Apsyrtus recognized her rather unique healing ability. He must have really been out of it. "Go find Fiducius," he ordered. "I need him to help me out, and then we've got to get away from here."
She nodded, head popping back through the hole, and Apsyrtus let out a sigh of relief. Tsaria didn't seem worried, so maybe she already knew that Fiducius was all right. Hopefully. Apsyrtus gave up on twisting himself free, laying there and waiting until Fiducius arrived. Thais didn't return, and he didn't know if the man had just decided to run off and try and save his own skin, save the air tanks for himself. It wouldn't surprise him... Apsyrtus jerked at the thought, shaking his head. Fiducius. He had faith in the senshi of Subamara, and that was what mattered, not doubting his allies.
He didn't know how much time had passed, or whether he had gone to sleep or just fallen unconscious when he could smell the scent of flowers again, Tsaria restoring him. This was coupled with fresh, sharp pains that went up his leg, making him groan in agony. "Hold still," Fiducius said quietly. "I'm trying to get this thing off you as best I can."
"Fiducius," Apsyrtus mumbled, letting Tsaria cradle his head. "I knew you'd come."
"Of course I did. I can't die yet," the other man said, slicing away at the wreck with a glowing card. "How do you feel otherwise?"
"More clear-headed than I did, thanks to Tsaria. Where's Thais?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen him. Have you?"
"He was supposed to find the air tanks. Good for nothing," Apsyrtus grumbled.
"Don't talk like that," Fiducius said with a shake of his head. "You're hurt and in a lot of pain and you're just taking it out on him. Just lay still and save your strength." Once the Subamara senshi had cleared the pieces away, he gently eased Apsyrtus out of the hole, examining his leg. "We need to bind this up," Fiducius said. "Hold still, I'll get you taken care of." He tore at one of his sleeves, slicing it with the card and tearing it into strips, using that and two small lengths of wreckage to bind the other man's leg. "It's not the best, but it'll do until help comes. We have a distress signal, right?"
"Yes, though I'm not so sure that's a good thing. The enemy will know about it as well."
"The enemy will think we're already dead," Fiducius pointed out, "like the rest of the crew is. We probably only survived because we are senshi. But our allies will come looking for us anyway, right?"
"I hope so. I don't really envy the thought of attaining a perpetual limp." Apsyrtus leaned on the shorter man, Tsaria slipping under his other arm, the two half-guiding and half-pulling him out of the hole. "When did it become just the three of us, I wonder."
"Thais will come back," Fiducius said with a shake of his head. "Let's find a cave that goes down a bit. The air will be a little thicker there."
Apsyrtus nodded silently, letting the two guide him away from the wreckage. "Thanks for coming back for me."
"You're our leader," Tsaria pointed out. "Of course we will."
"And you're our friend," Fiducius added with a soft smile. "Isn't that reason enough?"
Apsyrtus managed a shaky smile back, crying out as he stumbled, the movement sending new pain up his leg. "Always with the legs. Why can't I injure myself in the shoulder or the pinky finger or the appendix?"
"I wouldn't want to injure myself in the appendix," Tsaria said with a frown.
"You don't need your appendix to walk."
"Yes, but you need it for...." She paused. "What do you need it for, anyway?"
"See? My point stands. And I'm the leader, so I'm always right," Apsyrtus grumbled good-naturedly. "There's a spot under cover. How does that look?"
"You're the leader, you're always right," Fiducius repeated dutifully as he led the way.
"And you're a smartass, Subamara." Apsyrtus winced as the pair set him down inside the cave, leaning against a rocky wall. "Did we manage to save rations or anything?"
"I found rations," Gaussia said, unclipping a bag from her waist. "And a heating pack. It'll get cold if this asteroid rotates away from the sun."
"Good thinking. But no air tanks?"
"We couldn't find them. They may have been damaged, or missing, or thrown clear," Fiducius said.
"Or misappropriated," Apsyrtus muttered, shaking his head. "He'll be sorry when that's all he has. Okay, then. I guess we settle down and wait. Who wants to keep first watch? Ah!" he hissed as he moved his legs. "Legs. Why is it always the legs? Why can't I be injured someplace less essential, like an arm or my appendix?"
"You want to be injured in your appendix?" Tsaria asked with a frown. "Again with the appendix."
"Better than being injured in my leg again!"
"I don't think I'd like to be injured in my appendix," the girl said, crossing her arms. "That just seems like it might be something you need, you know."
"I wouldn't know about that. What does anyone use their appendix for?" he countered.
"Well.... I'm not sure, actually. But I'm sure it's something important. Otherwise we wouldn't have it, right?" she countered.
Fiducius put a hand to his face. "Here we are, stranded on an uninhabited asteroid, our ship destroyed and the enemy lurking in space all around us, and you two are having an argument about what sorts of uses your appendix has. Again."
Apsyrtus shrugged. "It's something to pass the time, I guess."
"You should save your breath," Tsaria cautioned, looking at his leg. "You don't want to overexert yourself."
"Speak for yourself, you're the one that keeps restoring my breath," he countered. "You just want me to be quiet."
Fiducius put a hand on the other man's head, shaking his own head. "Calm down, Apsyrtus. We're only worried about you."
"I am calm. At least, as calm as I can be," he added with a shrug. "The situation is largely out of my control. I'm just focusing on what we can do at the moment, and that's stay alive. Well, stay alive and move my foot as little as possible," he added with a grimace.
"Is it bothering you? I could see if I could find some medicine on the ship," Fiducius offered.
Apsyrtus shook his head. "We don't want to go back out there if we can help it. If by some chance they are still flying overhead and they didn't see us come in here, which I'm guessing they didn't given that they haven't arrived to kill us yet, then we don't want to let them know we're here."
Tsaria sat down nearby, Fiducius placing himself between them, letting the younger woman lean her head on his shoulder. "Still," Fiducius said after a moment, "this isn't as bad as it could be. We're all here and we have each other."
"Yeah," Apsyrtus agreed. "I'm glad the two of you are here."
"I'm glad we're all here too," Tsaria agreed. "It's sort of nice if you can ignore the fact that we're being hunted by our enemies and everything."
Fiducius laughed at that, patting the girl on the head. "I'll take first watch. You two get some rest."
Tsaria shook her head. "You should rest, you did a lot of work. I'll keep first watch."
"Are you two seriously arguing over this? I don't care which one of you does it as long as I get to sleep," Apsyrtus said with a shake of his head in amused disbelief.
Fiducius grinned slightly at that. "How about we both keep watch for a little while, and let Apsyrtus sleep?" he offered.
"Oh, no," the Grecian senshi spoke up. "If you two are left alone, I imagine all sorts of secretive things will happen. I think I need to chaperone the pair of you."
"Mr. Apsyrtus!" Tsaria yelped, blushing a deep red. "You're terrible."
He grinned at her cheekily. "That's why you're cuddling up to him, right?" he added with a gesture at Fiducius.
"Mr. Apsyrtus!"
Fiducius laughed, putting his arm around her and giving her a gentle hug. "There's no fooling our mighty leader, Tsaria. He's known for a while."
"Because you told him, I bet!" she scolded. "You're terrible, the both of you. Can't a girl have her modesty?"
Fiducius blinked at that. "It's not like I told him how it was--"
She gave him a mighty shove, knocking him over onto his side, sending him sprawling into Apsyrtus's lap with a noted lack of grace. "I'm not talking to either of you two anymore," she said with a huff.
"Aw, come on, Tsaria," Apsyrtus said with a smile, helping Fiducius back up. "He didn't mean anything by it. Don't be like that, it'll make him all sad and lonely. And if he gets sad and lonely, we'll have to listen to him crying all night."
"When did I become the target of this attempted verbal assassination?" the Subamaran senshi wondered. "Enough out of you, Apsyrtus. Get some rest."
He stuck out his tongue, but settled back into the rock, leaning his head on Fiducius's shoulder. "He doesn't look so utterly mean when he's asleep," Tsaria said after a long moment.
"He didn't make you mad, did he?"
She shook her head. "Oh, no. He's a very funny guy. I'm glad he was joking around. It means he must be feeling better."
"I don't know about that," Fiducius said seriously. "I think he's just trying to keep us at ease. He's always been thinking about others, after all."
"Mr. Apsyrtus...He really is a good leader, isn't he?"
"I think so," Fiducius said with a smile. "He understands people and knows what to say at the right time. He isn't the best at strategy or things like that, but he knows how to delegate to those that do. And he's capable of making really difficult decisions. Things other people couldn't begin to try. I know I couldn't make those sorts of decisions that might get someone killed."
"How does he handle it?" she murmured, leaning her head against his other shoulder. "I don't think I could, either."
"I don't know that he does, per se. It always weighs heavily on his mind. Especially the friends that he's lost. It must be a terrible weight for him to bear. Losing Tynka and Strenua...He hasn't been the same, recently. Not that he's really even had much time to mourn Strenua."
"Strenua was a kind person too, wasn't he?"
"I wish I could have gotten to know him better," Fiducius said with a sigh. "He was a good person, he had a very good heart. His way of thinking was very unique, I guess in comparison to humans. It was almost funny the way he didn't comprehend emotions sometimes. But he was a good person. He didn't deserve to be murdered by Imperatrix."
"Imperatrix," she repeated to herself. "Why did he do that? What do you think was going through his head?"
"Imperatrix...." He shook his head. "Imperatrix was the Chariot. He let himself get carried away by his own momentum, his charge for power until it consumed him. He didn't care what he trampled anymore, even if it was the lives of his allies. And that charge killed him when he lost control of it. He was doomed the moment he agreed to kill senshi for his own personal gain."
Tsaria let out a little sigh. "The Chariot is one of your cards, right? What am I?"
He blushed a little at that. "I drew the Lovers for you."
She smiled at that, snuggling against his arm. "You're lying."
"I'm not! It's what I saw," he protested. "The lovers signify happiness and romance, and yes, love. Even before we...well, you know, you were always a loving spirit. I'm very glad I got to meet you. Even if our world were to end...I would not regret meeting you."
"I'm glad, Fiducius," she said, pushing her head against his shoulder as she shifted, drawing herself closer to him. "Good night. Wake me if the air becomes thin."
He nodded absently, letting her rest, and then he started, looking over at her. "Hey!" he protested. "Whatever happened to taking first watch?"
The sound of footsteps approaching made Apsyrtus stir awake, and he reached for his bow cautiously, taking stock of his situation. Fiducius and Tsaria were both still asleep, snuggled against each other, and the sight made him smile slightly as he put an arrow to string.
The figure that appeared at the entrance to the cave, partially sihloutted by the sun's light, was a familiar one, allowing Apsyrtus to let himself relax. "Hey, guys," Thais greeted softly, raising a hand. "I found you at last. Where did you run off to?"
"I could ask you the same question," Apsyrtus asked, sitting up, nudging Fiducius awake. "What happened to you? You never came back."
Thais shook his head. "It took me some time to find the air tanks. By the time I did, you were gone and I couldn't find you. I've been hiding in a nearby cave, waiting for the sun to come out."
Fiducius looked up at the man, then frowned. "What about the enemy ships? Did you see any in the sky?" Thais shook his head. "Not that I could see, but they could have potentially been high up, out of our sight. The atmosphere here makes it hard to see."
"Makes it hard to breathe, too," Apsyrtus grumbled. "I'm glad you found us, Thais. Are you hanging in there? You're not hurt?"
He shook his head again, rubbing at his hip where his artist's palette was. "I'm not hurt. A bit hungry, but that's it."
"Good. We'll get you something to eat. Tsaria, wake up," Apsyrtus said, pushing himself against the wall. "We'll have something to eat and consider our next move. If our allies are coming, they should be here within a few hours or so."
"Do you really think our allies are coming?" Thais asked quietly.
"Of course they are, what kind of question is that?" Apsyrtus asked. "They'll come."
"What if they've been wiped out by the enemy?"
"They'll come. They need us to fight the enemy senshi," the Grecian senshi replied firmly. "They can't win this war without us."
"But what if there's no one left alive to come rescue us?"
Apsyrtus looked over at him, as Fiducius shook Tsaria awake. "Is something bothering you, Thais? You're acting odd."
"I'm sorry," Thais apologized, and Apsyrtus felt a sudden feeling of dread in his stomach, forcing himself to his feet despite the pain. "They're not coming. They're all dead."
"How do you know that, Thais?"
"Because I killed them," came the voice of Zinc Mantis from behind him, and then the enemy senshi was on him.
Fiducius let out a shout of alarm, jumping to the other man's rescue with a card in his hand. "You were followed, Thais!" he warned.
"Yes. I know," he said in a voice almost too soft to hear, drawing forth his paintbrush. Leaving Zinc Mantis to attack Apsyrtus, he turned to Gaussia, throwing a splash of black at her. "I'm sorry, really I am. This is the only way some of us are going to survive."
She let out a cry of pain, clawing at her eyes. "Tsaria!" Fiducius looked torn between his lover and his friend, then redoubled his efforts against Zinc Mantis, managing to pin her against the wall. "Apsyrtus!"
The other senshi began firing arrows, pinning her to the wall. She only sneered, knocking Fiducius back against the wall hard enough to make his ears ring. "Tsaria!" he shouted, head spinning from the impact.
"Fiducius!" she cried out, moving toward the back of the cave. "I can't see anything!"
"Run! Keep going and don't look back!" he shouted at her, turning back toward Zinc Mantis and lashing out recklessly with the sword in his hand, trying to finish her off quickly. He had to save Apsyrtus and go to Tsaria's aid. "Thais! What are you doing, help us!"
"Sorry," he muttered, continuing on toward Tsaria. "I have to kill her. They'll let me live if I take her out. Someone has to die, Subamara. Why does it have to be me? Because I'm not best buddies with Colchis like you are?" he spat.
"What are you talking about? Leave her alone!" Fiducius shouted. "This isn't the place or time to wonder about these sorts of things, Thais! You're our ally, so help us! Do you really think they're going to let you live if you kill her?"
"They will," he said with a slight smile. "They promised to take me off this place if I killed one of you. I thought I'd spare you, Subamara. You were a pretty decent sort."
"You're just going after her because you think you have the best chance against her," Apsyrtus growled, pointing an arrow at him. "It has nothing to do with morals or anything reasonable. You're doing this to save your own skin. That's your only motivation. What would your world think of you?!"
"They'd think less of me if I died and wasn't there to save them," he said with a shrug. "I'll cut a deal with them. They'll spare us in exchange for her and her world."
"Damn it, Thais!" Apsyrtus loosed an arrow, and Thais countered with a swing of his paintbrush, Apsyrtus forced to raise his arm to protect his eyes. Thais took off into the deeper sections of the cave, going after Tsaria. "Fiducius! You have to go after her!"
"You go! I'll take care of Zinc Mantis," he stated, shoving the woman back toward the wall.
"I can't walk, you fool! Go save her!"
"You can't take Zinc Mantis on your own!" Fiducius snapped back. "Stop trying to get yourself killed to save someone else!"
"Damn it all, Fiducius!" Apsyrtus loosed some more arrows, and this time one caught Zinc Mantis in the eye, the alien senshi stepping back and pulling it out, the wound leaking green ichor. Even as she did, Fiducius was upon her, hacking away at her armored skin. "Her eyes, Fiducius!" Apsyrtus called out suddenly, having a flash of realization.
Pinning the woman to the ground, Fiducius shoved the sword down with both hands, and Zinc Mantis gave only a brief twitch before becoming still, then crumbling into dust. "Go," Apsyrtus said, pushing off from the wall. "I'll follow as fast as I can."
"Shout if you see anyone," Fiducius replied, picking up his sword and charging into the cave. The cave itself was quiet and still, with only the sound of his footsteps echoing around. He began to worry that he might not find them in time, that Thais might have found her first. Turning a corner, he finally spotted the artist. Thais was panting for breath, standing over Tsaria, his paintbrush sticking out of her chest where it had been stabbed in repeatedly, blood staining her coat. "No!" Fiducius shouted in alarm, charging at Thais and knocking him back against the wall. "Tsaria! Tsaria!"
Her eyes moved, focusing up on him, and then she smiled slightly, a trembling hand reaching up for him. She tried to say something, but could only cough, blood trickling from her lips. "Tsaria, please hang on. Can you heal yourself? Please do something, I can't stand to lose you!" Fiducius choked out, holding onto her.
Her hand touched his arm, and then it dropped to the ground, her body becoming limp in his embrace, her eyes closing. "Tsaria, no!" he shouted, holding her out and giving her a little shake. "Tsaria! TSARIA!"
Apsyrtus limped into the entrance to the cave, holding an arrow to his string as he kept it on Thais. "It's over now," Thais said with a small smile. "She's dead, so we can be saved. They'll let us go."
"That's correct," a voice agreed from somewhere in the darkness. "As promised, I will take you off this asteroid."
Thais choked as a hand emerged from his chest, briefly clutching his starseed before withdrawing, his empty, soulless body dropping to the ground. Lithium Irukandji looked at her bloodstained hand, staring at the crystal for a moment before she looked at the pair. "Colchis's Arrow. Subamara the Trickster. How appropriate it is that you and I shall be the last ones to do battle."
"Lithium Irukandji!" Fiducius leapt forward, preparing to draw a new card against the hated senshi, but Apsyrtus stopped him, grabbing his arm.
"I foresaw this ending," she stated, looking down at the murdered girl on the ground, then at the man she had murdered for it. "Them. You. Myself. I knew all of this was coming."
"Then what do you see now?" Apsyrtus spat, holding an arrow to his string. "Your own death?"
"You have a choice, Subamara the Trickster," she stated, turning to him. "You have the power, the same as mine. You will be put to use if you come with me. Galaxia shall soon be lost. Come with me, Subamara," she said, extending a hand. "You and I are creatures that would work well together. The army does not matter. It will fall apart soon enough. Come to me, Subamara the Trickster."
"If you can really see the future," Fiducius said softly, letting Apsyrtus lean against him, "then you already know the answer to that. I would never join a killer."
She shook her head slightly. "Yes, I knew. All the same, I wished to offer. Our kind is rare, Subamara. We should stick together. Our kind are far above even other senshi."
"You don't get it, do you," he said with a shake of his head. "We're not above other senshi. Senshi aren't above other people. We're all people. We think and feel the same sorts of things. We love, and share joy and pain, and cry. Have you ever loved someone, Lithium Irukandji?!"
"Perhaps. In another time, it may have been a reality."
"You destroyed my love," he whispered. "For that, I will see you dead."
She shook her head slightly. "I will not die by your hands, Subamara the Trickster. Is that all you wished to say?"
Apsyrtus tightened the string on his bow, but before he could shoot, something came rearing out of the earth, underneath Tsaria's body. Fiducius let out a gasp of shock as she disappeared inside the salamander's body, the creature rearing up to strike at Lithium Irukandji.
"Go! Go while we still can!" Apsyrtus urged in a low tone, dragging Fiducius with him.
"Tsaria!" he cried out. "No, I can't leave her!"
"You must! You have to live for her!" Apsyrtus limped forward, heedless of the pain in his leg, biting his lip to keep himself from screaming. "The same way I have to live for Tynka. It's the only thing we can do for them. It's a blessing, Fiducius. Her starseed won't be stolen by that monster."
"Tsaria," he moaned, letting Apsyrtus lead him before he slipped one of Apsyrtus's arms over his shoulders, carrying the taller man and picking up their speed. "Tsaria...."
"I know," Apsyrtus murmured, squeezing his shoulder. "Believe me, I understand exactly how you feel."
The reminder of Apsyrtus's own loss was enough to shake him out of the deepest levels of his shock, and he continued forward to the entrance to the cave. "There's her ship," Apsyrtus said. "We'll have to steal it and pilot it out of here. Think you can handle it, universe's greatest gunner?"
"I will," Fiducius said in a raspy tone, opening up the hatch and pulling Apsyrtus inside. The design was foreign to Fiducius, but Apsyrtus seemed to recognize it, going to the controls and warming up the ship. "I hope they haven't noticed that it's not Irukandji on this ship. Otherwise this is going to be a very short trip."
Fiducius didn't say anything as he looked over the controls in front of his own seat, guessing at their mechanics. Apsyrtus warmed up the ship, then propelled it from the asteroid's surface, skirting up toward the ships loosely clustered around the asteroid. "They had more than we thought," Apsyrtus observed. "Or they got more. We may be sort of fucked, Fiducius."
"Just fly us out of here," the other man said softly.
Apsyrtus did so, calculating the best vector that would keep them appearing to join up for the longest period of time and then getting them away as fast as possible. The communication system buzzed, and both looked at it. "Should we answer it?" Fiducius said softly.
Apsyrtus flipped the switch, speaking in a deadpan. "This is Colchis's Arrow, apprentice to Sailor Lithium Irukandji. What are your orders?"
The voice that came in reply was a human's, but the mere menace and pressure that filled the voice was enough to make Apsyrtus's stomach clench with dread. "You're late. What of the others? Has this pitiful resistance to me been taken care of?"
With a start, Apsyrtus realized he was talking to Galaxia herself. "I have the starseed of the one I killed myself, my mistress. The other is captured and with me and the third was swallowed by a worm. What are your orders, my mistress?"
"Good. Return to base," the voice stated. "Your next target will be determined shortly. Sailor Lithium Irukandji, be sure to train your apprentices well. I do not tolerate failure."
Apsyrtus felt himself break out in a cold sweat, but before he could ponder how he could possibly have Lithium Irukandji respond when she wasn't on the ship, the communication light blinked off, signalling an end to the transmission. Apsyrtus slumped against the seat, looking over to Fiducius. "That scared the shit out of me. That's the thing we're going against, Fiducius."
He didn't respond, and Apsyrtus bit his lip before steering the ship on its course that would take them out past the fleet, and hopefully to safety. "Prepare for battle."
