B.R.T. 16.09 - Ash.

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The horrible voice knew things about her...secret things,
things it should not have known. Its cold and venomous intonation
was worse than the slimy touch of the horrid Legion...

Tsugaru tried to shut it out; she tried not to think about, 
she tried not to think, not to remember...ashes...

...the look of a face she had loved when it smiled,
loved when it wept, loved by daylight and by the sparkling
night in the snowy Micronian tunnels...him...the look of 
that face, horribly burned and disfigured, revealing 
the twisted substructures that had held those smiles,
had shed those tears, now all burned away, all boiled dry...

and Stellite...

Oh God...Stellite...ashen...burned...lying in the wreck
of a suburban home...lying in her hands...

No...not her hands...

Sideswipe.

Her hands were Sideswipe's hands.
Her memories were Sideswipe's memories.

The Legion had not lied. Tsugaru's power...that
frightful curse...

It had taken him too.  

The cold voice cracked with laughter, 
and Tsugaru sank to the ground.


 ***