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It was hard to kick a** efficiently when trapped in a body that believed more in polishing nails than pumping iron -- not that Ares solely pumped iron, though she did. Running was her mode of choice, right after strengthening herself by defeating others in every aspect of her life, be it battle, checkers, or claiming shotgun in a car. She'd learned the hard way (which was really the only way that she learned) that Fallon was not the model of feminine physical prowess that Eirene had been back on the Black Earth.

This would have been good to know five minutes ago.

A thick tentacle wrapped itself around the waist of the Senshi of Smoke, lifting her into the air. She muttered a curse and slammed her fist into the delicate skin between the closest two sucker pads. Another tentacle wrapped around her throat and started to tug. Ares cursed, not terrified, just annoyed. She kicked her legs over her head and twisted out of the first tentacle, but the second held its grip on her neck.

The octopus youma had been lounging in the central fountain of the park when Sailor Ares showed up. She spent several minutes contemplating a plan of attack, imagining the ideal route for her first blow, sizing up the enemy, and lurking in shadows. The strategy had worked. At first. Now she was slowly choking under the grip of a tentacled limb. Alas -- it happened.

Her legs kicked out under her, swinging back and forth for momentum at one end of the youma's tentacle. Breathing grew increasingly difficult, but Ares spat out, "I will destroy you!" before the youma tightened its grip on her windpipe and cut off all air flow.

Totally worth the wasted breath. Totally.

Ares dropped from the youma's grasp and landed on one knee on the pavement, as if Hector was about to knight her. Her head cracked upward toward the rapier-wielder to see his face, but it was unnecessary. She would recognize that energy signature anywhere. "Without that rapier, you'd be headfirst in its mouth right now," she said, grinning.

Smiling was not typically commonplace on Ares's lips, but in battle, it was hard to find her without some degree of a s**t-eating grin on her face. This was her playground. "So good of you to join me, Hector," she said, hopping to her feet.

The Senshi of Smoke was moving, running in sharp, quick steps around the perimeter of the fountain. The octo-youma thrashed wildly, casting jets of bloody water across the pale white pavement. Hector really was the best distraction, Ares had always appreciated that particular characteristic.

An uncut tentacle whipped inches from her face, and Ares leaped over it onto the ledge of the fountain. There were no obvious weapons around, Hector didn't have an extra sword, and she was sharp enough not to pound it with a stick. The tentacle swung again -- not for her, just to flail -- and Ares latched on to it with both hands.

The tentacle swung upward, but Ares tugged it hard, wrapping it around a decorative statue of an angel. Her heels clicked against the concrete side of the fountain, body straining to force the tentacle into the jagged wings of the angel. The octo-youma fanned all of its tentacles in a swinging circle like some kind of carnival ride. There was a crack of cement as the statue toppled over, and Ares with it.

She landed hard on the ground. She wasn't alone. The severed tip of the tentacle rested heavily on top of her, oozing blood across her legs. Somewhere inside, Fallon died a little.

The tentacle tip was a heavy weight on her chest. It twitched in fits and spurts as the final nerve endings rocketed off impulses the stopped short of the brain. While Hector took a flight out of her line of sight, Sailor Ares rolled to the side and got out from under the liberated tentacle tip. It was a shame it would turn to dust soon; it would make a lovely wall decoration. The snapping beak too.

A tentacle sailed toward her head and Ares hit the pavement. The thick blood squicked beneath her, staining what part of her chest and arms were not already covered. It looked like she was a stand-in on the set of Carrie. An unscathed tentacle writhed beside the tipless one, pushing against the concrete rim of the fountain until pieces started to crumble off.

Sailor Ares hopped to her feet, somersaulting over another sailing tentacle. Her hands were drawn into claws at her side, eyes fixed on the uninjured tentacle. She aimed to dig her nails into the flesh and bend it around the one statue that remained untoppled in the fountain's basin. Water splashed behind her, and she turned just in time to embrace the full swing of stumped tentacle she had created moments before.

Gripping it like a cowboy on a bronco, Ares wrapped both legs tightly around the appendage, turning her face away from the fountain of inky blood that oozed from the tentacle. The tentacle slowed for a moment and Ares hooked one leg out to kick at the flayed skin. The youma shrieked (not very octopus-like) and flailed so hard Ares wondered if it was trying to detach its own tentacles from its body.

The force cartwheeled her into the air, sailing over the swinging tentacles and landing with a low oomph! on the wrinkled head of the octoyouma.

Totally done on purpose. Totally.

Kneeling on top of the domed head, Ares looked triumphant. She shot Hector a look that said look who's king of the mountain! and then pulled her fist back to land a slamming punch -- one after the other. The blows worked in a circle, hitting the softest part of the head, often striking the same precise spot multiple times. Before she could dropkick the thing in the temple, it lifted an engorged tentacle and swatted her away like an errant fly near a horse's tail.

The force slammed her to the hard concrete, back first. Ares bit her tongue to keep from moaning. She might have laid there for a moment more, but the tentacle that had thrown her returned again to squish her into an Ares-pancake. The Senshi of Smoke rolled to the left. It missed her. She rolled to the right. It missed her again.

Thank the stars for the idiocy of youma.

Hopping backward, an agitated sneer crossed Ares's features. This youma was landing too many blows and not taking enough. Unacceptable. Utterly unacceptable. "Enough swordplay," she said, spitting a mouthful of blood on to a patch of unstained concrete. "Either get out of the way, or hold your breath! Let a soldier scout show you how it's done."

Sailor Ares had given Hector fair warning to move, and he knew the senshi well enough to know that she was incapable of kidding around, especially in battle. Her fingers formed a gun at her chest, and she raised them slowly, calling, "Ares Smothering..." Her hands cracked outward. "Blast!" A jet of black smoke burst forth from her fingertips, swelling thick and fast. It moved like a beacon toward the octoyouma.

When the cloud touched its skin, the smoke exploded upward in a thick and churning column that started at the ground and stretched out of sight into the air. The wind whipping off the column stirred her hair, but Sailor Ares had her eyes fixed on the target of her disdain. They never wavered.

It had been Ares's life experience that almost everything was capable of choking and dying. She did not wonder how the octoyouma might be inhaling her smoke. She simply believed that the sheer might and majesty of her attack would force any creature without lungs to spontaneously grow a pair solely to experience its devastating force. This was how things worked in her world.

So when the octoyouma wheezed out a series of hacking breaths through its lipless beak, Ares simply dusted her hands off in front of her and smirked. A tentacle whipped near her, but it was easy to leap over it. The youma couldn't see where she was to take any kind of aim, and it was losing its stamina from the oozing wounds and the choking smoke. Since Hector hadn't made an appearance, she could only assume that he had done something stupid and also awesome.

When the smoke cleared, Ares raised an eyebrow to see Cavalier Hector riding the youma like an All-State Rodeo Champion -- and he was doing it blind, at that. She took a moment to admire his handiwork with the same careful eye that one painter might examine the work of a sculptor. It wasn't the same medium, sure, but it didn't make it any less beautiful.

The rapier arced through the air, and Ares leaped up to catch it. One hand snagged the handle, the other carefully caught the flat end of the blade. His weapon -- he was letting her hold it. It took a great deal of focus to keep Ares from jumping up and down in delight. She had weapon-envy something terrible for all of the cavaliers, but Hector's weapon had always been a particular Holy Grail for her. The Captain's sword. The destroyer of youma.

She was always careful with how much she showed that envy, but after enough lifetimes together, it was pretty damn obvious. The Senshi of Smoke allowed herself a few moments of quiet awe before her head cracked back up to attention. "Right," she said, confirming something that didn't need to be spoken.

Her heels were moving across the concrete, the rapier drawn low at her side in the careful form that Hector had taught her a hundred times. If he could see, he would probably have notes for her. One tentacle among the fray was slumped to the side. It twitched spasmodically, worn from blood loss and puncture wounds. Ares hopped on to it, scaling up its length like Tarzan in a tree. Her heels caught at the crest of the tentacle, and she extended both arms, drew her legs under her, and jumped forward.

The point of the rapier skewered the spot that Hector had opened up for her, finding purchase and sinking deep into the flesh with a wet squish. Ares dangled from the handle of the rapier, her weight tugging a long slit down the head of the youma. It screeched a wet, deflated cry and then shuddered. As the youma disintegrated into a pile of dust, the rapier lost its hold, and both it and Sailor Ares plummeted into the bloody water of the fountain below. She threw an arm out at the last second to make sure she took the hardest impact, not the weapon.

The thick blood coating her fuku mixed with the soupy mix already brewing in what had once been a tacky fountain. It was now some grotesque relic from a Silent Hill game, or maybe Left4Dead. The concrete was stained, the water was stained, the parallels were stained. Her nose wrinkled. Disgusting. This was not a reaction the old Ares would have had. This was Fallon shining through.

Sailor Ares appraised the condition of her surroundings and got to her feet, rapier at her side. "Maybe now they can install a fountain that isn't straight from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." Apparently Ares had already begun to enjoy the fruits of the White Earth and its Netflix.

Being a cavasenshi was Ares's not-so-secret dream. She had tried on numerous occasions to convince Selene that equipping the senshi with weapons would only make them more effective. It didn't go over the way she'd wanted, and Ares responded by disappearing off to who knew where for a couple days. When she returned, she just wanted to spar, not talk about it. Even if it wasn't permitted, it wouldn't stop her from learning how to use a goddamn sword.

She nodded briskly to Hector's notes. If she weren't so soaking wet, she might have tried to find a pen to write it down, a new impulse. "We should start lessons again," she said, squeezing bloody water out of her hair. Her hands worked meticulously over the strands, yanking out bits of grass and cement. "You've been away." He'd been here, before her. This she could excuse. Captain Hector deserved to arrive early. Thrall was another topic entirely.

Tilting her arm, Ares lifted Devourer up, testing the heft of the hilt with her arm. She held it out to him, half-hearted. Why couldn't they all have magical weapons? How was that not a good idea? Hell, Thrall got a goddamn heart chain. They could at least let Ares carry a club.

The rapier was passed on, and Ares crossed behind Hector. She placed one hand firmly on his shoulder, the other on his back, and jerked her arms in a quick, snapping motion. It wasn't her first time doing this. It wasn't her 100th either. Ares and Hector had been helping each other realign limbs for as long as they'd been fighting.

Swinging one leg out of the fountain, Ares took a seat on the ledge, peeling off her right boot and dumping it inside out. A puddle of bloody water sloshed to the ground. "So tell me." Cloudy gray eyes lifted to his face.

Ares didn't elaborate. He'd say whatever he thought was important, and it would end up being what she wanted to know anyway. That was how it worked.

Sailor Ares had a hard time lifting her eyes from Devourer. She almost asked if he wanted her to clean it for him. It was beautiful with the grime of battle on it, but her newly-discovered cleaning senses where tingling like pop-rocks on her tongue at the sight of it. Ares distracted herself by dumping out her other boot and then sliding back into both of them. She turned on the ledge to regard Hector.

Wiseman and Black Lady. Good.

There wasn't much else on her mind more often that the thief whose blood she intended to personally drain, and its wrangler who she hoped to eviscerate. (And the Queen.) All enemies of the Black Moon and Earth had to be made examples of. Ares planned on suggesting putting their severed heads on spikes and displaying outside of the Queen's house. Would that be kosher in Destiny City?

"Please tell me Thrall was shoved into a pug-nosed midget with back fat." Her eyes were flat with a spark of hopefulness. "Is she lousy with pock marks?" Oh, Ares did hope she was taller than the Heartseeker-wielding senshi. It had been that way in the past, and it would only please her to spend this life looking down her nose at Aphrodite too.

The long ribbon that flowed behind her was soaked through. It hung on either side of her like cooked spaghetti. She curled it over her wrist, squeezing out more and more water. "I'm not concussed." (She was.) "I'm ready to knock some skulls in." (This was also true.) "Their throne is empty. They have no sense of ambition to succeed without a ruler." She dropped her ribbon. It fell to the ground with a wet slap. "If they cannot be successful in her absence, then they'll never find her. If she's even here." Ares snorted, dismissive.

In Ares's mind, Queen Nehelenia was the only true Queen that existed, and she was not afraid of invoking that name, never had been. Her Queen was fautless, her Queen was pristine.

The Senshi of Smoke had rose-colored eyeballs.

Sailor Ares had ambition beyond her Queen's orders, but she had a fervent devotion to those orders that kept her from overstepping her bounds. She was like a petulant child standing in the candy aisle reaching slowly toward the Skittles, her mother stiffly warning, Don't you do that, young lady. Their planet was a peaceful one, a boring one. Her battle experience was from wrangling criminals or errant livestock, not slitting the throats of the nonbelievers. Not usually.

Coming to this White Earth offered more than a chance to reclaim the stolen crystal; it opened up a world of destruction and battle that Ares had only dreamed about before. Her paradise.

A heavy mouth slowly drew into a pout at Hector's recitation of Thrall's appearance. Fair-haired and pretty? Of course she was. "Selene's choice for Captain," she clarified, as if the divine right of that position belonged to Ares, "is pretty. Her teeth are enchanting, are they? She's bonded in your blood, all right. Already working in her poison." Sailor Ares tugged stiffly on the soiled fabric of her bodice. Hector was a great cavalier, wasted on Thrall, in her opinion. Everything was wasted on Thrall. Why did everyone like Thrall so much? Thrall, Thrall, Thrall.

Sailor Ares straightened, tossing a wet mane of hair over one shoulder. "Hm, good for her. She will need the extra help." Glaucus was beyond the mirror still. No matter -- Ares was self-sufficient. She needed no one. This was her mantra, repeated daily. A long gash ran the length of her arm, oozing blood onto the pale gray of her arm band. She dropped her gaze to it. "Flesh wound," she said. There was another on her leg. She pointed to it. "Leaky cut. It'll heal itself."

Translation: no ******** way am I going to a hospital.

One eyebrow quirked up. "Do you need to go to the hospital? Perhaps this battle was tough for you." She smirked, competitive -- always.

Sailor Ares had never cared much for theatrics or witty banter. She indulged from time to time in battle, but otherwise kept things on the straight and narrow, free of prophetalizing. When Hector extended his hands upward, Ares let her gray eyes linger on the stars for a moment, a sigh escaping her lips.

She waited for him to finish. "Are you done now? Got that out of your system?" Her weight shifted to one leg, and a grimace marred her lips. The leg wound was bad. It gushed blood. It had been her experience that gushing blood was to be avoided. "Your orders don't bind me," she mused, a touch of rebellion leading into her obedience. Ares could never quite make what she did easy, without complaint. She would do as told, but not before squawking about it a hundred different ways (and unless, of course, it was an order from the Queen).

Her waist bow was a soggy leash dragging across the pavement behind her as she closed the distance between them. "My attack can be devastating. You're right. You should go to the hospital." She added, belatedly, "And I will go too." Did her words just slur a little? (They kind of slurred a little.) Perhaps a little treatment wasn't such a bad idea. It would be better to go voluntarily than to let Hector carry her, which he most certainly would.