Welcome to Gaia! ::

The gloved hand that met Thraen's chest sported no gloves at all.

His chest shuddered, bones squirming through his torso as viscera traced their path, and Bischofite found breathing drew a sucking stutter between his ribs. Wheezing, he glanced down toward the sliver of black pervading his peripherals. Surely... A jerking, staccato laugh bubbled breathlessly from his throat alongside metal. No - blood. This is blood.

This is where you die, Bischofite.

This is where all your trials, all your efforts, all your godforsaken tribulations meander to their end - at the hilt of your own peer's sword. What was it you said to Malicious in the Rift, that fated day when you named that fetid beast as your own?

Incite betrayal and expect its gaze upon yourself.

These deeds - they come full circle. A strained groan petered into a wet scream with the blood that frothed toward his mouth like seafoam lapping at the shore. It ached in waves burdened with turbulence, with red tides roiling up his throat and out his chest as trickles turned to veritable rivers. Blood spread its fickle fingers down the front of his uniform, down the tip of the blade to meet concrete in an ever-expanding, sickening darkness. It looked somehow surreal beneath the brilliant light of the rainbow stretched overhead, raining ultraviolet violence upon those beneath its pall, even as it petered to a close as echoed in the pool.

His grip tightened on the senshi's white bodice while he searched the last desperate threads of breath within his lungs before they peeled away on bloody saliva. A jerk as the blade churned within his broken form, and the resounding groan stemming from the man that once stood as a general sounded far older than the bones within his body. It spoke of blatant agony derived from the blade lodged in his chest, the boiling haze of retribution surrounding the ashes of resolve. Yet, the grip on his throat hushed any last remnants of monologue that lighted on the tip of his tongue.

It hurt, but the stars surrounded him now.

A final glance toward Thraen among tunnel vision cast his attention to the hand that never quite penetrated bone and flesh as remembered. It rested solidly against skin heated from exertion, and he recognized the favored black top sporting sleeves that wound around the thumb. The piercing blade sieging his body with frost had pieced what dregs of chaos still coated his visage - he stood as Alois now, caught between opposition powers in alliance.

A sadness pervaded the fading dregs of his thoughts, a saturnine smile forming between flecks of blood and spit. I should've given you a better goodbye, Quenton. Someday you'll read of my death in the news - a youth found buried in the rubble of a warehouse. You'll read and you'll weep, perhaps, not longer than a few days. You have classes, goals, needs beyond lamenting the death of a misanthrope. My goals set us at a crossroads, Quenton - and my path led toward your demise. Would you have forgiven me?

Or are you here now? Your long hours spent out, our prior talks around the corpse construction of your meditation zone hinted at such. Are you here now, Quenton? Are you watching me suffer? Did you call yourself my ally hours before, or did you stand against me all this time? I wish I could've known.

Nothing will ever mean more to me than you.

The wrenching pain poured through him in reversal, in retraction of an act never undone. Alois collapsed further toward he ground in a sputter of his own blood. With so little strength left in his body, he managed nothing more than a halfhearted attempt toward jerking himself upright that only met with utter failure. The stars grew across his vision, now muted from his senses without the chaotic power of a general to facilitate sensation. His remaining hand found Thraen's wrist weakly, in a hold to remain marginally upright before death took him.

Disce pati, Quenton.

No one was stopping her. For that small miracle, Ida was infinitely grateful... though it was just another oddity to add to the long list of events that had transpired tonight. She had been in so many battles like this before, and yet nothing had been quite like this.

As she turned, Ida caught the raised hand Titan swung her way and a small part of her was pleased at the acknowledgement... she still could not understand why he felt the way he did, couldn't accept that someone could act and think one way while simultaneously acting and thinking something almost anathema to it... but right now that didn't matter. He wasn't her opposition tonight, nor was he an ally. Benign neutrality was a good place to be, at least for now.

The invigoration she was feeling seemed to have the opposite effect on the chaos agents around her as the eternal senshi stepped into the third floor proper, sweeping brown eyes across the space as her uncovered hair tumbled around her shoulders. Athene, Tsui... they were, here, she had seen them. Now she just had to find them again...

The piercing, blood-curdling scream from thousands of mouths drew Ida's attention and she turned to see the youma at the crystals crying out in pain. Whatever was affecting the agents must be ten times as bad for her and the senshi vaguely hoped it would be enough to dust her. The group beside her seemed to be a rather large group, all focused towards the center... towards the figure in black and feathers that Ida knew far too well. Bischofite, trapped and swiftly being overcome by a combination of his peers and an eternal she recognized from another warehouse. His hair was no longer soaked in blood... if anything, he had recovered well and the hands around the general's throat made her heart leap in her chest and then squeeze painfully.

Death to their kind... Ida could not agree with it, could not condone it... but she was too far to help or hinder now. Stopped in her tracks, her vision narrowed down to one spot and the eternal stared as the horrid nightmare that had haunted her senshi life was being brought to a forceful close. Metal flashed as a sword was added to clenching hands and Ida couldn't help a gasp of air as it slid home and blood began to run red. Her heart was pounding so hard, but she couldn't tell why. Was it fear, a sense of justice? An upswell of despair or joy at the end? Her fickle heart... so often torn between clear emotions, leaving her stranded.

It took a moment for the change in the tabloid across the floor to really sink in. The feathers were suddenly gone and the imposing general was... just a man. A young man at that, pale, with dark hair and dark clothes and... The frantic beating of Ida's heart froze dead in her chest and she lost what little breath she had as though it had been ripped from her.

Alois...

She recognized that young man. She knew him well, even. Had spent uncounted hours with him. Knew that strange smile that held little joy. The pieces connected in a flash of lightning as a roar grew in her ears, drowning out the sounds of battle around her.

Bischofite was Alois. She almost couldn't comprehend what that truly meant and her brain shut down, refusing to accept what she was seeing as a deep stab of betrayal shook her. Her heart gave a hard throb in her chest as she gasped in a single deep breath. They couldn't be the same person... they couldn't! But the evidence was right there before her, in black and bloody red.

Frozen in place, a scream tore it's way free from Ida's throat with a force she had never had the strength to give it before, her knees going weak and beginning to shake as her denial pulled all the remaining air from her lungs and stole her voice. She couldn't handle this, not now... but she was powerless to move, suspended in a fog of disbelief and pain. She wanted desperately to flee the vision before her, but she couldn't move, her legs refusing to react to the commands her brain was screaming at them.

Her sense of her surroundings was gone. Her search for her team mates; forgotten. Someone could plunge a hand into her chest at this moment and all she'd be able to manage would be a wide, blinking gaze of horror. Maybe it would be better if they did, because then she wouldn't have to face the looming tidal wave of betrayal that threatened to drown her.

Avalon is exactly where you think she is!!

Somewhere along the way, Avalon had forgotten she was meant to be a leader. She'd gained rank without really understanding what it meant; with a General-Queen's hand in her chest she'd been granted greater power, without appreciating the ramifications. The responsibilities she'd shirked had all come back to bite her in this moment, with her sword in Bischofite's back, as he groaned and, finally, relinquished his powered form. Whoever stood before her was Bischofite when he was alone, Bischofite in private moments.

Necessary, she thought, drawing her blade out of the civilian who had been Bischofite's back. It made a wet, sucking sound; she must have clipped something important, there was blood spray, not much but some. She lowered the sword to her side and lifted her chin, turning to survey the crowd around her. Did any of them question why she'd acted as she had? And if they did, why should they? Had to be done. Old Yeller had to be taken out behind the shed and put down; the dog was rabid and there was no better treatment available. Best to get rid of him before he poisoned the flock. Somewhere nearby, someone screamed. Avalon didn't bother to look.

Really, she owed Bischofite a debt of gratitude. She saw ever so much more clearly. She'd been so wrapped up with Babylon, with her little drama with him, that she'd never given a thought to what the other Generals might be doing. What they might be plotting. Wolframite, that had been one thing. He'd been trying for deception. But Bischofite? The man was crazy. It ought to have been obvious.

Blood dripped from the edge of her sword. Chaos raged around her, people fighting for their lives, and Avalon looked up to the blond senshi who still held Bischofite upright. "It should be easy enough now," she said. "Drop him. He's dying." All they had to do was… nothing. They could stand there, and soon, Bischofite would be no more.

Thraen is on the 3rd floor

The other General's weapon was a meant deathblow, one that would bleed out fast and did around their boots, as though the man between them had nine lives and needed a thousand more inflicted ways to ensure the end between blade, magics thrown, and Thraen's own two hands. His gaze didn't waver from Bischofite's face- every noise stored away succinctly as party evidence. I will not look away from what I do. What we all do.

Tschüß, Bischofite.

The weight increased, the general's strength ebbed fast, and then everything skewed. Black feathers molted wrong. He knew every angle, every mark of nails. The wings that crushed into a neck hallowed with his own teeth and breath. Thraen's hands shifted from vice to cupping hard the jaw he'd bruised in kinder manner tens-over times the past month. His eyes grew wide with the bloodslick. I took your language as my own between us.

"Nicht ist das Gluck für dich- es ist für andre menschen." Did we know it all along, who we were? If not in mind, in heart's pact made before in that alley. When we traded names.

We agreed to tear everything to change. He was promised death and feared it would come. It was me all along. We built a corpse together, but it was not for me. The coffin was for you, A- Conditioning Alois' hands helped to build, bone by bone, held true. Name silent from lips but scream-strained in a ripple of muscles through throat. There would be no utterance given flight that Thraen should not know.

Hands which pat to shoulders, gently to sleep, to bring the youth down to lay. "He does."

It was as much as was deigned to dignify her observation of the obvious. Life was life, even executed. Even the vilest enemy, there was no 'dropping'. Failed humanity wrote plain in her incomprehension of her own act- she soiled it as surely as all Chaos did themselves.

I cannot leave him here. I have to take you home, Alois. You do not belong here. How can I take you home-



like this.

Another general pickled near, bearing weapon and panic as one who valued or knew the Fallen. He falls apart, wild. I cannot fall apart now, Alois. We've mortared well the heart of fire in marble's keeping. It cracks for heat, but I act. I think. Let you be taken to their dark halls?

"Would you lie in their howe**?"

Sarras is in the staircase outside the bottom floor.

He was surprised when she didn't immediately try dodging or countering his charge, but he wasn't going to question his luck. It took a second for the two to go slamming into the door she blocked and he could not only feel his own bones rattling from the strike, but hers as well. It was a creeping sensation but he forced it down, keeping her pinned as she begun to plead with him. He sneered, only tightening his grip and making it clear that he'd do no such thing until he got what he wanted. "Damn right, I can- all you had to do was step aside!"

She mentioned something about a project to do, but Sarras wasn't paying attention. Right now, he had the lieutenant pinned, and thus the door, and if he wanted to use the door to get through, he would have had to release her. He took a moment to debate his actions, considering what questions he could possibly ask her, when another voice came shouting from above. Another dark aura, though this one felt different, stronger- he didn't hear the part about kicking the Negaverse's a**, otherwise he wouldn't have panicked.

With his free hand, he grabbed her throat, giving it a tight squeeze to force her attention on him, and he drew close, never intending on keeping his hand there for too long. All she had to do was answer him... or die. Surely she wouldn't have chosen death! No sane person would. "What's going on in there? What's the Negaverse up to? Tell me!"




Mica and Vespa are on the bottom floor.

When Valhalla thanked her, she thought nothing of it. She was willing to do much... for the Negaverse, not to be the pawn of another officer, nor his dastardly little pet. She may not have been able to strike against a fellow officer, but she wouldn't stop others from doing so. However, when Ganymede snapped, she shook her head and tried to explain, uncertain why she was even giving these two the time of day to talk, much less live. "She does, but our superiors may not like the idea of one of their senshi striking against a general, even if her reasoning is sound. After the recent stunt, they'll likely execute her, and then what chance would you ever possibly have of saving your friend?"

Not that she'd allow Cyllene to go back to such a state, or any senshi for that matter. She would have slayed the traitor on the spot if they tried and gladly accept the conscequences, than to lose a single officer to the White Moon. Before she had the chance to say that, a senshi from before had struck at Cyllene, and though she withheld from striking either of them, Auriga would not be spared. She would not help Bischofite's scheme, but she would not allow the White Moon to hurt any other officer.

She rose her spear and looked to drive it down on Auriga's back, but the burning sensation in her chest prevented the heavy blade from ever coming down. She let out a pained gasp and retreated back a step, grabbing at her own chest and looking around for the cause. A Princess! That just turned the tides...

Her grip was not weak, but it fell from her hands when she felt someone bump into her-- it fell from her hands and right at Ganymede's and Valhalla's feet. She glared back at the one that caused her to drop the weapon and wasn't too surprised to see Vespa bumbling around, and thanks to his clumsiness, he caused them both to fall and he blocked the path. She could have easily recovered it, but the burning in her chest made it too hard to concentrate!

Tsui is on the bottom floor.

There may have been orders to retreat, but Tsui wasn't going to allow Benitoite the chance to escape. The Tiger senshi had no qualms with getting down and dirty when the tough got going. She was never the type to care for appearances nor injury, much to the dismay of others, and now was definitely no different. Blood continued to seep through the makeshit bandages and stained the white and greys of her pelt, but she hardly cared. They hit the ground and rolled, with Benitoite grabbing tuffs of fur and dragging her down with him, and his question was perhaps one of the dumbest ones she's ever heard. "I want to bloody your face with my fists-what do you think?!"

Never did she think he was goading her on and trying to force a mistake out of her, as she was simply too passionate to consider that. Seconds later, she felt a warmth in her chest, but she never took the time to look up and see its cause-- if she had looked back to her left, she would have seen Princess Iris in her full princess regelia. No, the sense of renewal in her chest only revigorated her desire to decorate Benitoite's face with a few punches, but something had happened to lure Benitoite away. One second she had finally managed to wrestle her way on top, but the next she was thrown off, and it was clear to see what had stolen the general's attention from her.

The guy in charge of this event, at least from what she assumed, was getting his a** kicked so hard that they had sucked the Chaos out of him, leaving a civilian among their weapons, and the sight of Benitoite coming to the man's rescue... snapped her out of her own rage, even if only for a moment. She debated on how to proceed from here, spotting the talking youma from where the crystals were and believing she found her next target. Admittedly, she missed a lot of what that youma had to say, but a talking youma? That could NEVER have been a good idea!

So she pushed herself to her feet, taking advantage of the strength that Iris gave her and tried to make her way towards the youma and the crystals, only to find herself in the path of a rainbowed hair general with a whip. She gave him a shout, recognizing him briefly but her attention set on the winged youma that seemed to be the instigator of all of this. "Move it! I got a youma to dust!"




Buddingtonite is on the bottom floor- soon to be on the floor.

"You killed her!"

Buddingtonite heard her, but he wasn't really listening. He was running towards her, closer and closer, weapon drawn and ready with the bladed edges pointed out and ready to dig deep into flesh with a single thrust. He could have thrown the weapon but then he might have missed and then what would he have used to cut her down with once she was within arm's reach? His bare hands, perhaps? He could strangle the very life out of her, or he could take her starseed. Gra would have loved that! He kept the weapon in hand and continued his charge, seeing nothing of what was going on around him, not seeing the princess that emerged among the chaos and only realizing her presence when he felt the burning in his starseed.

It hurt, but he didn't stop. Hyped on pain medication and pure, unadultrated rage, he pushed onward, reeling his hand back and letting out a scream.

"You tried to steal her energy away, and then you killed her for nothing!"

Finally, they were in arm's reach, and Buddingtonite thought only of cutting her down, for her faux innocence, for her involvement in his mother's demise, for having the nerve to think that only he was responsible that night. He could not vocalize any of this- the words simply escaped him, and once he killed her, it wouldn't have mattered. If she was dead, she wouldn't speak anymore. She wouldn't say these lies. She wouldn't invoke this feeling of despair and guilt that had crippled him for months. Once she was dead, she'd never be a problem again, just like Victoria.

He didn't win in the draw, as she had slammed the pot against his jaw quicker than he could throw down his bladed boomerang, and the way he was flung back with a shower of spit and rose pedals might have been both comical and graceful all at once, but he hit the ground hard, and when he rolled onto his stomach, face down, he didn't move. He couldn't move. He didn't want to move.

Just lay down and die, then. At least you will have paid your dues, and not have been Bischofite's pawn again.

Fighting was hard. Continuing to live through the guilt was even harder. Dying? That sounded... so easy.

Krishna and Jade will understand, right?

Persephone is on the 3rd floor!

While the little nap Thraen's magic had given her had been a short respite, Persephone was jolted awake too quickly and too violently. It took her a moment to orient herself before she realized who was throwing her back against pallets - Virgo. They'd sat and had tea together, and guilt irrationally coiled in Persephone's gut for a betrayal that hadn't even really happened.

And yet words wouldn't come, even as she tried to give Virgo the explanation she demanded, because her eyes were drawn past the Order senshi in front of her and to where Avalon stood over Bischofite, and a small choked noise passed her lips as the General in green's blade passed through Bischofite's back.

A literal stab in the back, perhaps exactly the end that a schemer like Bischofite deserved. Bischofite, who she had trusted, against all evidence to the contrary. Had she really wanted him dead, even when her anger - still bubbling inside her, but no longer a blinding, burning rage - had been at its height?

No. She'd wanted him stopped, not dead. (Maybe she was making a false distinction, maybe there was no way to stop him but death because he would try again, and again, and again, because Bischofite was obviously insane and she needed to accept that, to stop thinking of the Lieutenant who had taken and then returned her starseed and remember the General who had threatened to cut her and Natron down for a clumsily-chosen word.)

"I trusted him," she finally babbled, as tears started rolling down her cheeks. Persephone was crying, but not for the murdered General - not entirely. Her tears came from the agony blooming from her starseed, from guilt brought on by Virgo's accusations. "I trusted him, which flies in the face of every bit of sanity - Virgo, I didn't know, none of us knew what he really wanted. I thought it was just - just energy! I thought I'd finally..." She choked on a sob. "I thought I'd finally get to be useful."

She'd thought that maybe, when he asked her to lead a team, Bischofite had finally seen that she really was worthy of her place in the Negaverse, that she'd done or said something to convince him she wasn't useless.

"I was stupid, so stupid."