Chapter Three:
Riptide
Horse-drawn carriages were not unheard of Rome. They existed primarily as a way for tourists to spend large amounts of money and see the great landmarks of the city. Of course, there were no tourist- worthy landmarks in this particular section of Rome, and the pony in question was not leading a carriage but carrying a person. Had anyone been walking near enough, they would have noticed something else odd: the pony was busy carrying on a low conversation with its rider.
"... They should be here by now, I don't know why we haven't run into anyone," the pony was saying in a gentle female voice. Her rider merely harrumphed in reply and glared at some approaching pedestrians. The pedestrians quickly scurried to the other side of the street. "Perhaps if you transform, Jonas..."
"Gah, not again," Jonas grumbled in reply.
"It's simply that when you are transformed, others will be able to sense us more readily, and perhaps they will find us."
Jonas grunted and turned his mount towards a nearby alley. It was fairly dark despite the sunny weather and completely deserted. Glancing quickly left and right, he dismounted, raised a fist into the air, and said unenthusiastically, "Poseidon Deus Power, Flow Forth." A stream of water suddenly erupted from the ground and just as quickly disappeared, leaving an armored Jonas in its wake. "I hope you're happy, Aethra."
"You know I wouldn't want to discomfort you, Poseidon."
"No, no," Poseidon grunted, waving for Aethra to forget about it. He refused to admit that he rather liked being Poseidon and the thought that the waves and the oceans were at his command was placating. Aethra probably knew as much, but to mention it would only anger the reincarnated god. She chose the wiser path and looked to the street.
"Now, we wait."
Eleanor Daray scribbled down a note in the margin of her textbook, took a bite of her apple, and immediately spat it out.
It was the tinfoil taste again.
"Goddess," she muttered, staring into her hand at the slightly chewed piece; there appeared to be nothing wrong with it, but it felt like her entire mouth was filled with blood. A low sick knot writhed in her stomach, making her nauseous enough so that her babyblue eyes half-closed; usually when this happened, she was safe and at home and somewhere where she could comfortably bury her face in a pillow and ignore it.
Enemy - senshi.
Tucking the textbook in her bag, she looked around the street anxiously, covering the fear on her face by moving her hands up to pin one of her haphazard wispy braids closer to the side of her head. Absently, she tugged so hard that a few strands of whitelavender came out in her fingers as she pulled them away, knuckles white. Slinging her knapsack over her shoulder, she stood up from her bench, eyeing the park around her with immediate worry. She only had a few minutes before it began. Seconds, even. She began a mental countdown, one fist going down to clutch a handful of her skirt as she looked around for a convenient place to hide.
Ten, nine, eight -
What she called her 'inner waver' started as Nell buried herself behind a pile of old rubbish in the alleyway behind a house, the mental shrieks of her alter ego, pushing hard enough to make her dizzy.
"I'm here," she whispered to it. "All right, I'm here. I'm yours. Just hold, mind!" Setting up an inner mantra of pleasepleaseplease, Nell fiddled in her purse until her fingers hit something smooth and plastic and crescent-shaped.
Seven, six, five - ow!
"Diana Deus Power, Light-Up!"
An instantaneous moment later, much more comfortable and completely unmindful of the fact that it was daylight and public, Sailor Diana took over. Dainty, stalking and smirking blindly, she had a senshi to find...
Poseidon tossed the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. "Long enough?" he asked, wiping his face with his hand. Beside him, Aethra shifted her weight nervously and didn't reply. That annoyed Poseidon. "Aethra," he growled. Still nothing. Poseidon closed his eyes and prepared to detransform.
"No, wait!" Aethra nearly shrieked, shrinking back suddenly. The cry was enough to stop Jonas. Aethra, always conscious about being heard by any eavesdroppers, never yelled unless there was good reason.
Immediately, Poseidon slid his speargun off his shoulder and held it ready. "What is it?"
"R-Romanus," gasped Aethra. Poseidon looked at her, not quite comprehending, but he understood soon enough.
"H'n."
A tiny girl? No, woman - walked into the alleyway, pale and slightly flittery like a butterfly, dressed in what appeared to be scraps of silk; golden crescent moons gleamed in her throat, embedded, and one hung over her right eyebrow. Blue eyes locked on Poseidon's the moment she stepped barefoot into the cool darkness; her mouth widened in something close to a grin. She would have been completely innocuous had it not been for the way she walked.
"Is this the best you can do, Seafather?" she mocked. "A senile old man and his horse? Not even of good breeding; you are getting weak in your dotage."
Poseidon stiffened. His ever-present glare strengthened and flickered with recognition. "Diana," he growled.
She gave a curtsey, sardonic, all pearls and the impression of a smile that should have had fangs. It might have been more impressive had she been not wearing a small satin tunic doing it's best to creep up her thighs. Nell would have been mortified; Diana, however, ignored everything except the man in front of her.
"You guessed," she said gaily. "I am your blood flower, never to be washed out. Shall we dance, foolish male? - you're not much worth my time."
Without even bothering to reply, Poseidon squeezed the trigger on his speargun and sent the projectile arcing through the air.
Diana jumped out of the way as it slammed heavily into the concrete where she'd been, by her feet, fragments of granite filling the air as she pushed herself hard off the wall and jumped on top of a nearby metal garbage container. "Such insolence, old one," she husked. "I with my temple in the city, and you so far away from Athens. Your weapon is... ah... inadequate, hmm?"
From behind, Aethra let out a shrill, "Poseidon!" but was completely ignored. Poseidon yanked once on the gun, causing the spear to retract, and glared pointedly, waiting for Diana to make the move.
The senshi gave the older man a smirk, pulling herself back and flat against the wall as she considered the situation in front of her. Alleyway behind her, alleyway in front, hard brick wall behind the stupid foolish Graikos male...
"Silence, then?" Diana queried. "All the better." She raised her hands up, pale hair fluttering in a wind that did not exist. Crackling blue, she almost lazily flicked her fingers outward, splayed hard. With a nauseous lurch, the force on Poseidon increased like she'd dealt him a blow. "Lunar Tide!"
The sudden force was enough to drive Poseidon back against Aethra-- Aethra, surprised, skittered away, and suddenly Poseidon was sitting on the ground with a nasty jolt to his tailbone. The ensuing curse, making reference to Diana's mother, would have turned a daisy bright pink. Poseidon quickly fired off the speargun once again before Diana could take advantage of his position.
Diana let out a piercing scream that was soon bit off; weakness was not a thing she cared to show in public. Although the weapon had not gone into her, having lost material form when it reached her skin, it still hurt like nine shades of Hell. She lost her footing momentarily, scrabbling, all the air knocked out of her. The moon senshi recovered in a few seconds though, breathing hard, the only severe wound in her immortal ego.
And in her tunic, which had withstood none of it and ripped down the middle.
"Son of a Libyan whore!"
At last, Poseidon offered substantive reaction, breaking into a loud and raspy laugh as the spear snapped back into place. "A little girl like you-- ha!" He rose to his feet. "You wouldn't even know what to use those for!"
Diana glared at him, blue eyes narrowing into slits as she absently stripped down the useless cloth to the waist, ripping it away and kicking the torn silver satin down to ground so it didn't get in her way. Now she was angry, and barechested to boot. "It left my mind," she hissed, "that the only thing flaming your passion is a woman that goes on all fours and says 'neigh'."
That cut Poseidon's laughter off. Aethra, already against the nearest wall, scrunched up and closed her eyes. Even without looking Poseidon knew that jibe had cut through his loyal steed's heart. Poseidon's hands gripped the speargun tighter and he fired it off again.
Diana need not have bothered dodging; the spear landed in the ground four feet in front of her and stuck there. "Earth Tremor!" Poseidon yelled, yanking on the spear. As he pulled, the earth around the spear rose into the air, knocking Diana down. The ground beneath her fractured into thousands of rocky chunks.
The female immediately fell off the container she was standing on, managing to turn her ungraceful fall into a somersault as she landed on the ground, crouching. The rumbling of the earth managed to drown out her long litany of curses detailing Poseidon's history, kinks, and possible sexual future with Aethra; the ground shook wildly, preventing her from doing anything more than crouching and dodging the larger chunks of earth as she rolled to one side.
Wasting no time, Poseidon raised his fist and shook it in the air. "Feel the Wrath of the God of the Seas!" Thick cloud poured out from between his fingers and rose to the sky above until no trace of blue was visible and the scene turned twilight. There was a pause, as if the clouds were waiting for a sign, and it began to rain.
This wasn't the gentle pitter-patter of a spring afternoon but an immediate torrent of water, sheets of sharp little darts flooding the area and soaking the ground. Poseidon roared furiously over the din of the sudden storm.
She was cold. She was half-naked. She was soaked. And now she was muddy.
Diana dug her fists into the sodden dirt, cheeks soon suffused pink with righteous anger. She was finally able to stand, trembling with the indignity of it all, of the audacity of... she could not even find a word disgusting enough to describe him. Her eyes were like exploding stars.
"I killed men," she gasped, "for so little compared to this, and you - I will cast your testicles so far out at sea there will be nothing in them to arise into anything as lovely as Venus!" Padding backwards clumsily until her back hit the wall in relief, she tensed up, obviously ready to initiate something.
Poseidon raised his arm and pointed at her. "Come and try!"
"Poseidon, no!" Aethra whinnied. "She's doing something!" Her whinnies went unnoticed; Poseidon was far beyond the point where he would listen to any objections from the pony.
In the half-darkness brought on by Poseidon's storm, Diana suddenly disappeared.
Or not? A shadow skirted around to the more intact bits of floor left in the wake of Poseidon's tremor attack; something dark and shifting and extremely cold suddenly hit him from behind, launching itself from the wall and slamming hard into the small of his back.
Poseidon gave a shout, a sound of pure anger and excruciating pain, and rolled to the ground, his speargun clattering away to the side. He was now up to his elbows in thick mud and his back was killing him. Something large moved over him; it was Aethra, moving to protect her master.
He would have none of it. "Aethra, get out of here!" he ordered, groping around for his speargun. His fingers closed around it, a moment too late.
A foot immediately stomped down on his unprotected fingers, followed up with an angry kick to the head. "Lunar Tide!" the senshi bellowed again, a far less powerful version of the attack she had inflicted on Poseidon earlier, and pushed Aethra away from their impromptu battlefield.
Diana stood over Poseidon, the colour of the winter sky at night, sucking in warmth from the air around her as she stared at him with eerie blue-glowing eyes. "Raper of my women," she spat bitterly, and one delicate foot slammed out again to get him in the face. It struck hard metal instead, impacting against the bracer he hastily raised in defense. His hands twisted around and grabbed her leg, pulling it towards him in an attempt to topple her.
Her skin was icy to the touch, almost painfully so, but despite her best efforts to kick him off Diana was obviously far more used to a stronger body than the one she was currently inhabiting. She toppled forward with a slight splash into the mud, thrashing immediately.
Poseidon was on top of her like a dog savaging a cat, pinning her to the ground and fighting to keep her arms and legs from flailing and hitting him in the face, or worse. "Fotze!" he spat. "Was machst Du da f�r Schei�e?"
The darkness leeched out of her skin as she diverted all her strength into attempting to buck Poseidon off; he was much bigger and probably twice as heavy as the petite moon senshi. Diana squirmed in his arms, immediately spitting in his face. "Weakling male Titan's bastard slipping into - " she managed to gurgle, attempting to free a leg - "Rhea's muddy hole of - die!"
The spit did virtually nothing in the pouring rain and Poseidon, who had clearly had a great deal of experience in subduing women, barely noticed. The halfway-freed leg banged uselessly against the lames of his armor. Poseidon pinned her chest underneath one arm and attempted to smack her across the face as hard as he could, but halfway through the attempt decided he was having too much trouble holding on to the muddy, squirming girl and tried return the hand to its original position. Too late, for she had an arm free again.
Diana immediately raked her nails across his face, tearing hard across his mouth as she struggled underneath him, completely pinned. No matter how hard she kicked, his weight combined with his armour had her so safely rocked down she could hardly breathe. She swiped again at his face, aiming for his eyes, the diatribe underneath her breath staunched in an effort to conserve energy. Poseidon lifted his head just in time for her fingers to sweep past his nose and finally managed to secure the wayward hand once again, gripping her wrist in a tight iron vise.
"You bitch," he spat in Italian, punctuating the sentence with a squeeze. He leaned in close, taking care to hold her head in place, and rasped, "No woman is safe from me, not any of your women, not even you." He went to strike her face again, every atom of rage in the blow.
Her pale head was knocked back, barely keeping conscious as a thin stream of blood began to flow from her nose. Diana's little body continued to buck against his uselessly, thrashing to get free like a bird in a cage before she stopped a moment, taking a breather so she could smirk up at him. "I was always safe from you," she mocked, voice half-strangled but vicious. "Your Naiads were fodder for my bed, seafather, old and powerless!"
That seemed to snap the last straw. Poseidon grabbed her arms and lept up, dragging her towards the door of a building and bashing it open. Luck, if it could be considered that, was with him, for the door led into a half-flooded sunken storeroom looking as if it hadn't been used in the past decade. He threw her against a pile of rotting crates, the decaying wood splintering under her weight and breaking into floating chunks. Then he towered over her, kicking her with his foot to guage her reaction, watching her squirm as much as he could.
"In the end, they were my naiads, and in the end, you're the same."
Taken! Raped as if he was a soldier and she was his prisoner of war! Diana's cheeks burned with the insult, even as her battered body burned with the pain of it. She spat out a mouthful of red-laced spit, pushing down the remnants of her tunic over bloodspattered thighs as she snarled up at Poseidon, lying on the floor and still shaking. The humiliation...
Barely conscious, her lips curled. "Are you going to kill me, Graikos?" One limp hand gestured towards her bruised breasts and blue-purpled stomach, pale skin marred with it. "You p-ploughed a salted field. You'll get no issue from me."
Poseidon didn't answer at first. He could hear Aethra outside moving around, looking for him in her quiet manner. At long last he grunted, gave her one final kick, and turned to leave.
Murder in her eyes, Diana watched him go, coughing up crimson flecks onto the floorboards as her face twisted in hatred. "Next time," she whispered, "when I win, I'm going to pulp inbetween your thighs with my teeth."
If Poseidon ever heard her, he made no sign of it, stepping out into the open air once again without a second thought. The rain had stopped and Aethra was there, her coat dripping dry.
"Poseidon! Where were you?" Aethra greeted. He held up a hand in return.
"I went in there to get away from the bitch." Aethra's nose flared at the term but she kept quiet as Poseidon clambered onto her back and detransformed. "Let's get going."
The pony's hooves clattered off along the cobblestones, gingerly picking their way through the rubble of the battle. She couldn't be certain, but she thought she heard something over the steady clop-clop of her iron shoes, a noise coming from the room off the alley. She quickly dismissed it in favor of tending to her rider. "Jonas, are you unhurt?"
He grunted. "Nothing serious." Through the pain and soreness he smirked, an expression Aethra never saw, but had she seen it, she certainly would have known the truth of the matter.
Women would never be his equal. Even if his body ached from battle and the blows Diana had landed, even if the sea was lost to him, he would always have that.