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Sailor Ares awoke, her eyes glued to the off-white tile of a hospital ceiling. She did not know where she had been, or why, and most of all, she did not know the fate of her Queen. And yet, like sand slipping through an hour glass, a sudden loss took hold in the chest of the senshi of smoke. She gripped the pale blue of her hospital gown feebly, tongue thick and swollen.

Something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.

It was perhaps not a scientific realization, but more of a creeping coldness, like the world when a god is found dead and wanting. Her fingertips experienced it first in their subtle twitching. She remembered things in flares like sun spots imploding -- a coin, black eyes, the red of blood.

None of it made sense to the parallel senshi or the normal human teenager who shared her skin, and yet -- Ares knew her Queen was gone. She knew it like she knew when her pot of tea was empty, or her laundry unsorted. It was an absence, black and rotten like a tumor, and it over took her heart before she could make sense of the stark reality that surrounded her in a cool mist.

When Fallon awoke from her coma, the entire hospital ward knew it. There was screaming, there was thrashing, there was sedation. Everywhere in the hospital some eyes flicked open -- but others, oh god how many others, stayed closed. Fallon was sad to have lost Corinna -- but Ares was destroyed to lose Nehelenia, Hector, even Alexandros.

She screamed until the needle came, and then, under wanton sleep, her eyes raced like a burning star across the sky. There was an urgency in the swell of her incapacitated chest, a suddeness in the tensing of her jaw, and a thought swelling in her head like a raging tempest:

It will not be vain.

It was late, and Fallon was sitting cross-legged on the counter of the community bathroom on her floor in Crystal Academy. With most of the school spending its summer break locked in a seemingly endless coma, the matriarchs of the Academy had slackened the leash on the girls so long as they remained within the safety of the school. No one batted an eye as the teenager padded her way to the shower room well past curfew. The matron on duty raised one curious eyebrow, but then, upon seeing the tight anguish on the composed girl’s face, she dropped her gaze back to her book, as if she had seen nothing at all.

The dark-haired teen wore a fitted pair of knee-length black work-out pants. They bore a crisp white stripe down the side of each leg, the same shade of the precise bleached brilliance of her white ribbed tank top. A blanket of paper towels formed a hasty shield from the muck of the counter, but Fallon was perched atop the mass as if it were a silk pillow of highest quality. It was something about her posture; there was regality in it. Her flat sandals were neatly arranged along the straight lines of the tiles on the floor beneath her.

She had been sitting there, precisely like this, for some time.

One hand tipped with nails painted red touched gently at the fogged surface of the mirror. Her fingers traced its outline, dragged up one way, then curved around the side, then waved a bending line across the base before starting the circuit all over again. Sweat had piqued on the girl’s brow, and her hair, though pulled back in a long ponytail, clung to her neck in wet patches.

Fallon cleared her throat, glancing down to her crossed legs. The room shifted.

When her eyes flashed up to the mirror, they were a striking gray, and the girl in her pajamas had become Sailor Ares. She leveled her gaze to the mirror, looked past it, then deeper, deeper to a place that very few could see. The surface of the mirror grew hazy, its fog growing thicker and thicker. “Greetings, this is Sailor Ares, Senshi of Smoke, regent of the Black Moon, servant of the Queen Nehelenia.” Her voice was proud, strong, but there was a tremor in her throat that gave away her nerves. “Hermes, are you listening? Is Poseidon there with you? Hades. Hades, I know you always have your ear to the ground. Come out with it, you insatiable eavesdropper.” A smile twitched at her lips, then faded.

The smokey gray of the mirror swirled and swirled, an endless cyclone before her. The names she called did not summon forth any faces. On the Black Earth, mirrors were more reliable than any form of communication that existed in this new place. Ares could call out for her fellow soldiers, and immediately, one’s face would appear. Sometimes, they would bark at her, What do you want? Ares had a habit of detecting emergencies when they were none, or tricking her fellow fighters into showing up for a little sparring with a fabricated coup or some other state crisis.

Did she have the strength to summon them from beyond the veil that blocked the Black Earth from this White one? Could she do this great and powerful thing in the absence of her Queen’s magic?

Another moment passed. Ares raised another hand to the mirror and framed her face in it. “Ouranos, stop being so smug. Ouranos? Cronus, stop moping. We have things to do. Come to the mirror so we can discuss them.” Her words faltered. A buzzing in her head told her she was pushing this. A connection by two parallels was supported by dual magics. One senshi attempting it could grow fatigued after too long without an answer. It was a confirmation of her loneliness that Ares refused to accept.

The fog trapped within the mirror began to lift, a rising mist off an enchanted lake. A vein popped in the girl’s neck. She willed the mist to build again, to churn stronger, faster, thicker. Her words shook with the effort. “Hector, please. Prince Alexandros, I’m... I’m sorry if I, if I ever made you feel like...” A rushing sigh escaped past her lips. She swallowed back the emotions that had pushed it out. “A-aphrodite? You’re really not a terrible captain, not so terrible.” Red nails pushed against the mirror. Her knuckles turned white. The final name was barely audible, less than a whisper: “Selene...”

Her head bobbed forward. Her forehead caught on the cool glassy surface of the mirror, smudged it. “Please. Come back, or... or let me come back.” Her heart called to her Kingdom beyond the mirror. No reply came. Those who had not crossed through the magical surface of the mirror were trapped on the other side without a word from those of them who had already crossed through. Perhaps Hades in all her omnipresence had seen this coming, perhaps she had told the others of the fate of their royalty, of their friends. Or perhaps they, like her, would know nothing of the fates beyond their current worlds.

When she raised her head from the mirror, she found herself staring at a set of magenta eyes, herself, staring out of the glassy surface. The fuku had faded, as had all of the magic she had summoned. No tears stained her cheeks, Ares wouldn’t allow it and Fallon wasn’t keen on it either. Fallon stared at herself, alone, in the mirror for a long time. She reached for a paper towel, moistened it, and gently cleaned the smudge that her forehead and hands had left behind on the mirror's clean surface.

Bright magenta eyes closed once more. Her fingers clenched the wet paper towel. Her pupils darted back and forth behind shaded lids. When she reopened them, she found herself staring at the reflection of Sailor Ares, again. The senshi cleared her throat and resumed her regal posture. The mirror drifted into an unearthly fog once more. Full lips parted and a hard smugness set into her brow. This was the face that Sailor Ares could call up, this was the mask she could use to hide all else. Gray eyes bore deeply into the mirror. A strong voice, much stronger than before, began again:

“Greetings, this is Sailor Ares, Senshi of Smoke, regent of the Black Moon, servant of the Queen Nehelenia...”