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It was akin, Harper imagined, to boarding a train and watching it derail off of a cliff. There was little the Order could do under the Negaverse’s terrible assault, locked in battle in a smoggy mousetrap. The enemy’s retreat did nothing save strip them of their distraction. It made them register the sirens just outside the door, the battering rams that soon splintered them. Brown eyes could no longer focus on pounds of flesh or staying alive. The building was a disaster, but its wounds felt like self-flagellation – an apology – for the dead bodies that painted its floors, walls, pillars dark red. For the empty husks and those stolen away into the darkness. Staying alive was out of her – their – hands now. Falsely accused, and DCPD would never know. Would her brother be there? she wondered in the scarce time left for such things. Would her mother ever know what happened? She looked to Penelope and her strong group of Jovians, not wishing anything had been different between them, but wishing there had been more time.

A third heavy slam shattered the door off of its hinges, showering splinters onto the floor where they became indistinguishable from any other debris. The train was hurdling down into the pit now, and Nyx was not surprised that all of the angry, ambient sound was swallowed by the motion. She was surprised that the light had inversely increased and, further, when the light heralded with it a soft coo of comforting words,

“You are safe.”

The tone was like her mother’s when Harper was young and afraid. Her boots touched the new, foreign grounds and fought not to buckle under the conflicting emotions of relief-confusion-fear-anxiety. A quick look around their group told her that they were not dead – they were not done. And that meant she needed to remain standing with her comrades.

“You are safe now. The moon once was a safe haven for the forces of light. A sanctuary for those who needed it's protection. And so it shall be again.”
Brown eyes snap into focus in tandem with the formation of another body in front of their bedraggled group of senshi, knights, and cats. It was not entirely there, never became entirely there, reminding Nyx of the way her magic worked. However, the similarities were thin; this was a benevolent ghost, and a real thing, at least in some way. The murmurs called it Moon Queen Serenity. Nyx saw the Earth and the Castle behind the figure, framed in the vastness of space and the speckling of stars, and could believe that.

Her starseed sang in her chest. It felt as though these were her home, one and the same, in the same existence and same breath. It was Ireland, Earth, space, and possibly even Nyx itself one day. They all needed her and, for once, she felt like there was enough to go around.

The questions to the Moon Queen came in a trickle, and the sound of their voices seemed to Nyx a desecration of sorts to this powerful place. Yet, the figure said nothing against them, merely smiling warmly, and it felt like enough. When their eyes caught one another, she fought back tears. When the Moon Queen spoke again, they were words of support and faith, and they did not feel pandering. They did not feel like screams in the dark. There was hope again. Sailor Nyx followed into the Moon Castle.

Harper and Penelope go to a fancy restaurant to celebrate the latter's birthday (on the former's insistence). They are having a fun, though puzzling time trying to translate the menu when a one Mr. Richard Moreau joins them. He is charming at first and Pene does know him from the park, but the meeting quickly grows awkward and Harper takes the situation into her own hands, erm, fists.

There was no stiff breeze on the Crystal Academy archery range that afternoon. No real weather to speak of besides warm sunshine and an occasional light breeze that kept the sweat at bay. Classes had let out over half an hour ago, and there was only one quiet boy joining Harper that afternoon to take advantage of the ideal shooting weather. More likely, the rest of the club was taking advantage of it in different ways, like picnics, outdoor study sessions, or simply hanging out. The day’s classes had not been grueling: no pop quizzes or particularly challenging lessons. Nothing had destroyed part of the city, yet. All-in-all, one could call it a good day.

Therefore, Harper had no reason to be shooting as poorly as she was, and it was eating her up. A nearby support beam nearly suffered the wrath of her fist in a fit of impotent rage when the arrow willfully wobbled away from the bullseye and once again thumped into the blue outliers. Even if the arrow flew straight, she couldn’t seem to get it into the coveted yellow rings – never mind a perfect center shot.

Worst of all, that quiet boy was shooting to near perfection a few targets down. Clint Blanche – Harper knew him from a few shared classes, since they were in the same year. Average high school boy, as far as she could tell from their limited interactions at the time. Then, Clint joined the Crystal Archery Club last year; he was proving to be something of a prodigy, and Harper's jealousy grew like ivy in her mind. He was no doubt a beginner - their coach had to show him the proper way to hold a bow and arrow. Quickly excelling beyond the mandatory beginner group, he was already a regular in the advanced, once a placement unofficially reserved for veteran seniors like Harper herself. In the club, those who didn't care didn't ask him to explain and those that did were either intimidated or stewing, too. She watched him between notches when he wasn’t looking, her glare bleeding equal parts envy and attempts to figure out his superior techniques. The resounding thud of another of Clint's arrows into the yellow zone proved to be the tipping point.

“What's your secret?!” Harper blurted out, sending one of Clint's arrows haphazardly flopping away from its seat in the bow when he startled. Her mind yelled right back at her that that question was not intended to be out loud. Nonetheless, the teal haired girl held her ground, her face steeled against taking back the outburst, and daring anything to say she did not have a right to know.

Recovering - both the arrow and mentally - Clint also stood his ground; though, from the look of confusion on his face, it may have stemmed moreso from something he heard on a nature documentary about running from aggressive apex predators. He gave a cursory look around the range, confirming that they were indeed alone. Then, quite eloquently, he responded,

“What?”

Huffing, Harper closed the distance between them so that her brain would quit reminding her that this was one of those situations where yelling at your opponent would not help.

“What's your secret? You either have another range, have fooled everyone into thinking you're a beginner, or you have a special technique. I want to know which.” Directly to the point. Harper would like to make the decision to lose all respect for him or to start using the special technique as soon as possible. Her patience had been whittled down by her own ineptitude as much as his blatant skill.

Clint's eyebrows quirked together tightly, confusion giving way to amusement. Wrong way. Harper bit her lip to keep her face from screwing up in anger further.

“Geez, you scared me for a minute. Destiny City is a weird enough place,” he said, a bright puff of laughter tagging closely behind. Tension evaporated as casual conversation seemed more likely than a full-frontal assault. Harper, knowing too well that he was referring to the ongoing struggle between Order and Chaos, couldn't drum up any sympathy.

“I'm flattered, I guess, but none of the above.” Clint quickly interjected before Harper could form words with that deep breath she just drew, “At least, not entirely. I've never done archery before, but I have done kyudo.”

Kyudo: Japanese archery. Harper had heard of it, knew of it cursory, but nothing that could be considered informed. She slipped her arm through the bow, resting it on her shoulder like a sling.

“Go on.”

“Well, with kyudo, the process of preparing to shoot is more important than shooting.”

That makes no sense.

“You spend months without shooting an arrow, and you can get a decent ranking without hitting the center of the target. The whole thing is pretty different from the draw in American archery, but it could be helping me. Can't argue with results!”

“So,” Harper asked in a softer tone, anger being eaten away by curiosity (and no, you can't argue with results), “you're telling me that you're more zen or something?”

Clint thought about this for a quick moment, glancing away from Harper's brown eyes and into his memories. The answer still made her want to punch something.

“Yeah, actually.”

It was an answer, however, which pushed the anger off of a cliff as it peaked and into the void of acceptance below. She could tell herself - she could tell others, for that matter - that Clint's advantage had been found out. It fell somewhere between simple experience and technique, neither of which offered a quick, solid fix to the problem of her shots going for the target like they were drunk. Harper resolved herself to the only possible outcome.

“Can you teach me?”

Harper's little joke about taking care of any Chaos agents that might be hiding out in the Hall of Mirrors becomes painfully truthful. She takes her frustrations out by punching a youma into dust. Everything is under control until Sailor Nyx takes on the corrupted guardian cat, Dahlia. When Dahlia mentions corruption, Nyx finds herself suddenly scared; she doesn't believe in forced corruptions, but now finds herself questioning that stance and wondering how far a corrupt guardian's powers extend. It's an embarrassing retreat.