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"Of course!"
He'd always been eager to serve in whatever way he could, but this wasn't even an order. It was a simple request from family and his family meant more to him than anything else.

Lyra...was being collected for whatever reason, and the captain felt a twinge of...-something- at that. He wasn't sure if it was fear, or joy, or what. But...it didn't matter. Wolframite needed him now, he'd be there for his fellow officer.

Scheelite got back to his feet once more, tired steps soon bringing him to Wolframite's side where he could offer himself to help the other stand.
"I'm glad we found you Wolfy, I've missed seeing you around."
The blonde ruffled the head of Wolframite, flashing him a grin before turning his gaze to watch what was to happen next.

Perseus stood back from the group, watching terrified and awestruck at the events that were unfolding in front of her. The birth of a General-Queen... the sailor shuddered at the massive energy signature washing over the area. It was sickening, the amount of power flowing through the area.

She felt useless.

Perseus, Super Sailor of Illusion, felt utterly useless. She couldn't play with these powers and win, she couldn't help anyone...she couldn't do anything. It was the first time in her life that she'd felt utterly powerless against anything. Every time before there had been some small glimmer of hope, some balance. But here, and now, in the random battle she was dragged into without knowing the cause or the reasoning. She didn't know how to help, how to move even. The girl stood there, watching horrified at everything but unable to move or speak.

Bright eyes watched as Lyra was led away from the group, as Ares boldly threw a scepter into the fray, as Negaversers and Senshi alike shed tears at the events that had unfolded. "Lyra..." It was soft. The two had met before. It had been a brief meeting, but the girl was a shining example of good, at least as far as Perseus had been able to see. "Lyra no!" The second object was much louder. She didn't move, she didn't even realize that she'd shouted into the fray.

Perseus was useless, and the more she realized it, the easier it was to let the tears roll down the side of her cheeks.

One of the feeling he knew well, as he had dwelt on it the past two weeks, was guilt. He felt that most of this had been his fault. His first kill had been the BMC member, Rota. Bismuthite didn't know about the things that had already been ongoing between Tanzanite and the BMC. If he did, it might have eased his guilt, but as it were, he still had a firm belief that he had brought all this pain upon them.

When Tanzanite turned to him, he expected her to say something of the sort, but instead there was a gentleness. And there was praise. Something he always sought after, perhaps more than figurative immortality. And the pain from promotion was perhaps recompense for what he'd done. And when it was all done, it was Captain Bismuthite that gave a quiet 'thank you.'

Oddly enough, he didn't seem to make any show of himself, or anything remotely egotistical. He was still...weighing things in his mind. Watching on as things continued to happen, and finding a place near Wolframite, who would find the boy to be an ever-looming presence for the next great while.

Zinkenite made his way to the fallen Lyra, as best he could he crouched, all aches, pains, bruises and a heart full of emotions like broken glass, but here, for her.

He picked her up as carefully as he would have a small child, a broken doll, cradling her head against his shoulder, it was a gentle touch, a tender one, far more so in light of the treatment she had just received.

"I am so sorry..." He whispered into her unconscious ear. "But you'll understand soon."

He would have said 'he promised' but there were no promises now. She would learn, or she would die... there was no middle ground.

His gaze snapped back towards his General Queen, to Nemisis, with all her impotent rage...she was dangerous, that power of hers... was she dangerous enough?

A tense moment he paused, waiting to see, waiting to be sure before he took himself, and his precious cargo to the waiting arms of the negaverse.

Her black eyes searched the field, seeking out the pale, pretty face of Sailor Nemesis. When she found her there, those blue eyes that she would never again forget, her smile held more malice than any one person should have been capable of harboring. It took only a thought, a whim, to carry herself behind the senshi of decay even as she ran towards the General-Queen, the hand of her wing moving in a blur. Sharp claws raked across Nemesis' body, opening her up in four long gashes that stretched from her shoulders to her tailbone.

Nemesis grabbed hold of her wrist, and the skin rotted beneath her touch. But not rearly as fast as it had before. It popped and sizzled and the skin flaked away, but the General-Queen's silver eyes did not chance. She smiled, all too kindly, and slammed the woman to the ground.

The once tortured woman looked down upon the senshi's body without the slightest hint of mercy, without so much as a glimmer of remorse. Her fingers tangled in Nemesis' hair and jerked the girl's head back up . Her lips brushed against Nemesis' ear as she hissed the words, “Please do not doubt for a moment that every life I take from this moment onwards? Every person I convert?” She twisted her hand, forcing Nemesis's to look at the death and destruction that littered the battlefield, “Please know... that this is all your fault. Do not try to convince yourself otherwise.

Do not rationalize.

Do not justify.

You could have killed us, but you had to make us writhe in agony for your own pleasure. Because of your own vile nature, you enjoyed our suffering. And now? Now I am going to do everything I said I would. Oh, Nemesis, the horrors you will see done by my hand... and you can't do a ******** thing about it.”

Even as she released the girl's head with a hard shove and walked over Nemesis like some human carpet, her heels leaving bloody holes where she stepped, Tanzanite did not spare a trace of pity.

She felt pity for Wolframite, whose face bore the bruises and marks of their two week endeavor.

She felt pity for Uranophane, whose toes had been gnawed by rats in the dead of night.

She felt pity for Dioptase, whose body still lay prone upon the hilltop. For Primase and Helicase and Marthozite.

But for Nemesis? For Ares? For every senshi, Blood Moon Court and otherwise? Tanzanite felt only hatred. Only rage. Only the bone-deep need to not kill them, but to make them suffer in a way they could never imagine. She would demoralize and destroy them, until they cast away their henshin pens and denied their own powers.

“Alkaid,” the General-Queen spoke softly, and she knelt before the corrupted senshi who had never failed to be there in Tanzanite's weakest moments. When the General had needed protection, Alkaid had offered it. When she had been too weak to fight, Alkaid had fought in her place. Tanzanite picked the corrupted senshi up now, her small frame resting in her arms as the Youma Queen wrapper her wings around her, “It's over. We're going home.”

Smoke began to fill the field, and Tanzanite laughed. Cheap tricks? How predictable.

“Take your lives,” she roared, and her head fell back in a wild laugh, “while they are still yours to take, senshi.”

She looked back, meeting the gaze of each of those alien invaders in turn.

“Take your wounded, but leave your dead. They are ours now, and I will hang them from every bridge. Every building. You will find them in your homes, in your schools. I will litter your streets with bodies and you will know. This planet belongs to us.”

Her gaze scanned the crowd as she finally returned to the Negaverse, to those who had ultimately saved her life. To the men and women who had fought and suffered for their planet. To her family.

“Let's go home.”

Alkaid had watched blankly as Lyra was thrown across the field, she had stirred herself little more when Tanzanite's fury crashed down upon Nemesis. She could still feel the dark, purple bruises stretching across her back and scalp, the lingering gifts from the power Nemesis tried to turn on a General Queen in that exact moment, and pity for her then was a long way from her heart. Pity for the eternal would be hard for her ever again.

Her bright eyes followed the General Queen as she stepped across Nemesis like a broken doll. They stayed trained on her right until the large, powerful woman was standing directly above Alkaid and calling her name.

"My General Queen," she said softly, hoarsely, with those silent tears still streaming down her face.

As Tanzanite collected her in her arms, Alkaid did not fight. She had no strength to be difficult now, no ability to fight for her strange sense of propriety. She just let Tanzanite enfold her, finding comfort in the security of her arms.

It occurred to Alkaid that the battle was done, even as Tanzanite called out her taunts and rallied the negaverse to an honorable march teleport home. She drew a deep breath and then let her head turn and rest against Tanzanite's chest and her eyes slowly drift shut.

There was nothing left to fight, there was nothing left to cry for, there were no more regrets. Her ragtag family was whole again and now she could rest.

The swirl of smoke broke the spell of power that had held Asclepius transfixed - those so high above her, fighting in the same war she had become a part of all too recently, had awed and frightened her. She recognized the command to retreat, though, and fled as the General-Queen's words rang in her ears.

It was odd wasn't it? As the cocoon split and Lina watched from her lonely place outside of both senshi and Negaverse, she only had the thought that it was so odd that she should find Tanzanite beautiful. Twisted, nightmarish, dark. All of these things were adjectives that could have described her but there was an elegance about it that the violet-haired young woman had always assumed around herself. It was what drew them all like moths to flames and for a moment Lina was happy for her friend.

For the second time she had lived though death had seemed certain. It was a miracle and the teen could not stop the smile of relief from lighting her face. There had been death on both sides, countless wounded, but none that she had cared so deeply for had perished tonight. Headway had been made into the mission with Zinkenite.

And the truth was out. Lina Knight would no longer be able to hide and everyone that shared her blood was suspect and anathema. No doubt someone would be near Audrey's parents very soon. Vengeance would be sated here tonight but it only lasted so long before the hunger grew again. If nothing else, Lina always understood that insatiable hunger.

Castor couldn't do anything but stare either and so softly a black-gloved hand touched his arm. "Castor? Will you take me home? I don't...I don't belong here anymore." She wasn't alone though. That was the important part and the thing that the knight clung to with all of her strength. She had someone, she was not alone, and this was not a loss. Though a General-Queen, Tanz had lived and would be able to be saved.

Lina, most stubborn of all, was not going to give up now.