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“I’m afraid I can tell you right now Alunite, that I don’t know enough.” He glanced at her with a regretful look. “Names, some of their uniforms, very familiar with Virgo and an unfortunate encounter with Leo; but not enough, not nearly enough about what they are capable of. I had no idea they could make a wall.”

He shook his head and turned his gaze back to the General Queen with an apologetic nod for interrupting, twice even.

Chronos?

That Chronos?

The expression on Uranophane's face was hitting a snag, creating a surprised and disbelieving quirk of the lips on top of her typical sneer. What the hell kind of a wall was the General-Queen talking about? "Is this a metaphor for something they're doing?" she slowly dared ask. "Princess Chronos is hardly what I'd call competent, let alone a threat. If she and her ragtag team actually managed to accomplish something, I doubt it's anything we can't handle."

She exchanged a look with Zinkenite, on the off chance he might have heard what she was saying.

Theatrics were all fine and good, but Uranophane would have much preferred a summons that got to the god damned point -- colleagues who couldn't keep up be damned.

"Is there anything we can do, General-Queen?" The voice was calm, loud enough to be heard but not straining to talk over any of the soldiers around her. The owner of the voice moved from the back of the room, accompanied by the soft rustle of a cape as it drug the floor and the dull sound of heels on the stone beneath her feet. The broken china-doll of a General stepped away from the shadows she had taken up after her late arrival, until the dim light washed over her and the ghastly fissures marring her pale skin. After Tanzanite, she was probably the most distracting figure in the room and unlike Tanzanite, few attendees had seen her.

Even those that had seen her recently had not encountered her in a formal setting. This was the first time she was standing among the army, among other officers, since her trip. It was the first time that she had ever dared to step among the other officers as equals. Yet, even with her new status, her eyes watched Tanzanite with all the respect in the world. She was just as sure as she had ever been about where she belonged.

She stopped short of the rubble of a throne where Tanzanite sat, instead choosing to step up beside General Hematite. Even without the need of his escort, his presence was still a comfort that she sought out. She just made no flashy show of it. Her orange eyes stayed glued to the General-Queen, eerily bright and all the more intense for it. Then one hand snaked out until it rested on the shoulder of her protege, keeping the corrupt senshi close by her side.

"Is there anything I can do to help us fight on this new front?" She didn't need to elaborate, not with Tanzanite, and she didn't care to elaborate for those who might not understand. Her unique position could have advantages, especially if space was the next battle ground, but she wasn't sure about the details of it all.

"Not as much as these guys," he motioned by spreading his hands just wide enough not to accidentally smack any shorter people in the face. He recognized the voice. It was one of Alkaid's little friends. A senshi. His eyes took in the sight of Tanzanite and her monolith of mystery before settling on Azurite. The glances she'd endured on the way over were nowhere near as condescending. "Maybe your moon princess finally came back?"

Well, he wasn't that far off, apparently.

The General's attention was immediately captured by the mention of the Zodiac Guard. There was a name he hadn't heard spoken with any urgency in a while. Had it been that long? It just went to show that even the most seemingly incompetent of senshi were a latent threat, worrying enough that his weapon appeared instantly in his waiting hands. It was just Negaverse instinct at this point, like a cat unsheathing its claws.

"Don't be so ******** melodramatic, Wolframite," he laughed. He slid the curved handle of his blade under Wolframite's bent form and lightly tapped him a couple times in the chest with it, trying to encourage him to straighten up again, before retracting the weapon back to hand. Hematite had mistaken the reverent bowing for some form of groveling about some past failure. "Chronos and her Zodiacs are a bunch of roaches - not even blowing them up seems to keep them dead for long. We've tried. And unless your 'Enterprise' was more efficient than an explosion, I think we can all blame the crystal-statue-formerly-known-as-Charonite for leaving this mess for us to clean up."

His questioning was turned toward Tanzanite just a little too late. "What I want to know is how any wall they build could cut us off from-" he began, but Alkaid's entrance completely shattered his focus. His unsubtle staring followed her as she stepped up next to him, shielding Azurite. While he had convinced her that he wasn't shallow, he thought, he hadn't really convinced himself of the same thing. Not about her appearance - she'd paraded around like that in the apartment enough times now that he didn't startle at the sight of it. But every time he tried to stay at ease, his paranoia focused in on a new little quirk, and obsessed. It took him just a little too long to look away and compose himself again.

Chronos. She'd never seen her first hand, and honestly had no idea of what little or vast powers the Zodiac Princess was in possession of, but just as she was about to open her mouth to ask what they could do the same thing was posed by a voice Chromite knew-- But was somehow changed. Searching the group for it's owner her eyes fell on Alkaid and she gasped. What-- No, this wasn't the time for that.

Moving her eyes to search out the General that wouldn't be far from the corrupted senshi, she found him snarling at General Wolframite. Stepping closer she clenched her fists together and swallowing all of her pride and gut-renching terror she spoke to the two of them. "General Hematite, sir. General Wolframite... Does it really matter who the blame belongs to anymore? Snapping at each angry dogs doesn't fix the problem, really." Speaking her piece, her eyes went wide and then fixed on the floor in a bow. "I'm sorry."

She was perched on top of a column, high enough that she looked a bit like a preposterous gargoyle, grinning gaily down at the huddled masses below her. They were acting the very same way they always did when summoned together, like it was some sort of a joke that the silly little senshi could even compare to the Dark Kingdom's might. General Queen Apatite would not have found it odd if she had heard some of them remarking that one Negaverse officer was worth ten senshi; while true, it was an utterly foolish way of condoning themselves.

"I find it odd that you all think this is some sort of a round table," Apatite drawled, one perfectly manicured yet bitten all to hell nail resting on her cheek, "as if your opinions on this matter, which our dear Monster Mama has not even managed to utter, actually matter."

Legs uncrossed, and crossed again.

"I personally find it amusing that Uranophane, a self professed genius, would simply downplay the senshi threat as if they are gnats. Forgive me for saying so, dear, but if they were simply gnats, why haven't you squashed every last one yourself? Why hasn't Princessu Chronosu's head graced my table, as a delightful cornucopia that even Martha Stewart would be proud of?"

General Queen Apatite jumped off her pillar, the shorn off stone showering pebbles on to those unfortunate enough to have found a place in the splash zone. Razor sharp stiletto's touched the ground.

Apatite licked her lips as though she was thinking that every last one of the Negaverse officers were in their underwear, and she liked it.

"If this wasn't important, we wouldn't have wasted our time bringing you here. I really don't care if you think I'm wasting your time," Apatite smiled brightly at this, "I would care, maybe, if you actually shut the ******** up and acted like the bright young people this world is going to have to depend on, but you're all acting like Bella."

Apatite's smile was plastered on her face, a little too big, and a little too white.

"and you all know how much I loveeeeee Bella."

Given the circumstances, Tanzanite was a picture of almost saintlike patience. Her arms were folded across her chest, half-lidded eyes focused upon Garnet's face. Only the nails digging into the skin of her upper arm gave away her suppressed frustration to those who might be paying very close attention. She had always been surprisingly good at keeping her temper around her officers. Despite her tendency to for lack of a better word, lose her s**t on the battlefield, she had always tried to hold tight to her composure.

It was almost impossible to think that she was only twenty-two as she stood there and watched the brazen act of insubordination, letting Apatite do as she wished with Uranophane's constant doubts. It was upon Garnet that Tanzanite's seemingly fascinated gaze remained. Was this where they were now? Recruiting children who hadn't the slightest idea of what they had signed up for? Her gaze met Alkaid's as the Ascended General entered, but recognized her with only a nod as she listened to first Garnet, and then Hematine speak. Her part would come, but it was obvious that there was a problem that needed to be dealt with first.

It's your own fault, you know, Marthozite chimed in, You've been too kind to them. Played too gently. They act as spoiled children when asked by their mother to do their chores. Are these the warriors you will send to defeat the Zodiac Guard?

Even as Hematine laid a hand upon her wing and withdrew it as though he'd been burnt, Tanzanite seemed unnaturally still.

This is your mess. Clean it up.

“It seems the two of you have a problem with keeping your mouths shut.”

Her arms moved slowly, draping one across each of their shoulders. Hematine was fortunate enough to get the heavier of the two, and the mouth in its palm snarled lowly as the claws wrapped loosely around him. Her voice was loud enough to carry through the hall as she walked them slowly to one of the large 'windows' of the room. They were really only gaping holes in the wall, the scars of the siege that had once devastated the castle. Beyond the open space, the Rift was laid out in softly glowing ruins, and three stories below them the ice-cold waters were as still and reflective as glass.

“If you think it's difficult now,” she began, and her voice cut through the silence like a lightning bolt through a moonless night, “Imagine how difficult it is when you're tied to a chair. When you're left in darkness until you can't remember how long you've been there. What day it is. What month.”

Tanzanite's temper had been stoked, but it was not the hot anger of a sudden fit of rage. It was the kind of anger that sparked wars, the bone-deep sentiment that could drive a person to kill. She looked upon each of them with eyes that softly glowed. The time for family had come to an end.

“It's when they start peeling back your fingernails, and tell you they'll stop if you give them just one name. Just give them one Lieutenant's civilian identity, the name of their family, and they promise they won't let Nemesis rot out your stomach while Ares' holds your eyelids open so that you have to watch.”

Tanzanite looked at Wolframite, as though to apologize for reopening old wounds.

“And they promise if you just give them a General, they'll tell Gunn to at least leave your face unscarred when she sets your body on fire. That's when it gets really hard to not tell them what they want to know. And by the time Ares puts a brand in your mouth to burn out your tongue, you wish you could still speak whatever name it was that would just make her slit your ******** throat and be done with it.”

There was no more humor left in the General-Queen's tone. No more patience. She was physically exhausted, still recovering her energy from the attack on Alkaid's planet, and it showed in the dark circles that ringed her faintly glowing eyes. Each hand came out in a hard shove, and Garnet and Hematine when over the edge and into the frigid waters below.

“Get back up here,” she said flatly, before turning back to the rest of their officers.

“When it's your family at risk. When the senshi are torturing someone, and all they want to know is which of your brothers or sisters to kill to get to you, who do you want guarding that information? Do you want a mouthy child guarding your life, or do you want a soldier?”

Tanzanite turned, as though she could not look at them for a moment. Perhaps Marthozite was right, and she had gone too easy on them.

“I don't need children, I need a god damned army.

Yes or no: Is. That. Understood.”

She looked at each and every one of them as though expecting an answer, and nothing more.