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Super Sailor Ares stilled, her footsteps halting. It was chilly in the alleyway. The whole winter had been cold, much colder than she was accustomed to feeling. Her skin had learned to be frigid. She learned to fight even when her bones rattled. But the chill in the alley now was not from the air.

One hand reached up and then fell. "MuCe..." she said, a note of pleading in her voice. "I do not want any civilian to die. I want to save the world that they live in, that we live in." Ares did not like the way the Senshi of Blood was looking at her. Did MuCe really believe that Ares didn't care about the girl's life? She cared. She honestly did -- but she also saw the bigger picture. There were more civilians at stake than just one girl hanging off the edge of a building.

"In war, there are always casualties. That Nega could kill dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of people. For each Nega we snuff out, we save countless people." She shifted her weight. Before she said it, Ares could sense how MuCephei would hate the words coming out of her mouth, but the senshi believed she owed the girl honesty. There were many senshi she had been trying to recruit -- but MuCephei was... well, she had become a friend. So Ares said the words that were hard to get out: "I trusted you would get the girl. But the priority was the Nega. Kill one Nega, save a thousand civilians."

Ares waited in silence for a reaction.

If she failed? She hadn't failed. There was no point in discussing what might have happened because it didn't happen. Ares stiffened. What MuCephei had seen was the truth -- Ares made the decision she felt was necessary. The civilian's life was less important than killing an agent of the Negaverse. That was the code that Ares lived by; that was the hard road she chose because others were too weak to admit it to the themselves.

The Senshi of Smoke fought to keep her cool, but MuCephei wasn't making sense. "No," she said, a hard edge slipping into her voice. "It is everyone's war. The civilians are involved. They are simply too weak to do anything useful in battle. They would get in the way, or be used as pawns against us -- or worse, the Negaverse would convert them into soldiers like them. We cannot use them the way the Negaverse can." It was harsh, but Ares didn't see it that way. She wasn't always careful with words.

Her hand ticked at her side tensely. "Of course the civilian should die before you lose your life. You could protect thousands of civilians. Your death would put more at jeporady than one little girl." How did MuCephei not see how senseless it would be for her to die for a civilian? She could make a difference that no civilian could. If the senshi were going to win, then they needed to understand the term 'acceptable loss.' There were days when Ares felt like she was the only one who saw this war clearly.

"In the final battle when we gain dominion over the earth and crush every Nega into powder, people across the globe will thank us. They will understand that everything we did, we did for them. They will know that the only reason they kept their lives was because of our sacrifice and hard work. We are senshi. We must do the difficult thing. We must make the hard choices. That is our destiny." Ares believed firmly in destiny. She believed she had been brought to DC to save the world from the Negaverse, even if in doing so she had to see some innocent people die. "I do not take joy in the loss of a civilian, MuCe. You have to see that." Her voice faltered, a tremor of emotion. Ares was not lying. "I would see that every civilian survive -- but it is more important to have players on the field than bystanders watching from the side."

It was a grim truth in her eyes. Civilians would die either way. The senshi needed to focus on end numbers, not the individual faces. MuCephei needed to learn to look beyond their teary faces. Ares felt convinced of this.

"I didn't say that," Ares quipped hotly. No, she didn't say it -- but it didn't mean the thought didn't appeal to her. The idea of ruling anything was a temptation for the girl who had always played the support role. She was a battlehawk for Captain Aphrodite; she was a bastion for Queen Nehelenia. Now, more than ever, Ares felt like it was her time to stand at the top of the pyramid. Now, with no one in front of her in line, she would be able to quench her thirst for power.

And, in the process, she would save the world from evil.

It was win-win.

Unfortunately, MuCephei did not see what Ares meant. She could only hear 'civilians will be casualties, it happens' above all else. When the Senshi of Blood spoke of family and bonds, the other girl dropped her gaze to the cold cement beneath them. No matter how much Ares had been at war with the urges of her civilian counterpart as of late, there was no denying that Ares was Fallon now, just as Fallon was Ares. Lately, it seemed as if only Ares had any say, but in that moment, a deep sense of loving and love for her mother burst through her chest like a shotgun blast. Her eyes began to water, threatened to spill.

Ares turned away briskly, keeping her back to MuCephei. She crossed to the brick wall and pressed her palms against it. It took a few moments, but she found her voice again. "You are misunderstanding me," she said flatly. "I would lay down my life to defeat the Negaverse -- gladly. Whole-heartedly. I risk my life every day to do it. But no matter what we do, lives are going to be lost. I am concerned about the bottom line. The death of one civilian today could mean saving a hundred tomorrow. That is an acceptable loss." She turned, her eyes red but dry. "It is not an easy choice, MuCephei, but I am strong enough to make it. I can stifle the individual loss because I know, in the end, it will be worth it."

For all her confusion and surprise at the turn this conversation had taken, Ares remained steadfast in her resolution that she was, without a doubt, absolutely correct. "Not triage? This is WAR, Sailor MuCephei," she snapped harshly. Her face faltered after that, the hard lines of anger and annoyance smoothing away. Ares yelled at the people she cared about; she always had. She could see the indecision in MuCephei, and something about it enraged her.

The Senshi of Smoke had a vision of a world, a beautiful world, in which all senshi lived freely. For a moment, she pictured herself sitting by a clear pond, one hand trailing in the water, her long white robes pooling all around her -- and boredom etched into every line of her face. Peace would bring boredom, just as it had in the calm, quiet years of cease fire on the Black Moon in her parallel universe. The most exciting time of Ares's past life had been during the Dark Time, during the corruption of their fair Queen. This was not something that Ares had allowed her to think about, not until this moment.

When she raised her eyes back to MuCephei, Ares looked lost. "I would sell my soul if it meant fixing the sickness in Destiny City," Ares said quietly. "I am prepared to make that choice. You might think you are too soft to do it now, but one day -- one day -- you will be forced to make the decision between your life and a cvilian's, or a civilian's and one of your fellow senshi." She raised one hand as if to elaborate, but then let it fall to her side.

There had been a moment before all of this when she had seen something in MuCephei's eyes. She had seen a glimmer of approval. Ares knew that, had this business with the Nega on the roof not happened, she would have been welcoming a new cadet into the Blood Moon ranks.

After a moment of quiet, Ares narrowed her eyes again, fought to push her hardness to the front and to bury the soft, sad part of beneath layers of anger and certainty. "You are only putting off the inevitable," she said sharply.

The silence between them hung like a knife, swinging dangerously close to their eyes, cheeks, lips. Ares held MuCephei's gaze for as long as she could, but then relented, staring instead at her booted feet on the dirty ground of the alley. It was not shame that made her look away; it was disappointment. So long as MuCephei remained blind to the harsh reality of this war, she could never truly fight it. To Ares, this was an absolute fact.

She sensed the incoming brush of fingertips against her cheek, the skin there bristling, but the touch never came. In that split second, Ares threw up her wall. "I have other matters to intend to tonight," she said, voice cold and unyielding. Between them, there had been a comfort, but now, Ares was drawing a line. She felt cast out by the Senshi of Blood, even as the kind girl said exactly the opposite.

Ares took a step back. Her lips parted as if to say something, but instead, she fixed MuCephei with a hard gaze. The warmth and light that had been there before the battle disappeared, replaced only with nothingness. Ares didn't need friends. She needed soldiers. She needed warriors. She needed comrades. But now, more than anything, she needed to protect herself from painful feelings, from the way MuCephei had looked at her like she was a monster, not a righteous savior.

Then she was gone, turning on her heel and disappearing through a dirty, grafitti'd mirror propped up against a dumpster.