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It did not please Ares to watch starseeds be plucked from the chests of senshi. When their bodies fell to the ground, there was a twinge of pain in her heart. She could have saved them, that one too, and another. In the middle of battle, there was nothing that she could do from them. Her alliance with the Negaverse was one built on blood and mutual purpose. She could hardly rebuke any of them for their actions so her resentment sat in her heart instead.

The whir of magic filled the air. Some of it registered for Ares, distracted -- Kallichore's madness had one of the more powerful effects and cause the Princess of the Parallels to see the lost members of the Black Moon standing in the crowd, pointing at her with cruel, accusatory gazes before turning into corpses and rotting away. Apparently, Ares was susceptible to madness.

Keen eyes pricked the battlefield. Some new recruits were handling themselves one, older ones, naturally, doing better. She noticed Leto sharing her mask with a White Moon senshi. It was a brilliant tactic. This one had been mentioned to Ares. Leto had not slacked in her job at targeting vulnerable senshi so she intentionally ignored one of her allies assisting an enemy.

At that moment, Princess Polaris entered the fray. Good. The adults needed to do some talking, and Ares trusted her troops to hold their own. Should they need her, they would only have to call out her name. The Princess of Magnetism called out. Ares turned to face her. Only then did she send the chandelier flying her way. It would have certainly hit her -- had Polaris not warned her it was coming.

Ares dove to the left in a roll, her staff clacking on the ground, and then popping immediately back up onto her feet with a buffet of wings. The chandelier shattered against the wall, sending broken glass and metal flying in all directions. A metal bar bounced up and stabbed into Ares' shoulder. She glanced down to it, grabbed the bar, and then pulled it out, tossing it to the ground as blood slowly dripped from the wound.

"You know, Polaris, perhaps if you were aligned with us, you would know better than to warn your enemy before making an attack," she said, voice calm but critical. "What sort of example do you set for your lost court?"

The Lost Court -- to Ares, this was truly what the White Moon were.

"I understand that you have your convictions. I had mine too. I thought that I was saving the universe by fighting Chaos. Now I realize that we were the cause of the fighting. We brought death to this world by resisting the truth. It isn't your fault, Polaris. It is Serenity's. She doomed us to fight one another until death -- but it doesn't have to be that way." Ares lifted one hand to the girl, palm upturned. "We were never made to live on Earth, Princess. It has always belonged to them. Space is ours, all the planets -- can you imagine it? Rebuilding those worlds, recreating the lost society, experiencing peace and prosperity the way that we were meant to -- living among the stars. We could create that utopia. Help us."

Her hand remained outward, eyes on Polaris, staff at her side.

She didn't, not even for one second, pay the black-and-red knight even the smallest molecule of attention. Big kids were talking. If Polaris cared for the boy, she would take him out of the line of fire.



(( Eep, had to reread 16 pages so I am sorry if I missed anything! Please quote me if a post 100% needs my attention. ))

((Entry bonus for Realgar ((Chaos)) )) ((Total = 2))


Realgar didn't enter the fray with a snappy catch phrase, or a dramatic pose, he entered it with a flick of the wrist, sending a scattering of metallic shapes, roughly the size of a thumb nail, skittering across the floor, and cursed into his gas mask as most of them went astray into the crowd.

The damn thing didn't make it any easier to spread his Jacks under foot with any concentration at which to make them more than mildly inconvenient, though they might get stuck in a tread or slipper here or there.

No that wasn't entirely fair, much as he'd prefer to blame it on the mask, which kept himself and the others out of friendly fire, as it were, the plain and simple fact was that he was combat rusty from spending much less time fighting than he had energy collecting and working on tools for himself and the general. Under his uniform, he was sure there was still grease under his nails, and the uniform leathers, black and orange, had become comfortably familiar in ways they hadn't been for years, though he'd still rather have been wearing them while clutching the handlebars of a motorcycle. He'd have run them down just to hear them scream under his tires.

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Weapon: Metal Jacks ((ever stepped on these? Even in soft soled shoes they hurt. And they're really annoying when they're stuck in your treads.))
Having one or more stuck in the treads on a more solid boot will make walking quietly impossible or next to it, and will be very uncomfortable until they're pried out, even if they don't do damage.

Order Roll!
What had even happened?!?

Eternal Sailor Lenka had been listening…or trying to listen to the kind of boring meeting one minute, and the next, there was smoke in the room, and bad guys in the room…

And people were getting…getting killed?

The child’s eyes had widened when Howlite pulled out the senshi’s starseed and she swallowed, fear paralyzing her for a long moment. She knew she should go and hide…she thought she heard someone calling her…Pomona, maybe.

Lenka’s thoughts were a jumbled mess, brown eyes flicking back and forth, trying to find someone, someone she could help, or something she could do…

Finally, her eyes landed on…on that one guy…that nice bad guy! The chibi senshi’s lip trembled when she saw him and it seemed that her fear melted away. He wasn’t scary…but he was…he was doing the bad things that she told him never, ever to do. It no longer mattered how nice he had been…he was a bad guy now…and he was one she was sure she could handle…

Lenka marched up to him and bellowed. “Carn…Carnle…You! How dare you do this! You’re hurting people! I thought that you were better than this! Why would you do this! You were supposed to be a good guy underneath! A guy who would protect people…you were supposed to be a Jedi!” She had summoned her watermelon rind and the hand holding it was shaking. “Explain yourself!”

She hadn't really cared that Remarque was standing near the corrupted senshi--she already knew that there was no hope for THAT guy.

[hourly chaos]

endejester

Lithia_Brandon

"Understood, sir." Howlite nodded, though she wasn't particularly concerned with the welfare of either Benitoite or Remarque. Though she had more combat training, they held just as much power, and should be capable of taking care of themselves. She was more concerned with keeping an eye on those that had gotten in over their heads, like Wolframite, confronted with old traumas, or lieutenants with no weapons worth their weight. She was proud of their efforts, though, their passion, and would see them rewarded in the end. Provided she was able to make sure they made it to the end.

She saw a lieutenant, just ahead, that looked panicked, unsure and took a step toward them, beginning to part ways from her superior when she heard a shout that made her instinctively look over. Catch the stare of a knight in shining armor as he made himself known. A dragon's eyes glowed green and a split second later, her progress to assist that lieutenant was stopped short by the strangled sound of her own pain.

It seared. Like a sunburn that was crawling over her at an alarming rate. General Howlite had felt a lot pain in her lifetime, many broken bones, fights, and of course, magical damage. This wasn't the worst she'd felt, not close, but it was bothersome. Constant.

Her brows furrowed, and she hurled a flashbang at Camelot's feet. She wasn't foolish enough to chuck it at his shield, and instead, it rolled, opening on her command. He might shield himself and his friends from the blinding flash, but it wouldn't save them from the deafening, localized sound. Meanwhile, she needed to find a way to stop this burning. Howlite's jaw clenched as she remembered a particularly painful year at summer camp, and she wondered if getting freckles from a magical burn was possible.

Ganymede didn’t really care if Valhalla was going to be pissy with him for giving a gas mask to a little kid in the middle of a battle. They were kids, they needed more protecting than he did, especially in a situation like this.

“I want you to stay here,” he said as sternly as he could to Oberon, which wasn’t really that stern at all considering his voice was kind of hoarse from all the coughing and hacking, and his eyes were still leaking tears profusely. “If you want to fight, you can do it from here, but you stay with me, and don’t you use your magic on me. I need to actually be able to think things through right now.”

The Eternal senshi was somewhat relieved when Tomlin came dashing over. Hopefully the cat could distract the kids enough to prevent them from trying something dangerous.

He grabbed onto his train again. After ripping it once it was a bit easier to rip the weakened fabric again, and he tore off three more pieces, one he held out to Aster, one he tossed to Valhalla, and the last he kept for himself as he said, “Cover your mouths with this.”

Ganymede lifted the piece of torn red cloth and tied it around his face, covering his nose and mouth. It was the best he could do for now.

His attention was immediately grabbed by the sudden burst of another large energy signature, this one reassuringly on their side. He heard Valhalla speak and then glanced in Polaris’s direction, feeling a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Was she all there was?

There had been more before, at the Surrounding. Where were they now?

He didn't care about their titles. He didn't care to cater to them or take orders from them and a**-kiss or brown-nose, but if they could help...

Ganymede debated jumping into the fray occurring all around him. He didn’t want to leave the kids. He didn’t always trust Oberon to follow directions, and if Hypnos was here by herself with little more than a missing guardian cat, he couldn’t just leave her until he was absolutely certain they were both safe—and in a crowd like this, there’d be no way he’d ever be absolutely certain.

But he had one good attack, and even though he’d never wanted to use it on another human being, if he had to…

If he had to…

He turned to Valhalla with another panic-stricken look. He didn’t particularly care of the fear and the indecision made him weak, or if his need for reassurance and direction in the heat of things made him pathetic as he asked, “What should I do?”

There was disappointment as her attack missed for the most part and if she could have seen better she might have guiltily checked to see if anyone else had been hit by flying shrapnel. She had always been bad with collateral damage, and it was a guilt that often tugged at her, it was probably why she DID call out so often. As it was she grimaced with the 'strategical advice' she was offered.

Was she happy that Ares hadn't simply flown into a violent rage of wanton destruction? Very much so. But her hands lifted defensively nonetheless, one stretching backwards in an attempt to keep Niflhel behind it and her. The other held like a child pretending they knew kungfu.

Perhaps if Ares had met another Princess her words might have been considered for longer then it took to speak them. But for everything that Polaris was, she had been and would likely always be incredibly self righteous.

The words and promises slide off her back as they did every time they were spoken. Their side always thought they were in the right. But Polaris had her morals to stand upon. "No you are the one that is confused. You are the one that needs saving." It was them that hurt the people of Destiny city! Them that sent out monsters. All she did was fight back against what was being thrown at her.

It hadn't been so long ago that she'd viewed the dark queen as some huge monster, like Tanzanite, a gigantic power she had no way to even stand against even if she wanted to. So it was very strange and off putting even to be speaking with her now. Especially when Ares seemed inclined to talking.

"I was born on Earth and I care for the people here as much as I do my home star. Maybe one day we can rebuild, but it won't be because I've abandoned Earth. Nor will I use their energy to feed the process."

"I am willing to try and save you. To guide you back to the light, as has always been the way of the North Star. But if your soul is truely lost to Chaos then I will do what is necessary. Good will always win." It seemed, unsurprisingly, that they were at an impass.

Polaris wasn't always the most physical fighter. She'd relied for so long on her powers and dancer-like dodging skills that it wasn't often it came to fists or feet. But it didn't mean she couldn't do it when push came to shove.

A mother bear could do a lot of things when push came to shove. And the idea that Niflhel or anyone else in the area might get hurt in the mix was enough to spur her on. She lunged forward with a jab, but instead of punching she latched on instead, attempting to toss or drag Ares up and away from everyone else.

The metal bolts of the rafters overheard called towards her, and to Polaris that seemed like the perfect place for a showdown.

Zinkenite’s arm went up as though he could defend himself from the ray of pain that the crystal caused. His snarl of pain was strangled through clenched teeth, pain was a hard thing to keep any kind of perspective on, but he tried all the same. Remember the pain of almost becoming Youma; remember the pain of becoming General-King.

“Camelot.” He greeted the man from between clenched teeth. “I’d say it was good to see you, but as ever you have the most unpleasant manner of greeting people.”

Zink’s smoke bomb chased after Howlite’s flash grenade. The dull –tink- of metal as it struck the floor and started to vomit more smoke, and then exploded with a concussive BANG.

As much irritation as he suffered, there was a sort of balm to it when the Senshi of Echo’s bumped into him. Note books, not one, but several, wrapped up in a red cloth like the most precious of cargo, and he wanted them. She was lost for now into the crowd, but he had seen her. He would find her again.

He marched forward towards Camelot, grimacing as he reached for the shield, meaning to wrench it on the Knight’s arm, meaning, if he could to break the arm that held it. If he wanted to play games with pain, Zinkenite was for once, happy to oblige.