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Summoned, it was not always a bad thing; sometimes to be summoned meant that you were to be placed in charge of a mission. It could have, on another day been a congratulation for work well done. After his last meeting with the queen though, which had involved him being tossed from the room like a discarded doll he did not have high hopes for the state he would leave this time.

All he had to do was walk into that room, it seemed like such a simple task but his heart was thundering and it felt as though he could not quite catch his breath. That certain feeling that lingered at the nape of his neck like too many eyes upon him was there from the moment he had received the summons. That dread feeling that something, something at best distasteful waited for him…hopefully at worst painful.

Lingering out of fear would do him no good, he knew that, it would simply result in a more forceful summon and he would not be dragged before her like a Lieutenant, incapable of taking himself. He straitened the angular hems of his shirt, untwisted a length of chain. One last deep breath, hot through the fabric of his mask and he moved forward, trying to school his face to keep the fear from it lest it feed the terrible hunger that burned feverishly in her eyes when they had last spoken.

“Lied?” He said sharply confused, if only for a moment, then his gaze moved to either side of the throne. Familiar faces and fear closed its fingers tight around his heart. It twisted almost painfully as he watched the monstrous fingers squeeze and twist. Laurelite’s eyes, as always cold and guarded, none of those eyes pleased. His mouth felt suddenly dry and his sometimes-glib tongue stilled.

He dropped his gaze; hot with something not quite fury to the cold floor as his mind raced furiously trying to solve the puzzle of what happened. Had it all been a trap? Had this all been to lure him from what had truly been an unintended ‘treason’… into a real one?

He was shaking, the very thought of it, that he could have walked in so trusting, so quick to believe that those so high in rank might have, for even a moment questioned the sanity or methods of the queen. Even if they had…why would they risk the fury of the woman who could still strike them down when he could be sacrificed instead. That at least he could respect, he hoped it were that at least… it would at least mean he had played some small if important roll.

But the looks in their eyes…

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, whispering a quiet regret to everyone that might suffer for his indecisions. “My Queen…” He said but he had nothing more to offer up.

“My Queen.” He said his voice taught, “I would have made the same foolish trade at that time, for anyone under my command for the mission.”

Don’t mention Ilmenite… the words that came back now to haunt him. Oh god, what a fool he’d been. Of course someone would have mentioned it, and when she was already angry his omission would only make it worse. “I in no way intended to deceive you my queen. I believe the captain will make an excellent General for you.” He said hoping to expound on the virtues of his first recruit and perhaps he could distract her fury.

Or at the least he could focus it. Ilmenite had ideas, he had allies, he was sure that the Captain could make good on his plans for Birhan if he were not… abruptly removed.

A sharp intake of breath as she lifted him up, an effortless gesture that left him feeling like a puppet with it’s strings severed. Fear, terror… horror, to think he’d even thought he could have left this room again, that he’d have a chance to prove himself to the woman after he chose to protect those who had ‘failed’ with him rather than kill them as seemed to be her preference.

He thought that his promotion had hurt, the transition between Captain and general had left him sure that his heart would stop beating in his chest. This, this made that pain seem like nothing. He felt the star seed in his chest shatter, fragments to be clutched and twisted in her hand like so much broken glass to the echo of his scream.

Whatever Darkness had contaminated it, bound within its crystal confines was now free to contaminate his very flesh, swallowing up the very essence of him, he could feel it slipping through his fingers, fragments of his life being devoured by the hungry beast of chaos. Forgetting everything precious to him and yet aware that he was loosing each memory only compounded the profound agony.

It didn’t seem possible that he could feel any more pain than that moment but with each failing beat his heart tried to take, at odds with the great youma that swallowed what little light remained of his soul the pain increased. Pain, and loss, till it was the last thing that he remembered before what had been left of him was lost. His only memory was pain.

Standing at the prized position by Beryl's side, the shorter General-Queen looked more embodying of the trophy than possessing of it. There was a bit of apparent smugness to her possession at being the presumed favorite, that was for certain, but that single hint of emotion was all that existed in the air around her -- Smugness at her control of the situation in Europe. Smugness at her loyalty to Beryl working in her favor... smugness at the sight of the soon-to-be-former General Zinkenite, and how easy it had been to bring him to this very moment.

"It really is such a shame that it came down to this, Your Majesty," sighed Laurelite. The coolest and faintest of smiles played itself across her face as she watched the chaotic spectacle unfold before her, her expression characteristically distant, as if this were an overplayed rerun of a once-popular movie that had since become long out of date.

In a direct contrast to the obvious tension draped around Tanzanite like a cloak, Laurelite appeared only vaguely entertained by the situation at hand. "But that's what we must do with power that isn't being used properly. We take it away and put it in proper hands, in the only way we know how..." Her head slowly tilted toward Zinkenite and the Queen's hand over his star seed. The corners of her mouth upturned just a bit more, accompanying a malicious narrowing of her eyes. If the General had any awareness in him, then he'd remember that she never allowed herself such outward displays of emotion... the only moment that compared was that one afternoon, so recent and yet so distant, with their conversation over a simple cup of tea.

"A pity that power in the Negaverse would lead to such conflict and abuse, Zachary. I would think that such a thing could only happen with senshi. But I suppose we've been proven wrong."

Laurelite wasn't moving a muscle from her spot next to the throne, and now the only thing showing on her face was disapproval. Intense, bitter, awful disapproval.

What was left that was human failed to break her grasp, yet that which fought for control, that which was monstrous and hungry had not surrendered. It hated this woman, there was one in this room who it truly respected and it was not this ‘queen’.

Pain, that was all there was and even that was sliding away into the darkness, nothing left of him but a shell, and even that was just a parody it seemed, some mockery forged of shadows and chaos that even then could not hold its shape, down then, into the black as something greater rose.

His skin blackened, spreading outward from around her hand and splitting into thick leathery scales, unseen till they crawled outward, down his hands and warped his fingers with sickening pops and snaps as they expanded and twisted into claws, the texture like wood but blackened, and etched with a deep and vibrant blue that pulsed with each wave of energy that she pushed into the struggling, agonized creature he was rapidly becoming. Fabric tore as spines perforated the fabric and other appendages started to try and express themselves from a body too small it seemed to contain such a creature.

Broken indeed, reformed, reshaped in a furnace of pain, hammered out in agony and quenched in fury before being returned to the furnace again. He wrapped claws around her arm trying to tear flesh from bone, screaming in a wordless echoing rage more beast than man.

He lashed out with one thickened appendage, barely recognizable as having once possessed a hand anymore. An attack that twisted him in her grip swinging a thick pendulum tail in a close arc behind the striking arm as though to decisively remove this creature who dared handle it.

The massive, inky tail came at all of them with full force. Laurelite was sent skidding across the floor, all the way back nearly to the entryway of the throne room. It was uncertain whether or not Tanzanite's words made their way all the way back to her. Regardless, she picked herself up, dusted herself off and started making her way back up to where the spectacle was unfolding. Step by step.

"Being in the Negaverse means you have regrets," she was saying, as her eyes passed across the forms of Tanzanite and whatever it was Zinkenite was becoming. She kept walking. The sound of her footsteps was all but drowned out by the berserker rage that had been brought out of the former General. Some of his features were still warped, but intact. The familiar rich blue was still present in his eyes, but the personality that had been behind them seconds before was all but snuffed out. His mask had been torn to shreds -- there was little trace of the face she had seen back at the tea shop.

"I know I have regrets about Zinkenite, your Majesty."

Her gaze left him. She continued to Beryl, one step methodically after the other, setting a rhythm where there should have been none at all. "He had promise... he had potential. So I can only assume that you can imagine. My greatest regret..."

So close. Laurelite was standing right next to Beryl now, close enough to touch her -- and in the next blink, a pair of bladed kites appeared in her hands.

"...is that he never came to fight for the cause back in Europe."

She was on her as quickly as Zinkenite's tail had been at them all. Darting forward like a fish in an undercurrent, her weapons were pressed against the self-named Queen, holding her fast against the wall and threatening to slice her throat if she dared to move.

“Saved me?”

The smile that crossed Tanzanite's face was the first such expression of the night, and she gave her thanks to Laurelite in the form of a small nod. Tanzanite was very much a monster, but what remained of her human features were still as pretty as they ever were. Beryl, on the other hand, seemed to lose more of the beauty she so cherished with every passing moment. The more her anger rose, the more her glamour magic faded. Her skin was pallid, like wet canvas stretched too tight over the frame of her skull. Her thick hair seemed dry and brittle, falling over her suddenly emaciated body. Ribs stuck out like a washing board, and it was in that moment that they could see their Queen for what she truly was.

She was no more human than Tanzanite. Despite Tanzanite's wings and claws, Beryl's actions that day had proven that she was significantly less.

“Is this what it means to save someone?” Tanzanite's voice was surprisingly soft, though the darkness in her eyes suggested that she harbored no hidden kindness for the woman. Her clawed hands spread, as though to put her twisted body on display. Tanzanite laughed softly, a hollow sound, and turned her back on the Queen. It was an insult added to the injury Laurelite seemed more than ready to provide.

“I do not feel, Your Majesty,” she spoke quietly, her voice barely audible over the click of her heels as she slowly approached the monster that had once been Zinkenite. The creature with his same blue eyes, who had backed into a corner and hunched down low. A defensive position, his low growl echoing through the chamber like thunder.

“I do not sleep, Highness.”

Tanzanite strode confidently towards Zinkenite, her steps measured and slow. The monstrous beast turned his head towards her, and Tanzanite saw a familiar sadness in those blue eyes. The sadness of knowing that in moments, all you were would be erased. To know that you would soon forget how it felt to love someone, that your scaled body would never again feel the rush of the wind or the warmth of the Sun. Linarite's face flashed briefly in Tanzanite's mind.

One more casualty of Beryl's wicked reign.

“I do not dream,” she whispered, coming to a stop just short of Zinkenite's monstrous body. Every muscles was tensed as she held out a hand, as though he were ready to leap forward and rip her limb from limb; a power which he may have very well possessed in his current state. Instead, he pressed his head forward against her palm, and Tanzanite let her head fall forward to rest her forehead against his scaled cheek.

“You damned me, you ******** c**t,” she hissed the word and spat at the ground, before she lifted her eyes to meet Zinkenite's. That blackened hand reached forward and into his chest, “That is the price I have paid for my life, and that is my burden to bear.

Not his.”

It was surely a sight to see to watch as Tanzanite opened up that channel that linked her to the source of their power, to see those dark flames suddenly spring up around the two of them. Her aura flared wildly a sudden burst of power that was not her own. She could feel the shattered remains of his starseed, and carefully gathered them together in her palm. She held it tightly, and could just barely differentiate between what was Zinkenite, and what was youma.

It was the youma part to which she called, and it responded swiftly. The energy rushed from Zinkenite and into the Youma Queen, and a sudden shockwave made the room tremble as though an earthquake had struck. The light around them grew brighter, filled the both of them until Zinkenite's eyes were no more than blinding light and raw power. The energy welded the fragments of his starseed together once more. The darkened skin began to crack, light streaming out wherever it came apart. More and more, until it could not – would not – be contained, and the power exploded in a blinding flash.

And when the spots cleared from their eyes, it was clear that Beryl had managed to rid herself of the traitorous General Zinkenite. For the man who stood before them, his body wrapped in writhing tendrils of smoke, was not that man.



Too weak to stand any longer, Tanzanite collapsed to her knees, catching herself with her palms flat against the floor. Every breath seemed labored, her body shaking slightly as she let her head rest against the cold stone floor.

"It will never be his."