Cosmic Apathy
T
After an eternity of living out her days alone, missing her friends and family, Sailor Cosmos refuses to fight for the realms. In an attempt to remind her of her humanity, she is dropped into a needy realm and forced to survive without the Silver Crystal. [01xUsagi/Sailor Cosmos]
000
Prologue
000
When she first started to come-to, she realized that her legs hurt. Really hurt. She forced herself to roll onto her side, trying to sit upright in the mess of cement rubble she was laying in and on. Her head was spinning and her vision foggy—how had this happened? It had to have been a youma attack. Yes, that was it; she must have been fighting and fell unconscious.
There was movement close to her legs. One of the cement slabs shifted before being lifted, revealing a black mass of a beast. She realized that it's clawed had was wrapped around her leg and corroding her skin. A surge of adrenaline pumped through her as she realized she was still under attack. She jerked her leg back, but the grip only tightened, causing a choked gasp to come from her throat.
Where was her staff? She grasped around for a moment, hoping it was nearby in the destruction, but she couldn't find it.
The beast started to stand, pulling her leg with it. She tried to kick it with her leg, only to realize that she wasn't wearing her boots. Or her fuku. Or her broach.
In fact, she wasn't Sailor Cosmos at all. She wasn't wearing anything but a silver slip. She may as well have been naked, for all the good it did her.
As the panic and fear started to rise within her, so did the beast's fury. She tried to hold onto the cement as it raised her higher, but with one quick jerk, she was sent flying against the wall. It still and hold of her as it smashed her again, and again. Blood poured from her skull and her vision blurred. This was it; it was surely the end for her, and she couldn't even remember how she managed to get herself into this situation.
The pain became too much to bear and she didn't have the ability to fight. Just as she felt she would black out (or perhaps die,) every last bit of power she had within her body pooled together before bursting forth from her body. It was painful since she didn't have the Silver Crystal to act as a focus for the power, but it hardly mattered with the rest of her body as numb as it was.
There was a blinding white light which filled the room—a warehouse of sorts, it seemed—and disintegrated the youma. However, the surge was so powerful that it also managed to demolish the walls and ceiling, blasting them outwards as if an explosion had happened where she stood.
She remained on the ground for sometime after the area cleared. It took her sometime before she realized that she no longer had blood gushing from her head and body, and that the liquid she was feeling was actually rain. Her body ached, but the horrible agony she had been in only moments earlier had disappeared. The majority of her wounds closed up, though some of the more severe injuries remained though lessened.
After catching her breath and clearing her head, she struggled to climb from the crater she now lay in as it started to fill with water. It was hard to walk. Her legs were horribly bruised—though the destroyed skin was repaired, it left a purple and black mark in its wake. The area was covered in cement and glass, with occasional pieces of metal rods jutting out from the destroyed slabs. Her feet were cut up after just walking a few yards.
The rain came down in heavy sheets, but she didn't particularly mind. The cool water washed away some of the blood that had spilled from her wounds, though her silver slip was thoroughly stained. Though the fabric had become near sheer as it stick to her body, there didn't seem to be anyone around to notice. It was torn in many areas, in fact, it was barely held together in most places.
She had become so accustomed to remaining in her senshi uniform that she had almost completely forgotten what she had on when not transformed.
For the briefest of moments, she considered trying to dig through the rubble for her broach. However, she knew there was no point. If the Silver Crystal was nearby, she would have felt it's energy pulsing through her own body. It wasn't here—it wasn't anywhere in the surrounding area.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and tilted her head upwards, letting the water wash away the dirt and blood from her cheeks and forehead. That was it. She didn't have the Silver Crystal and her body had already expelled any residual cosmic energy. She had nothing but her memories and her possibly-mortal body.
000
"Please, Cosmos, if you do not stop them, that realm will be destroyed!" Pluto pleaded from just below the dais Cosmos's throne sat upon.
She did not even open her eyes. Cosmos sat in the throne, her legs draped across one of the arms in her boredom. "Realms are destroyed all of the time."
Pluto hit her Time Staff against the white floor in frustration, the sound echoing through the room. "It is your duty to protect all realms from such invading darkness! How can you sit there, and leave them all to die! That realm has struggled to survive, and now that they may just make it, you're going to leave them to those Tao Nebula parasites!"
The dark haired senshi paced back and forth, wiping a gloved hand down her face in aggravation and stress. This was not the first time that Cosmos had chosen to shirk her duties. Pluto had hoped that it was only a 'phase' and that the Supreme Guardian would return to protecting the innocent. Pluto understood the despair that came with an eternity of loneliness—she was living it too, after all. She had never been as unfeeling as Cosmos had become, however.
Finally, as if growing annoyed by Pluto's incessant marching about, Cosmos sighed. "That realm," she said, perhaps a bit of venom in her voice, "seems quite set on destroying itself. It hardly seems worthwhile for me to fight for it when it will probably kill its own planet in a chain of nuclear explosions. Pharaoh 19 will simply speed up the process. Who knows—perhaps they will manage to kill the heart snatchers at the same time as themselves."
Pluto stopped her pacing and looked up at her supposed queen with betrayal in her eyes. "What happened to you? When did you become so apathetic? I know that these last centuries have been difficult for you… but to abandon a realm in need and watch it like some….some experiment? Where is the Usagi that I've always known and loved?"
Cosmos laughed—loudly and bitterly. "Usagi? Usagi's been dead for millenniums. I'm all that's left."
000
"I've found ground zero of the explosion."
"Roger that, Zero-One, need back up?" Trowa's voice rang out over their communication line.
"Negative, no suits in the area. I'm not picking up any other explosives. Stand by as a precaution." Heero scanned the ground from his gundam as he closed in on the near demolished warehouse. It had been pure luck that he had been in the area at the time of the explosion. Had he not left the Preventers' base when he did to investigate an anomaly on their monitoring system, the local authorities may have beaten him to the scene.
They had been tracking odd energy sources across the globe for some time, but they had never been able to get to the locations fast enough. The energy seemed to burst into existence then dulled to an untraceable level. However, this was the first time that they had left an explosion in their wake.
Heero looked over his scans as he slowed to a hover just above the building. He had to check the twice as well as look at his cameras to be sure he was seeing everything correctly.
There was no sign of anything that could have produced the explosion—no power sources, no residual energy… there were even active power lines in the area. He should have been able to detect at least what sort of explosion had occurred, but it was more like a naturally occurring micro-burst that just happened to have hit the warehouse than an incited explosion.
They wouldn't have picked up a micro-burst on their monitoring system however. It had certainly been an energy explosion of some sort.
The oddest matter however wasn't lack of evidence, it was the young woman who was casually standing just a few yards away from the explosion site. He turned his spot light onto her and zoomed his camera in to get a better look.
She appeared to be injured and not at all fazed by the large mobile suit pointing its beam canon at her. Her hair nearly white hair was done up in some sort of odd bun style that he found ridiculous and impractical, with strands sticking to her face, arms, and even her legs—it was that long. Her clothing was almost non-existent.
Heero chose to land his gundam and leave his cockpit, weapon in hand. He dropped down on his lift cable and aimed his gun, blocking her way in case she tried to make a run away from the crumbling warehouse. She was absolutely drenched, and he could practically see through her thin garment. Well, at least he knew she was unarmed.
"Don't move," he shouted through the rain, though the woman hardly looked as if she had any inclination to move at all. "Who are you?"
At his question, she tilted her head down and looked at him. She tilted her head and flicked her eyes along his form. Heero couldn't help but relate it to a cat eyeing up her prey.
"I said, 'who are you?'" He cocked his gun, letting the clicking sound resonate in the air. It was usually enough to make his enemies talk.
She smiled slightly at him, and seemed to laugh before shaking her head and loudly sighing. "Who am I? Honestly, I'm not even sure anymore."
000
Author's Notes: I have been on Gundam Wing kick, and I'll be posting the final five chapters to my Gundam Wing fic, After Colony: Revelation, throughout the next few weeks. I haven't written a crossover in ages, and in fact, I don't think I've ever posted one. So, I decided to give it a shot.
These are two of my all time favorite fandoms, and I promise I do know a lot about them. If I deviate from the canon, it's likely intentional. For example, I did mean "Pharaoh 19" instead of "Pharaoh 90." The heart snatchers were my favorite arc and I'm bringing aspects of the Tao Nebula realm into this. The Gundams have not been destroyed, though this does take place after Endless Waltz. The Preventers decided to keep using them.
Also, it is likely that only one other senshi will make an appearance beyond Cosmos and Pluto, but I haven't decided for sure (I also know that technically, by this point in time, Cosmos wouldn't have had any senshi with her, but I'm bending that for my story). To be honest, I barely have a plot. This sort of just came to me and I thought I would give it a shot. Are there even readers out there for this sort of story anymore? I feel like I must be one of the only ones looking for a SM/GW fanfic!
Ever Your Servant,
A.F
