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Requiem was smart enough to stay just out of Tanzanite's arm length, but she didn't consider to stay out of length of her arm with a weapon. For her negligence, she faced the consequence of being slapped across the face with a plank of wood. The wood cracked against her face as she fell to the floor, hard. She was bleeding already, so early on into the battle, a big gash on her forehead reopened from her last encounter with the General.

She felt faint, but she managed to slowly pick herself up, blood dripping down her face and sticking to her lips. She had become far too accustomed to the taste of her own blood. When she had gotten up, she saw Ares had latched herself onto Tanzanite's back, but the General hadn't gone down yet. Perhaps Requiem's weight could be of use.

She leapt forward, attempting to latch onto Tanzanite's youma arm and stay on until she can weigh her down. She felt like a true rodeo clown, only with as much talent and practice as a drunk sorority girl on a mechanical bull.

"OW!" Lyra exclaimed suddenly as part of her head screamed almost as if on fire. The motion of the hair yanking was enough to pull her head forward towards the captain. "What the hell!!" the senshi said and with a clearly frustrated tone, reaching up with hand hand to grasp at the wrist of Uranophane. Lyra was thinking this would end up being some sort of catfight.

But that was insanely hard when you were nearly a whole HEAD shorter than your adversary.

So... what did she do? Attempt to pull the hand to her mouth and BITE the b***h!

Tanzanite was not fond of being touched, even in combat, so it was more than a little uncomfortable when not one but two of the senshi leapt on her. Ares weight was on her back, Requiem's on her arm, and the General was suddenly stumbling forward, barely able to keep her slender frame upright.

“Don't touch me!” She screamed as she toppled forward, twisting so that the brunt of her weight fell upon Requiem. That black hand twisted, claws wrapping around Ares' exposed tight. The teeth sank easily through the thin mesh stockings and into her dark skin, the longer ones burying themselves until they hit the bone.

“Filthy, disgusting creatures! Get OFF of me!”

Close combat was not his friend. He preferred to avoid it and usually did. He moved to jump back, but she shot out and hit him in the center, causing him to stumble instead of leap and he quickly moved backwards before regaining his balance, hand across his chest. It stung, but it wasn’t a stab wound or fire claws. Okay so far, but he wasn't in the mood to tango with her this close. He liked his distance, and so he jumped back to get a nice length. Once he landed, he smiled.

"This isn’t like gym class. There won't be a nurse around to fix the scrapes I'll be giving you." He summoned his weapon, the chains slipping into his grasp. "…but let's see if you learned anything from dodge ball." And he started to swing one end of his weapon about, faster and faster, before throwing it out at Sailor Gaia. He was going for jabs instead of wide sweeps. He had too many comrades on the court to start throwing his blades around.

Alkaid dodging the first jab could have been luck, dodging the second, skill. But when the blonde senshi not only anticipated the harder strike, but flawlessly executed the counter, Birhan knew it was something even worse. Training. Birhan has a few milliseconds to curse her luck as she was airborne, and then the concrete drove all thought out of her. All breath, too, as the redhead was left wheezing and gasping for air.

An attempt to roll away was forestalled by Alkaid launching herself on top of the fallen Birhan. Being pinned to the ground was one of Birhan's worst fears in a battle, after Wolframite has used a similar position to reach into her chest and grab her starseed. The fact that he hadn't succeeded in removing it didn't lessen her desperation to escape such a vulnerable position.

Bucking wildly, Birhan tried to dislodge the weight on her waist and shoulder. If Alkaid had been using both hands, Birhan might have been in trouble. With weight only on one shoulder, however, she managed a slight roll to one side. Even as Alkaid punched out, causing another choked gasping fit from Birhan, the redhead was jerking her head forward to slam into Alkaid's forehead.

The great thing about headbutting was that, if you did it right, you came off better than the other guy - a more protected part of your head against a more vulnerable part of theirs. Hoping that she'd caused more damage than she'd suffered herself, Birhan fought past the ringing in her ears to raise a knee between their torsos and kicked Alkaid off completely.

At a speed much slower than usual, Birhan rolled backwards, away from Alkaid. Landing in a crouch, she raised herself to her feet, a touch unsteady. One hand went to her head as Birhan winced and attempted to ready herself for battle again.

Alkaid had been so concentrated on landing her punch that when Birhan jerked forward and slammed her head into Alkaid's, she was completely taken off guard. Pain blossomed as her vision grayed and she had already released her grip on the senshi's shoulder when the knee shoved her back and finally toppled her over completely.

She lay there like that a few moments with pain blanking out her vision and overriding every other sense. She had no thoughts towards self preservation or even her mission then, just the knowledge that her skull felt like it had cracked in two. If she managed to survive this, she would definitely have a bruise on top of a knot.

Slowly, her vision began to return, and with it came the knowledge that laying on the ground and wallowing in pain left her completely open. Even as her head continued to pound and her eyes still saw things through a pair of fuzzy goggles, she was trying to push herself back up onto her feet slowly. She dropped her hands from cradling her head and instead pushed her weight up with them, which only resulted in being able to get one foot on the ground while she rocked unstably between it and her other knee.

She stopped there, one hand on the ground next to one knee, and looked up through her fuzzy vision at the scantily clad senshi. She was holding her head, it seemed, but every second Alkaid wasted was another for Birhan to gather her senses. She gave herself one final push and managed to gain her footing, even if she was rocking unsteadily on them. Attacking right then was out of the question - it was hard enough to stand when her head was screaming at her to retreat.

This was it - this was her time to shine.

Initially, her orders had been to go back to Europe, back to her post, after Elysion had been so suddenly closed off. Dioptase wasn't quite sure what variable had changed that - was it the appearance of the traitor prince she had to thank for this ? Was it the so sudden way the priestess had closed Elysion off ?

No matter what was the case, her orders had changed. She was to remain here, until further notice. To train. To learn.

She had not confided that single thought to anyone, but she hoped that this would be her big break. That, should she prove herself here and now, soon she would be General Dioptase.

Such a delightful thought, but now was not the time to sit on her laurels and wait. She had proved herself in Elysion, and she needed to keep on proving herself now.

The earth trembled under her feet, and teal eyes narrowed. "MOVE !" She ordered to Helicase and Primase, and tried to dash out of the way in time. That senshi was strong, she could feel it in her aura. No, not a super... An eternal going for lieutenants ?

What a coward.