Piranhas of the Mind (Nature's Ways)
Aphrodite was born into a world of vague decadence.
Originally from Gothenburg, his mother had been a foolish student-turned-dancer-turned-actress who had become enamoured with a handsome blue-haired sailor. After one night of passion and nine months, into the world came Aphrodite Wetterstrum!
The silly thing, the scouter Saint remarked as he unpeeled the blue-haired child from his mother, was that that was his real name. When questioned, his young mother explained that she had confused it with Adonis and it was on the birth certificate before she could correct it.
"But couldn't you have changed it afterwards?" the scouter Saint had questioned.
"No, because by then I'd realised that it suited him perfectly."
"Don't worry, in Greece it's a man's name too!"
The scouter Saint certainly agreed that it suited him. At three years old, Aphrodite was a terror who ran riot in the dressing rooms of Gothenburg's theatres, stealing eyeliner from drawers and underwear from closets. And when he was caught red-handed with some frilly knickers or comedy hats, who could blame a child with such big, innocent eyes?
His hair curled softly around a pale, heart-shaped face and inquisitive blue eyes peered out at the world-an appearance that did not for a second match the ungodly demon housed within. For not only was Aphrodite pretty, he was also horrible. Since the day of his birth he had been spoilt rotten by his mother (the fact that he had looked just like his long-gone father helped), being showered toys, constant attention and a distinct lack of discipline. She had even taught the boy how to apply make-up, and cooed when he ate her best lipstick.
The boy was a disobedient terror who ran riot in a world in which the sole focus was him (when his mother wasn't busy). There were few other children in the theatre, and Aphrodite was too young to go to school-his only company was busy young women. Half the time he was adored, and half the time he was ignored.
But, as the scouter Saint decided as he tried to shake the blue-haired boy off his leg and into Pisces Temple, if this was what his mother had to put up with then he would have ignored Aphrodite too!
"Sagitta Oistos, are you quite alright?"
The Silver Saint groaned. It was Pisces Austrinus, and she was walking towards him. One the one hand it was good, because the blue-haired brat was hers to train, but it was also highly embarrassing that he, a Silver Saint, couldn't even get a three-year-old to obey him and that a Gold Saint was here to witness it.
Behind her mask, Gold Saint Pisces Austrinus (one of two female Gold Saints, although she hadn't seen Capricorn Vulpecula in a while) giggled. She had been feeding her goldfish when she'd heard an almighty kerfuffle outside her beloved Temple, and had come out to see what was the matter, wondering if Aiolos had got his wings caught on a rock again or if little Angelo had punched the teeth out of another Saint-in-training. Instead she saw the proud scouter Saint Sagitta Oistos battling it out with a little child that appeared to have sunk its teeth into the man's leg.
She walked over to the infuriated man and saw that yes, the blue-haired child had indeed taken a chunk out of Sagitta's leg. Ouch!
"Well, you've certainly got the killer instinct! Is this one mine, Sagitta Oistos?"
The man grimaced and shook his leg angrily. "Yes, it is...It is called Aphrodite, it's three years old, from Sweden and I hate it!"
The boy gazed up at Pisces Austrinus with curious blue eyes. She smiled behind her mask and knelt down next to Aphrodite, gingerly prising his teeth away from Sagitta's flesh and taking him into her Clothed arms. He immediately grabbed her shiny helmet and scrambled onto her shoulders, a feat almost impossible considering the shape of the Pisces armour.
Austrinus chuckled again, and helped steady Aphrodite on her shoulders. Beside her, Sagitta glared daggers at the boy (who blew him a raspberry in smug triumph.)
"Sagitta, I don't know why you object to this boy so much. He just seems rather lively, that's all-"
Suddenly her helmet was hoisted off her head, placed firmly on Aphrodite's and small legs were kicking her in the back. Hard.
"Giddy up, horsy! Giddy up!"
Screw that, the boy was dead. One look at the furious stance of Pisces Austrinus and Sagitta Oistos was smiling a wicked smile, one that did not bode well for Aphrodite Wetterstrum.
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In the end, Aphrodite had his manners quite literally beaten into him. Pisces Austrinus hadn't become a Gold Saint by sitting around and letting people walk all over her, and there was no way in Hades that she would take this sort of disrespect from an effeminate three year-old.
So when Aphrodite had refused to give back her helmet, she had punched him so hard he had been sent flying through one of the walls of Pisces Temple. And when he'd cried and tried to run away, she tied him up with some nasty-looking vines and dangled him over a pit of piranhas. When he'd decided that he wouldn't get up at the crack of dawn the next morning, she'd actually thrown him into the piranha pool for an early-morning shock. When he'd refused to water her plants/learn how to clean her Cloth/train then he'd been told he'd have to sleep in the mountains nearby for a week, and when he hadn't showed the proper amount of respect towards old Pope Shion he'd been introduced to little Angelo (in the hopes that someone else could punch some respect into Aphrodite.)
Introducing him to Angelo had failed miserably-the two little terrors were now firm friends and could often be seen trying to sneak up and put frogs down the back of Gemini Saga's Cloth-but Aphrodite was taught Sanctuary's cardinal lessons in blood and fire and anguish (well, weedkiller.) Slowly but surely, he was having respect (for Athena and for his master) beaten into him, and devotion and loyalty were soon following. His cosmos was growing as he continued to train and one day he managed to get out of the piranha pool without any scratches at all.
(Pisces Austrinus had never been so proud!)
And so Aphrodite learnt one very important thing-that power is worthy of respect. The survival of the fittest was hammered into his heart-he saw flowers grow and weeds kill them, and then saw frost kill the weeds. He'd seen young Saints die at the hands of others, and he'd once seen a bear rip a Taurus contender's head off. Roses had grown against all odds, and he'd realised why they bore such thorns.
Power, Aphrodite realised, was what he needed-and what he must obey. He knew the Pope had more power than he could ever hope to amass-so he obeyed him. It was the same with Gemini Saga and Sagittarius Aiolos, as well as his master. But one day, he knew, he would surpass her.
It was nature's way, a vicious cycle of domination and destruction and rebirth. And Aphrodite rather liked it. No-one would be his master until they forced him to submit to them, and then he would do so kicking and screaming and biting all the while. It was nasty and almost inhuman-a detachment of emotions was preferred for this way of thinking-but the idea of the inevitable appealed to the boy.
There will always be someone more powerful, more deserving, more pious, more evil, more beautiful and cleverer than you...and there will always be defeat, no matter how long you train or how fast you punch. Anything can be destroyed, and soon enough, it will. Humans do not last long enough to make a significant change.
Pisces Austrinus worried about the boy's way of thinking. Nature was a beautiful, beastly thing and it was not good to try and mimic it in battle-ordered and time-honoured codes were needed to make it work, and Aphrodite was too young to realise that a human could never achieve put the power of the natural world into a single attack. As a Saint she understood how hard it was to retain one's humanity after such violent training...but she had managed, and, Athena willing, so would Aphrodite. She felt that as a woman.
To encourage the boy, she taught him about beauty. She encouraged his love of roses and taught him how to cultivate dangerous new varieties. Soon enough Aphrodite was as green-fingered as her, and had developed an attack based upon his experiences in the piranha pool. He learnt about her ideas of beauty-a large, soft rose that smelt of apples and that crumbled in her hands or a white frilled variety that was flushed with the palest pink, a sunset over Sanctuary's temples and a tree's branches in winter, delicate violets clustered on the ground, vines entwined and dripping with grapes-and then told her about his own.
At six years old, Aphrodite was enamoured with the beauty of the fight. He loved it-the clash of the Cloths, the desperation, terror, elation and adrenaline that accompanied each new battle and the spatters of blood upon Sanctuary's dusty ground. To him, they looked like the most perfect rose petals in the world. The innate violence and raw animosity of humans was displayed on the battleground and Aphrodite saw 'survival of the fittest' first hand. The weak were crushed, the strong became stronger and the mediocre would never have their names in the history books.
Power was everything, and Aphrodite was gaining it.
When he was six years old, Pisces Austrinus sent Aphrodite to Greenland to continue his training in a more hostile environment (although she couldn't think of anywhere more silently hostile than Sanctuary.)
She had thought he'd be sad to leave, but when she'd told him where he was going he'd merely smiled and asked if he'd manage to grow roses in such a climate if he warmed them with his cosmos. And the older woman knew she should be proud to have raised and trained such a powerful, ruthless little boy-but if only she had managed to preserve some traces of the loud, spoilt child she'd prised of Sagitta Oistos' leg three years ago.
Because it was her fault, wasn't it? She had beaten him into submission and taught him to obey those more powerful than he. Ah, she was all to blame-and the guilt she felt wasn't something the mask she wore rid her of, though it eradicated most of her irrational women's thinking.
The other Gold Saints had their own brats to train, and one day she'd ventured out of Pisces Temple to visit Capricorn Vulpecula, saying hello to Aquarius Eridanus and his brand-new little four year-old (that didn't speak a word of Greek) on the way.
The Capricorn Saint had acquired a Spanish boy called Shura who was to be sent to the Pyrenees soon, and whom apparently had no qualms about slicing the tops off mountains (just like his master, as Excalibur was passed down through the generations of Capricorns.) Pisces Austrinus knew that she would be able to give her some decent advice.
It transpired that Capricorn Vulpecula was busy giving Virgo Spica relationship recommendations ('if the Pope has told you to break up you break up, you stupid blonde!') and making Scorpio Sargas tea. Pisces Austrinus merely sat down, was given a cup of smelly herbal stuff and waited for her turn to vent. Half-way through the waiting (Sargas had a long list of Things Wrong with His Temple and Why) Aquarius Eridanus turned up, saying he'd felt a little lonely and could feel the party's cosmos.
"Alright, Sargas-that's enough. Austrinus, are you okay? You look a little peaky."
Capricorn Vulpecula was also the only other Saint to know what Austrinus looked like. She sighed, and clutched her still-full mug of tea.
"To be honest, I'm sad. Aphrodite"-here the four other Saints nodded knowingly, having decided to stay and give their advice too-"has not turned out like I hoped he would. He's much crueller than any of us were at his age, and the way he thinks...it makes me feel hollow inside, knowing that I have trained a child to believe that one can only be successful with power."
Virgo Spica raised an eyebrow. "But that is true, is it not? We are here today because we killed those weaker than us, and one day we will be killed by those stronger. In this respect, Aphrodite is perfectly correct."
"Speak for yourself; my master impaled himself on an icicle trying to save me!"
"The point is that he died, Eridanus. We must kill to succeed; it is the motto of Sanctuary."
Behind her mask, Pisces Austrinus wanted to cry. Is this what Athena wanted? Noticing this, Capricorn Vulpecula leant over the table and took her gauntleted hands in her own.
"Austrinus, I know it's upsetting-but think of it this way. We are Saints who have never known a true war, and we will be surpassed by our pupils before the next Holy War comes about. We may never even meet Athena herself, but our pupils will. I will not fight Hades, but Shura will and for this reason I am not teaching him about Goya or Herodotus-I am teaching him how to lose all emotion, how to love a cause, how to kill any enemy, how to think on his feet and how to strategize-how to survive a war."
Scorpio Sargas took a gulp of tea before adding his opinion. "I am teaching my boy the same. They will see things and do things we will never know, and the least they can do is be prepared. This is not a generation of Saints, Austrinus-this is a generation of warriors."
"Then Shaka is perfect, that little brat feels nothing!"
"It is true that I am training Camus to be cold, yes, but he has a kinder heart than many people think...is there any way we can train them to be ruthless killers and yet still keep them whole as people, do you think?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Eridanus."
Pisces Austrinus spoke up now. "I tried with Aphrodite, I tried to teach him to appreciate beauty...but he warped it, that killer's mind took a love of nature and made it awful."
Capricorn Vulpecula just sighed behind her mask, and kept clutching the other woman's hands. There were reasons women didn't become Gold Saints often, and this was one of them.
"Well, at least we still have Aiolia and Aiolos! They're nice, right?"
Somehow, that thought wasn't very comforting.
Aphrodite Wetterstrum thrived in Greenland.
He liked the people (as target practice), he liked the weather (nice and cold, like Sweden had been) and he liked the national flower, niviarsiaq-although it was nothing compared to his roses. The training camp was right on the top of Illerfissalik, the highest peak in southern Greenland and many a foolish boy had frozen there. Aphrodite resolved not to be one of them.
During the six hard years he spent there, he realised a few little things. The first was that even if they had been trained by the Pisces Saint herself, the other candidates to the Pisces Cloth were worthless when compared to him. Their attacks were mediocre-nay, weak-and unoriginal. Most lacked intelligence and one or two couldn't even read properly.
Aphrodite, Austrinus' most pampered student, had all of these and more. His rose attacks were deadly, and 'Rose Piranha' was an original and terrifying concept indeed. No other trainee wanted to face him in battle and he was never picked on for his effeminate looks because of this. He was clever, certainly, and was always willing to push a friend off a fjord.
Another thing developed in Greenland-his looks. Aphrodite grew up and out and round and down, and his soft blue curls became one of his crowning glories (like many Sanctuary men, he spent a while on his hair), much admired by the other trainees.
He knew he was beautiful, his mother had always told him so and Pisces Austrinus had liked to praise him-if he had done something particularly well, he had been allowed to borrow her (scant) supplies of make-up and use it on himself. By sneaking into the local villages and thieving as much lipstick as he could get, Aphrodite found a way to make himself as beautiful as possible.
After all, it made a very effective weapon.
A good distraction, Pisces Austrinus had told him, and as he got older he used it as such. By the age of eleven he had developed all but one of his main techniques and had become even lovelier, prompting him to use his looks to distract his opponent whilst he castrated them with a rose petal. Lack of focus was a weakness, and Aphrodite only believed in survival of the fittest.
His master had visited the world's largest island once or twice every year to make sure that her students were progressing nicely, and on the eve of Aphrodite's twelfth birthday she looked him up and down, sighed and led him to a training ground near the colourful town of Qaqortoq. The wind whipped through them both, screaming in their ears and ruining their neatly combed hair.
Pisces Austrinus turned to her brightest and best student with tears in her eyes. "Aphrodite, tonight you will face me and one of us will die. This is your chance to win the Pisces Cloth. I-I know you're ready, I can feel it in your cosmos..."
Aphrodite smiled slightly. "I thought so. Tell me, was I the best choice or simply the only choice for the Cloth?"
"That is irrelevant. Now, we fight. I was thirteen when I won this cloth and now I am offering you the chance to win it. You...you will make a great warrior."
Because you are not a Saint of Athena! There is nothing Saintly about you!
And as Aphrodite Wetterstrum bears his last name for the final time, as he tells his master all about his newest and greatest attack, 'Royal Demon Rose', and how he had got the idea for a blood-sucking, flesh-eating rose from seeing animals do the same, Pisces Austrinus thinks she might just as well take off the armour now and hand it over. Her death won't matter to him, he's a born killer with a completely amoral mind and as he launches his latest, greatest ode to the destruction of the natural world at her she shuts her eyes and thinks of the boy she once knew, the noisy little thing who only spoke Swedish and believed the world revolved around him because anything is preferable to the beautiful monster he's become.
And as her body falls to the floor, a single white rose (rapidly turning red) in her breast, Aphrodite takes her helmet and places it on his head as he did all those years ago.
You know what the really silly thing is? This wasn't meant to be depressing.
I swear I was actually trying for humour in some parts. Anyway, this is my how-Aphro-became-Aphro oneshot, and it's made me terribly miserable. It started off as a nice look into why Aphrodite wore make-up and ended up being a gloomy surrender to the next generation of heartless killers.
Oh dear. And sorry about the OC, but unfortunately I'm finding them necessary. We never hear about the Gold Saints before Aphro and co, so I need to make them up. Austrinus is a woman because there aren't enough of them in Saint Seiya and because a man wouldn't have let Aphrodite eat lipstick.
It's also quite interesting to wonder how Saints who have never been in a war deal with being Saints, and I can only assume they help villagers and are much more Saintly than the canonical lot, as they have much more spare time. (I'm building up quite a collection of Saint Seiya: The Previous Generation! All are named after constellations or stars in their respective constellations.)
Also, they would not be such hardened killers. That's why they find it harder knowing the boys they're training will die soon after they do. (Soon=thirteen years.)
-The Love Bug