"You have no power over me."
- Jennifer Connelly, Labyrinth
"Is Ringo the best drummer in the world?"
"Ringo isn't even the best drummer in The Beatles."
- Beatles interview
Inori never had to make choices this hard when she was fourteen. Everything was easier with her friends and her fairies always there to back her up. She didn't have to worry when she knew everything would always turn out fine at the end of the day. Now she had gotten herself stuck in the middle of a dilemma that took away all of her bright optimism and cheer. Five years of fighting monsters from other worlds almost every day could really take a bite out of a girl.
But this all made sense the more she thought about it. She was always the shy one of the team. Her brain was always on a different wavelength from the other girls. Her closest friends were the animals at dad's vet clinic. It took becoming a magical girl paling up with talking critters from a fantasy kingdom before she had the courage to act at least a little normal.
Of course her boyfriend is going to turn out to be an undercover alien army general from another galaxy.
Drang Fomm Cohnatsim stood in the dark grass across from Cure Pine from fifty strides away. They were facing each other down on a dark hill with only the stars in the sky joining their company. Inori was turned slightly sideways with her arm holding her Pine Flute outward in a half-committed battle pose. Cohnatsim's faraway kingdom was a new threat that had already begun its invasion of Earth. Just as it had always been for years, Inori was one of the only few who could stand up to protect the planet.
She wasn't sure if she could stand up this time.
Cohnatsim had his trailing cape closed over his chest with his head bowed forward. His posture silently said, "I won't fight you. If you hate what I really am, then go ahead and destroy me."
Inori's hesitant posture said, "I can't." The two were so close they could understand each other's feelings without sharing a word.
Inori's half-committal fighting pose became completely non-committal. She stood forward in a less aggressive stance, lowered her magical weapon to her side, and let it turn back into swirls of light that disappeared from her fingers.
Ringo wasn't the person he used to be. He and Inori had been together for close to two years, but his human identity was mostly a lie that allowed him to infiltrate the planet and play undercover until the main forces arrived. The only thing that wasn't part of the plan was his falling in love with a young human girl who taught him this world could be beautiful in ways beyond just its natural resources.
Inori looked over toward the strange otherworldly being as if there was nothing otherworldly about him. Underneath the leathery black royal uniform, the spiky caped shoulder armor, and the silver highlighted astro-mullet, she could still see the hints of her loving Ringo still poking out. Despite all the regality, the Drang Fomm still appeared as young as her and just slightly lost. He was the prodigy general of one of the empire's most elite battalions, but he needed a light to help him see his way.
There was a way she could become that light. When Ringo first revealed his true self a week ago, he left her with one alternative: Join his race with him. Over the past several days, she had been thinking of nothing but him and what future she wanted for herself.
She had almost finished making up her mind. Rustling through the grass, she slowly walked toward Cohnatsim until they were within arm's reach of each other.
"If you don't fight me now," he said coldly but sadly to the shorter yellow fighter, "Then you'll have to fight me when your friends Love and Miki call you to their side."
Inori paused in fear of that notion. She forced out an almost stubborn reply.
"Not if I fight them first."
"Pine. Most humans are just pawns to me. A means to an end to ensure my own people's survival. But I could never order you to…" his voice trailed, struggling to grip with the paradox his love for her left him in.
"You don't have to order me to do anything. I can volunteer myself, Cohnatsim," Inori cut him off to reinforce her decision.
"You'd be betraying everyone you love," the Drang Fomm sighed with a hanging head. But Inori's voice became softer and hopeful, albeit a little bittersweet.
"No. I'd just be defending the one I love more than everyone else. That's what Cures are supposed to be. Guardians of love."
The two soldiers of conflicting worlds gazed toward each other in tense silence under the night sky. Cohnatsim's massive black cape fluttered over the grass in a breeze while Inori's skirt ruffles and blonde side ponytail bounced lightly.
"You have to be sure about this," Cohnatsim broke the painful silence. "I won't be able to free you if you regret it later."
"I'm already regretting it," Inori shook her head with determination. "I hate even thinking about it. I just want to get it over with so we can be together. You stuck with me when you found out my secret identity and I was scared. I wouldn't be able to stand myself if I can't do the same for you."
The furls in her bright costume rippled softly as her looked up in his eyes.
"I want to be with you."
Cohnatsim's right palm hesitantly emerged from the void under his cape and reached toward Cure Pine's heart. Every individual in his race lived with a symbiotic life form named the Ca'Ito in their vascular system, providing them the means to adapt to a multitude of different worlds while giving the small creature a nurturing place to live. It stayed with them their entire lives like a tiny hidden brother or sister, always matching the gender of the host. If Inori was going to become one of his own, she would need to live the same way as well.
His hand completely paused when it was three inches from touching the front of her sunny blouse. His race had done what he was about to do to lesser life forms before as a means to corral them like cattle, control them as thralls, and worse. Now he was about to turn this poor human girl he had stupidly fallen in love with into his thrall. He spent an eternity standing there with his palm hovering three inches over her quietly beating chest, keeping his arm in a standstill as he struggled to decide if he could actually curse someone he cared for so deeply.
Inori lost her patience and made the decision for the both of them. Her fingers grasped outward in a bright yellow blur and yanked his hand straight in by the wrist so it cupped the left half of her chest. The transferal of a new Ca'Ito began instantly as his palm started to resonate.
Inori abruptly winced and squeaked through her teeth. Her heart became a burning supernova as she felt something wiggle and spiral around it. But she kept Cohnatsim's hand held close to her so the process continued.
Her entire costume began to illuminate as the Ca'Ito's bond integrated with her powers. The bright baggy ruffles and the frills covering her nimble frame turned to pure energy, went through another transformation sequence, and returned back to physical state. She sighed as the process reached its end and Cohnatsim slowly lifted his hand off of her heart.
She opened her eyes from her wince and looked at herself. Her new form was something that was familiar, but also made her feel closer to Ringo's true nature. Her basic human appearance remained the same, but her Cure costume had been entirely remade with the same leathery black texture as Cohnatsim's uniform. Its original pattern was changed only slightly, with her short feathery sleeves folding downward into a loose bell shape and leaving oval windows at the top so her narrow bare shoulders could breathe. The fluffy cloth bracelets on her wrists had shrunk, turned black, and taken the form of fingerless gloves with her darkened yellow Cure symbols decorating the back. The little bit of color still splashed on the costume was mostly in the yellow belt strands crossing over her waist and the orange lacing that climbed up her blouse. She could have passed for a tavern maid visiting from one of Jupiter's moons.
Inori sighed with shy and reserved relief in herself. The ache in her heart had faded. Only warm, reassuring energy flowed in rings around it now, but it would still take some time before it felt completely natural to her.
Yesterday she was a pineapple. Today she's a pineapple with a worm living in her core. She hoped no one would ever try to eat her and say she was gross.
Her eyes were instinctively drawn to her gloves the most. She held her palms up and flexed her slender fingers toward herself as she looked at them with curiosity and amazement.
"I feel a lot stronger. It's like my hands are made out of metal."
"And your legs, I'm certain," Cohnatsim said quietly. The thought made him shoot a glimpse downward toward the creamy thigh and knee emerging from under her short black petticoats and traveling down into her black medium-heeled boot. Inori caught his peeking and gave him a playful smirk in return. He shook his head and went back to what he was saying.
"That's not what I meant. The Ca'Ito's symbiosis manifests in different ways depending on the host. It amplified what was already in your heart and turned you into a Combat type. It's reinforced all of your physical strength. I'm surprised, though. I figured someone like you would turn out to be a Medic or a Cleric."
Inori wasn't thinking about that mushy sidekick helper stuff while Cohnatsim was talking. Maybe the thing wrapping up her heart was already turning up her natural aggression, or maybe becoming closer with her love just helped bring out her courage. She was already thinking about being a bear that could tear down a tank with his metal claws, or a tiger who could outrun a bullet car. But then something else dawned on her.
"And you're a combat commander. Does that mean I get to come with you more often?" she optimistically prodded.
"You're… completely right," Cohnatsim blinked, never realizing the possibility earlier. "I'll get you enlisted to my personal forces as soon as I'm back at the ship."
"Do you need me to come?" Inori asked.
"You should stay here. Pretend you're still human so you can work undercover. The people who know you will be suspicious if you're suddenly gone."
Cohnatsim stopped and thought again about what he was making her do. Another feeling of regret started to fester in his mind.
"Are you worried about lying to everyone?" he asked. Inori was about to be officially promoted as a capital guardswoman on the lead invasion fleet. She needed to accept she would have to do some questionable things in her role eventually, but this was a huge expectation he was dropping on her just out the gate.
"It's okay," Inori said as if it wasn't okay and she was slightly unsure of herself. "I don't mind playing the bad guy for you. But I just need to know one thing."
Her doubts disappeared as she looked up in his eyes. A playful smirk crossed her lips.
"Can I still call you Ringo?"
"As long as I can still call you Buki," he said as a joke. His own worries instantly faded.
Inori sighed with a tearful smile and nestled the side of her short waving yellow locks against his chest. He closed his cape around both of them and rested his chin on the top of Inori's head, consuming the soft and delicate heroine in his darkness not to corrupt her or rob her of her free will, but to protect her.
Author's note: For the last time, I gave him the name Ringo in that other fic years back because "Ringo" is the Japanese word for "Apple." Cure Pine is supposed to be the shortened form of Cure Pineapple, so Inori + Ringo = Pineapple. He's her missing other half and it's supposed to make you go d'awww. It's not supposed to make you start saying dumb Beatles jokes.
Author's note 2: I was trying to do something like a sci-fi version of the Casablanca plane scene, but it probably comes off as some really forced magical girl Saturday morning soap opera melodrama crap.
Author's note 3: We Princess Emeraude now.