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It was depressing how Destiny City made itself be perfect for this kind of attack: the dark streets where the streetlamps barely penetrated, the winding alleyways and Jenga structures of buildings where shadows threw everyone into the depths of darkness. How little the police cared, even when being told to. The nightshine of a Lieutenant in the darkness. It would have been prime TV: CSI, Destiny City.

All except for the sailor senshi.

Sailor Nerissa hated patrolling. She was allergic to it. It was her least favourite thing to do apart from laundry and excessive cardio movement. Her career with the Negaverse had been highly limited due to her own striving to keep that contact at a minimum -- youma, well, sure, that s**t was hard to avoid, youma popped up in the city like mushrooms in the damp dark. The Negaverse officers themselves? Neither hide nor hair of a one, despite her being a Super Sailor at this point.

Astraea would have ridden her a** about it -- did ride her a** about it. So would Nova, but Sailor Nova was a hidden angst and a commitment-shy issue deep in her heart that had her out and patrolling anyway. Amnesia via work. It amused her, in some sick kind of way.

She was strolling along the street with her trusty cellphone in hand, busy playing a rousing game of checking her text messages, when the yell bust out -- the frightened, cut-off, deepthroated yell of someone who was too afraid to be embarrassed and too frightened to not let it turn into a squeal of pain and fear.

Squinting into the darkness, it was no youma holding up the salt'n'pepper-haired, flailing businessman: it was a young man with a hell of a lot of red hair and a massive wooden sword, dressed in what Nerissa would have herself labelled "military douchebag."

s**t.

She nearly turned around. She really nearly did. But the scream -- that was the scream of someone who was afraid for their life.

Oh s**t, maybe they'd hear reason and she could get off this without building up lactic acid. s**t s**t s**t.

"Hey," called out Nerissa, slipping her cellphone into the knot of her buttbow (no ******** pockets -- she'd adapted) and flicking a lock of blue hair out her face. "Hey. Yo. Douchebag #1, this is your Call Center, checking up on Douchebag #1, over. Yeah, you -- Anne of Green Gables, the redhead."

It was the first time she had ever properly witnessed a starseed being yanked out: other than with the General-King, who had been standing there with the starseed already glowing in his hand. It was violent: it was a creepy, intrusive, completely disquieting act.

A mental voice said: it's already too late. Just take this slowly. The old guy's already dead.

The second mental voice said: WWSD? What would Sidra do?

Sidra would do something stupid.

So so did Nerissa.

She was already running -- launched herself forward like a shell in mid-career, straight at the Lieutenant, not even bothering with her magical attack. One of his hands was concerned with the old man: the other was already jerking back, quick and reflexive, to the massive sword -- there was him, pulling out the starseed, the older man greyish and sweating --

Sailor Nerissa hit him with a full bodycheck. She wasn't remotely his weight or height, but she hit him low in the waist, her tackle aimed at his point of gravity. She barely had time to think, God I'm a moron, before she connected.

It wasn't really sophisticated. They were both clawing and grappling with each other like animals: Nerissa managed to get both fingers stabbing towards Obsidian's eyes before he yanked her wrist away, grunting under their breaths, flailing and kicking. Obsidian got a pretty good handful of blue hair ripped out from the roots, and she was rooting around blindly for the star seed in his ********," she panted, and they rolled around like a catfight as both tried to stop the other from getting up. It was actually verging into slapstick: he wound his fingers around the pale column of her throat, she bit his wrist savagely. Then -- which had been an inevitable happening, screaming to happen when everything had begun -- his fingers closed around the chain from her nose to her ear and he yanked. It was her earlobe that gave away before her nostril did, and he was left with a handful of bloodied golden chain. Nerissa screamed like a banshee.

Eventually, they rolled away from each other -- bleeding and panting, grazed and battered. Before he could scramble for it, she was lifting up his sword, bright red blood trickling down her neck and staining her sailor collar.

"Uh, this is wood," she said, dazed, fingers wrapping around the hilt.

Her arms strained with the massive sword, and she raised it up and slammed it down as Obsidian lunged. He hefted the blade back in one hand, the breath hissing out of his lungs again, but now he had a crazy-eyed wild look to him as though he was really getting off on the entire thing. Jesus. It figured. Her ear hurt like hell: whose idea had it BEEN that she had a chain piercing in her senshi form?

He had licked it. That was probably the easiest way to get hepatitis. Cooties, at the very least.

"You really are a sick son of a b***h," she informed him, voice rasping, still conversational. They strained against each other, sword against his one hand: and then he suddenly let go, making her stumble forward. Sword was useless. She heaved it as far away from her as she could, spinning it into the darkness where it broke through a windshield and started a car alarm.

And then they were grappling again -- he blocked her flurry of kicks, laughing, catching her sucker-punch and easily tossing her aside. Nerissa cartwheeled back in the road before she stumbled, and then she ran at him again -- the heel of her shoe driving itself down into his toe, though he was wearing boots so that didn't do a hell of a lot, wrapping one arm around his neck and trying to drive his head down. Her other hand latched onto his ear, and did its best to try and rip it off his head: she was yelling now, meaningless things, high on adrenaline and fear. She'd never had to fight this way before. She didn't even know how: it was coming only slowly naturally, a sort of dogged fight response in the back of her head.

Her blood was splattering onto him. Yeah, that was a great tactic.

His fist connected. He could hear the oof as the breath was expelled from her lungs, winded. She wasn't remotely on the same level as he was, fighting-wise. She had the senshi strength, speed and natural gung-ho fight in her, but he was a Negaverse Lieutenant who'd been trained at the knee -- sometimes the kneecap of the knee -- of General-King Charonite.

Nerissa fell, as dead weight, still clinging on to him like a louse would cling to a hair. They fell hard to the concrete, rolling over and over and over as he jammed his fist into her abdomen over and over and over to match. She looked as though she were about to puke. Then one of her hands threaded its way into his ponytail and yanked his head back; she put her mouth to his collarbone and bit like she was a messed-up vampire.

Her teeth raked down his skin, painful as ********. Then she let her head loll back, bracketed underneath him and taking his punches, and her voice was a rasp:

"Hey. Hey."

Obsidian kept going: no point in getting distracted. What could she do now? He didn't even care when she said hoarsely, "Pranked, man," and --

"Tidal Concrete Vortex, Implosion!"

The ground opened up underneath them both, a swirling, liquid rip. Her face was covered in blood now, lips split and swollen, but it was way too late; her grip on him was tight, an anchor, a weight, and they were both already getting pulled into the rift. They sank into the very center of it, sucked in as the streetlights bent and creaked with the force of the vaccuum.

It was a long, long, long ten seconds before the rift finally burped both of them out -- detritus hitting the sides of the buildings with an assorted clashing, clanging and squealing, bits of shrapnel studding the road like Christmas decorations. Nerissa herself hit the street like a sack of potatoes: but then she was struggling to stand, coasting her head around, limping towards the bright shining shard that had been squeezed out of Obsidian's hand in the affray.

She was moving like a zombie now, shuffling one foot determinedly after the other. But she was moving -- covered in cuts, scratches, her own blood, and carrying her own arm incredibly gingerly in the other one -- towards the star seed. It was unharmed, amazingly. After the time spent in the vortex one might have assumed that it would have shattered into a thousand pieces. The older businessman was still lying on the pavement, the colour of parchment, still and unmoving.

The super senshi spat out a mouthful of blood into the road, looking disgusted at the taste. She opened her mouth, ostensibly to give some kind of rasping Good Wins Forever! rallying cry to Obsidian --

"Go get a nice hot cup of go ******** yourself, man."

It hit. They both went over like lead balloons, him decking her, her falling to the street: her outstretched hand hit the star seed, and she started slowly -- excruciatingly -- crawling towards the old man, him still on her, trying to pin her down with the last of his strength. She was pulling herself along, leaving most of her epidermis on the street, hips only feebly trying to buck him off as she crawled.

It would have been hilarious, had they not been fighting for their lives.

"Stop riding my a**, son," she said hoarsely, still spitting blood with every inch, her voice barely in the range of hearing point. She was heaving herself -- the star seed clutched in her hand, despite his trying to peel her fingers off it, as though it had melded into her palm. "I don't do d**k any more."