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Her falling on top of him, Castor did was all guys did. He held out his arms to catch her. Just like in the movies. It could have been seen as picturesque. But it was about one second into having her leaning ontop of him, that he felt it.
The cold feeling of something purely wrong running in his brain. And when he saw her face, and he felt that cold rush on darkness on and IN his chest that Castor's eyes grew wide.
This was why she was familiar. That hateful smile that haunted him and was burned into his skull was right on her lips. And her hand was almost literally on his heart.
The sound of her voice, the voice that sent a chill up and down his spine snapped Castor out of his wise eyed trance. He had only one goal in mind.

Staying alive.

Pushing her away, he didn't hesitate to follow after her, fist held out, looking to land a blow. A blow to smash the smile in. There was no tact or strategy in Castor's fist. Only one thing. Fight or Flight.
And with his fist connecting to flesh, it was obvious what route Castor chose. "YOU b***h!"

It wasn't about winning in any sense of the term. It was about her. Her damn smile that was burned into his skull and reminded Castor of just how close he'd come to death. And looking at her, he was so filled with anger, he didn't care about the fact she was visibly weak. That it was a woman, someone he'd never normally attack. All Castor could see was the person who tried to kill him.
And now, he wanted the much the same.
Moving out of her slow and sluggish punch, Castor did what her companion had done to him. Castor knocked her to the ground, and unlike her friend, Castor wasn't protecting his chest. Why? He was to busy beating on her's. But his attack on her torso didn't last long. After a few blows, he focused in on what had cause this anger. He was laying a serious beat down on her face, and that damn smile of her's.

The fight had gotten an audience at this point -- a live action deathwatch of Lieutenant Nealite dying, maybe, people kind of clustered together (some of them filming, the little shits) and watching the bitterly feared Sailor Nea begin to go down. Where were the police? The police talked about this so much, so where WERE they?

It was a knock-down, dragged-out fight -- and despite the relative youth and beauty of Nealite, her reputation as Sailor Nea meant that nobody was coming for her now, nobody with a YouTube account was reaching out to save her. The public was silent. And she was going down.

And then --

There was the lightning crack of a whip as it went around the sailor senshi's neck, Castor's hands flying up naturally to try to protect his throat as he struggled -- pulling him back, his fists speckled with Nealite's blood, to sail along the concrete in all the graceful ways a rock didn't. He was dragged on the end of the whiplash, before the heavy leather whip disengaged and its owner strode towards him.

General-King Charonite looked down at the fallen form of Lieutenant Hematite, then at Nealite, then at the struggling form of Sailor Castor. He took the edge of his boot and punted the senshi of hail a couple of feet away from his landing point -- right in the ribs, so that Sailor Castor tumbled over and over.

"Two of my men," he said. "Two. I've let you live too long, Sailor Castor. You'll be just about ready to go to the next level. So."

The whip cracked down again, on Castor's back, as he was struggling to his feet. "Time for you to shut up and ******** DIE ALREADY, YOU SNIVELLING LITTLE PIECE OF s**t."

Like Castor, Nea's attention was far too distracted with the fight to even notice others had gathered nearby to watch on in interest as the s**t was beaten out of her. Her mind was focused on Castor, the pain, her failure. God, she'd really ******** up this time. What happened to her being careful? Thinking before leaping? She could have avoided all of this had she just thought it through before acting, but her impatience and lust for revenge had taken priority in her mind, and would inevitably cost her everything.

All at once, the weight was lifted from her stomach, the feeling amazing as the burden was lifted. Her breathing was shallow by this point, painful short gasps as her lungs fought to take in air. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move, god, it just hurt everywhere.

Her vision was blurry, thanks to several of Castor's punches. The area around her right eye had begun to swell, making it difficult to even look out of, much less focus on whatever it was that had yanked Castor off of her. But she didn't need to see, all it took was that first word from that dark, terrifying voice for her to know who was responsible.

Charonite.

Her heart, already beating fast, began to race. Charonite was here. Charonite was here.

She coughed, choking on the coppery taste of her own blood as it trickled down her throat from the large split on her lip. Pain shot through her as she forced out the cough, and a moan soon followed after, the pain growing unbearable. In the back of her mind, Nealite knew she should be worried. She should be terrified and ashamed of the fact that her General-King was there, had more than likely seen everything, including her own failure, and that there would be hell to pay after Castor was taken care of.

Those feelings never came. Instead, she fought to breathe, she fought to move her head so she could look at her rescuer. She couldn't keep her head up for long, and was finally forced to rest it on the concrete. Her pigtails had come loose minutes before, her long, tangled orange hair providing little comfort between her skull and the hard ground.

Charonite was here.

Nothing else mattered, nothing else was important now. Charonite was here, and everything was going to be all right.

"Get the ******** star-seed first," ground out the General-King. "Leave your ******** revenge at the door until then, Lieutenant. For ******** sake. There's no god damn point in killing him if you haven't got him first. And you look like a piece of s**t. I'm embarrassed for you, for the love of Nemesis."

However, this was communicated only in irritated grunts -- it wasn't as though Charonite was about to go on a freak-out frenzy, apparently. Instead, he completely blew Sailor Nea's cover by going over to the wrecked-out girl and lifting her up -- not quite into his arms, but over his shoulder, prompting a lot of even more frantic filming of the entire thing as Sailor Nea was revealed to be on the side of the military jackbooted Negaverse. With his free hand, he almost idly turned to Castor again -- and the whip cracked across the sailor senshi's face. Castor went down again.

"You're about to die," he said. "Don't waste your breath."

But suddenly Castor was dragged back, away from the three Lieutenants, hauled up by thin arms that really hadn't got it in them to haul the senshi up at all -- and Nealite could feel Charonite tense, suddenly as tightly-wound as corkboard. There was silver-haired, human Astraea, pulling one arm over her shoulder from Castor, and Charonite was so still that he was just about a statue.

Then --

"You. ********. Insult me. This way?"

"Go to hell," said Astraea. "You know I've got the soul, General-King. I won't let you kill him, either. Go and take your useless children in uniform somewhere else -- "

"You ******** egotist," he bellowed. "I could ******** kill you where you stand, cat! If you have the soul, then why isn't it god damned manifesting itself? Why haven't you changed? You don't even know how to god damn used it! I bet you weren't even ******** chosen!"

She inched backwards a step. Deathcord at Charonite's side was drawn out, silvered into razorwire, and he jerked his head at Hematite instead. "Stand up. Don't drop eye contact. DON'T DROP ******** EYE CONTACT ******** ONCE, LIEUTENANT. DO NOT LET HER GET AWAY."

"You've already lost," said Astraea. "And he's nearly to Super. Castor stop squirming. You're also bleeding on me."

"Oh, you're not leaving."

His voice was deceptively quiet, the calm before the storm. And before Hematite could react (well, Nealite was still thrown over his shoulder like some sort of cavewoman) Charonite snapped the whip forward: it was, in fact, literal razorwire, and cut deeply into Castor as it wrapped around his ankle. Apparently it was time for a truly horrible tug'o'war, as the wire sank in much too deeply into his flesh. Blood spurted out. Astraea held on.

"You're <******** DYING," said Charonite instead. "Go, Hematite."

Astraea was holding onto Castor as tightly as she could, even as Charonite tugged with the whip. This was not a happy fun day for Castor.

Incoherence left him tongue-tied, the anger too far beyond words to double back just to try and one-up the insults. Luckily, the General-King had soon become preoccupied by scooping up Nealite. Hematite settled for giving Charonite one of those acidic glares as the man passed him, taking his eyes off the senshi to do so. Though, the General-King had a point; he did look like s**t. All the lost blood was crusting over wherever it had splashed or pooled on him, leaving him looking just godawful. All he could think about was that it wasn't Castor's blood. But he couldn't. Charonite was right. The star seed. Get the star seed. Get it first. Then--

When he turned back, he saw the same thing as Charonite did - a little girl trying to make off with the senshi. The particulars of the conversation was meaningless to him - something about souls and manifesting and other words without significance. He felt oddly uninterested, his idle thoughts returning over and over to Nealite. Was she okay? Would she make it? She looked terrible! That ******** senshi would die! Hatred continued to roil inside him, so close to being satiated. The senshi was right there, after all. Hematite didn't derive pleasure from hurting people - he sought to give them what he felt they deserved for the pain they caused him. And this one deserved death. There were so many ways to go about it, if only he had the chance. Break the senshi's nose, some teeth, his ribs, then snap his neck... Hematite was snapped back to attention himself by Charonite's indication. This wasn't the time to argue; Hematite wanted Castor dead as much as Charonite and Nealite did. Eye contact, he could do that for hours on end like this. He gave the cat-girl one of his glares from out of a blood-covered face. ******** b***h wasn't going to rob them of this senshi's death.

The sudden use of the whip startled even Hematite, who'd been busy trying to follow the previous orders. Everything happened so fast! The lieutenant tensed himself for the worst, but nothing happened but a brief tug-of-war between cat and Charonite. There was no more than a grunt in reply to Charonite's order - it was all the invitation Hematite needed in this state. Even in pain, bleeding, and thoroughly thrashed, he mustered up the last of his energy for the leap at the senshi. Unlike earlier, the star seed was unprotected. Flailing arms were dodged and beaten back as Hematite moved in for the kill with an outstretched arm. There was only a second's pause as the lieutenant realized Castor wouldn't be dying as slowly or painfully as the lieutenant would have liked. But this wasn't the time to over-analyze. He'd be dead, no longer a threat to Nealite; good enough. Hematite shoved his fingers into the senshi's chest, searching for the crystal that represented Castor's life.