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Fallon had gone to her mother's empty condo after leaving the Red Light Hospital following the battle in Elysion. As far as the Crystal Academy matrons knew, she was still fast asleep, tucked in her bed. She showered, stared in the mirror, showered again. The floor bore the marks of her bare feet, and then the marks of her knees from where she attempted to wipe the fibers of the carpet smooth again.

Several hours had passed since the meeting in Elysion. It was morning, and Fallon hadn't slept. She had tried to, but never really in earnest. When she closed her eyes, she could only see the battle played on a constant loop over and over, each time highlighting another mistake she had made, another failure. When the light from the sun through the window was too much for her, Fallon transformed into Ares and headed to try and get to the bottom of one of the many problems that had kept her up that night.

She didn't have to go far. Ares squared her shoulders with a deep breath, and then casually strolled through the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. When she stepped out, she was in someone else's room.

And she wasn't exactly invited.

Sailor Ares let her eyes drop to the bottle of pain medication. She had some of her own. It sat on the center of her mother's vanity on a clean white doily. She made herself sit and stare at it for an hour while the wounds from Tanzanite's bladed fingers pulsated. A person who let a cadet die didn't deserve to be free of pain. A person who let a cadet die deserved suffering.

So Ares would suffer.

In a way, coming to see Delphine was perhaps an alternative to it. Instead of focusing on her pain in her chest, she could focus on the pain in her a** right in front of her. "What's wrong with you?" she said flatly.

No elaboration, apparently, was needed.

Ares blinked. "If we don't stand together, we fall apart, Mercenary," she said. There was a hot anger burning in her eyes, a flash of rage that seemed too intense for Delphine to truly deserve its direction. The Senshi of Smoke remained planted on the carpet in front of the mirror, her hands propped on her hips. It looked like she was posing for some kind of Sailor Rosie, Senshi of Riveting ad.

Her eyes narrowed. "We swore an oath to protect each other. We fight as a team." The doctrines of the Blood Moon flowed out of her as easily as breath. There was an unusual amount of tension in her shoulders, and for a girl who more or less subsisted on tension, that was saying something.

"Where were you, Nemesis?" she demanded, frustration ringing in her words. "You let your comrades fight without you."

When Ares recruited Nemesis, she knew that the Senshi of Decay was not one to follow orders explicitly. But it hadn't mattered. She saw a killer instinct, a warrior's drive, a conviction to win. These things were worth dealing with her disobedience. And Ares did. She dealt with it fine.

But not now, and she couldn't admit why to herself.

When Delphine stood, Ares remained planted in place. It was as if her boots had grown into the carpet of the floor, as if shifting her weight would upset the balance of the world. "Our soldiers are NOT pansies, Mercenary," she hissed. "You would know that if you showed up to more of our training sessions. You would know that if you actually learned how to work on a team." Every good point that Delphine made fell on deaf ears. Ares was not in the frame of mind to listen to it.

The pointed finger brought a puff of annoyance. Pointing was rude, after all. "EVERYWHERE is a battlefield. Everywhere. We work to prepare senshi for the inevitable, unavoidable, inescapable battle that could be waiting around every single corner, down every alley, in ever subway car." Her mind flipped through her own battles in these zones, both the victories and the losses. "But those of us who are strong enough to protect the others, NEED to protect the others. Did you kill a Nega? Did you kill one Nega for every Blood Moon senshi you didn't help? If you did, then I take it all back."

The words should make her feel better, but they weren't. She relaxed her posture, popping out one hip to the side. "You know what. You're right." Her eyes flickered to the pink glow of dawn outside the window. "Talking it useless. Henshin up, Mercenary. You want to fight? Sounds perfect." Her arms burned, and her bandages were fresh. Aside from the incredibly painful stab wounds, Ares was bruised and banged all over. Her head was thundering. Her left leg felt stiff.

Now was not the time for a pissing contest.

Ares saw flaws in every single member of the Blood Moon Court, but in those flaws, she also saw potential. The Senshi of Smoke truly believed that working as a team in their tight circle of fighters would bring every sailor to the peak of his or her abilities. Where Nemesis saw failures, Ares saw senshi who just needed work. Her outlook was not as dismal as the Senshi of Decay. Strange.

Hearing Nemesis threaten to quit was not a surprise to Ares, but it still rankled her. The obstinate fighter was strong, very strong. If she left their ranks, then the whole faction would suffer. She waited until Nemesis had henshined before responding. "I am not blaming you for everything. I am blaming you because you are better than that, you stubborn a**."

Was she complimenting her right before they fought? Huh. Apparently.

Without a word, Ares crossed to the window, gingerly crawling out of it. She grimaced when both arms flexed to grip the windowsill, but hid it from the other senshi. Hopping to the ground, the Senshi of Smoke took several steps away and then spun on her teammate. "I expect as much from you as I expect from myself," she said, widening herself into a fighting stance. "Or are you admitting you are weaker than me?"

She forced a smirk, but there was no emotion behind it. Ares seemed bothered, distracted, almost sad. It didn't sit well on her features. "I'm not the same senshi you punched out in the boxing ring," she said lowly. She raised a hand to flick her hair over one shoulder. Ares spun her torch through her fingertips like a baton, but the wound in her chest caught her off guard, causing the last twirl to wobble. The iron torch slapped against her palm, but she caught it.

Not smooth.

Ares clasped the torch in front of her. "Your move then," she said. "Show me how helpless you are that you aren't strong enough to stand by your fellow Blood Moon senshi."

Ares laughed darkly. "I'll make you eat those words." And then Nemesis was immediately upon her, a whirl of fuku and fist.

It was never hard to read the Senshi of Decay in battle, but it didn't make her punches hit any less hard, or her quick action any easier to slow. Ares accepted the strike to her chest, gripping the girl's wrist instead so that it missed its mark by inches. A flash of white-hot pain ripped through her chest, forcing a pained grunt from the teenager. She held her grip on Nemesis' wrist, twisting the arm painfully behind the other senshi's back and shoving her forward.

The Senshi of Smoke had a different fighting style. She played it safe at the start, took the time to learn her opponent. Her strikes were quick and decisive, like a surgeon of the battlefield. But that night, Ares had rage in her blood and pain searing through her chest. She stalked after the tumbling Senshi of Decay, not taking into account the risks of walking such an obvious path and leaving herself wide open to attack.

"Obvious attacks are not always the best, Mercenary," she spat.

The punch caught Ares by surprise, a stupid mistake, and she let out a harsh groan of pain, staggering backward.

Well. So much for patiently scoping out of her opponent.

With a snarl, Ares threw her body on top of Nemesis, tackling her to the ground so fiercely that it hurt her just as much as it probably hurt the other senshi. A hand wrapped around the sash at Nemesis' waist, and Ares yanked hard, flipping herself into the wrestling advantage.

"Ares Smothering Blast!" she shouted, eyes full of rage. It was, needless to say, a stupid move. The two girls were too close for the attack to be effective. Instead, the black smoke shot out, smothering both of them in a cloud for an instant, but then dissipated -- Ares could not hold her stance. Her arms wobbled, the pain burning up them, and then it faltered, giving Nemesis little more than a momentary loss of breath and perhaps a dull stinging in her eyes.

Ares let out a tiny murmur of distress when her legs suddenly disobeyed her, moving as if she was waded through a vat of tar. It threw off her follow-up attack, and without the full use of her movement, the Senshi of Smoke was unable to stop herself from tumbling (albeit slowly) to the side. It helped that Nemesis shoved her too.

When the feeling returned to her legs, Ares staggered to her feet, one arm hanging limply in front of her, obviously too weak from pain to be useful. There was nothing "doctor's orders" about the battle of wills going on in Nemesis's side yard that night, nothing at all.

The effort it took to fight after the kind of fighting they had done in Elysion -- both knocked out, beaten, and speared like marshmallows by the speared fingers of Tanzanite's youma arm -- was unbearable. And yet, they both bore it. It was plainly clear to any passerbys that these two girls were in no state to be fighting. The puffy white bandages covering the freshly-stitched wounds just below her collarbone on both sides turned red with blood. If she hadn't popped a stitch, then she had done something else terribly painful.

Ares sneered. "The problem with you," she said, trying (and failing) to get the panting from her breath, "is that you can't even see how powerful you could be because you are too busy being stubborn and difficult." The senshi squared her shoulders. The torch she normally held was long gone, having been knocked out of her hands at the start of the fight. Instead, she clenched a fist. "That is what makes you so weak." She clenched her teeth.

Her lips parted as if to say more, but instead, she grimaced, more pain rattling in her chest and arms. "Maybe when I stomp you down you'll actually learn something!" Her boots dug into the dirt, a last ditch effort to win the fight. Ares had lost her steam. She had one punch left in her, and she intended to make it count.

With a flying leap, Ares aimed straight for the wound visible on the Senshi of Decay's chest.