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"Give me a moment."

The truck was utterly incongruous to the genteel, carefully manicured lawns and gates and hedges of Crystal Academy. In fact, it was so incongruous that the security guard simply thought it was some rube who'd missed a turn and was now calling on his cellphone to try to get directions or review his badly printed out laser-print of Google Maps. It was for this reason that Hero Barrett (ready to take that long walk from her front porch to his front seat, the door being open but the ride not free, etc, etc -- they were a really more than messed-up Thunder Road) -- could sneak out, jump the fence, and slide into the canary-coloured a*****e truck.

He'd been avoiding her for a week. He'd referred to her as captain; then she would, of course, give him captain. She stared straight ahead as he messed around with the gears. "Well," she said. "Your leave's over. Anything to report."

Not, I missed you.

What was best for Hero? Probably Hero knew.

She didn't smack the cigarette away from his mouth and break all of his ribs, so perhaps that was a start. Instead, she had fingered her henshin pen in the front seat and now stood in front of him as his Captain in full gear -- chill wind ruffling her cape, arms folded in front of him, looking at his disrespect as though it were a tangible oily thing that coated his skin. She just looked. Sometimes Aries just looked, her scarlet eyes half-hooded, staring right through to his skeleton.

"You don't remember." Her voice was flat. It was cold. They were outside in an abandoned lot that looked like a murder set. "Back when we first formed the Zodiac Guard, I questioned whether it might be better to perform the entire operation -- Zodiac-focused. Capricorn offered to try to finance the entire thing through playing the stock market, we were young, we had no idea how we'd function -- she was still trying to build her base of operations -- "

She'd trailed off, raised up a hand. The horn dagger on the back of her hand shone in the dim light. "But then came the prince," she said. "Prince Eon." How had she recalled this, when the memories were so dim in his mind? The freshest was Barren Pines, of Marcel. Of smoke. "He asked that our Princess live a normal life. That we all continue to lead normal lives, rather than eke out a guerilla existence."

Hero probably would have liked a guerilla existence.

"I continue to respect his request."

That must gnaw at her.

"It's a little disingenuous for you to suddenly be hypothetically fascinated with that lifestyle."

She didn't say a word. She'd just watched. He looked for the familiar tic in her eye, the flush, everything that would tell him that she was furious and about to scream at him or hit him or pull out all his eyelashes or something -- lose control. If he was grounded, she was composed. He knew where to fire his missiles. Destined leaders, digging on Serenade; the failure of the Zodiacs; her personal failure as Aries, born into it, handed the role as a golden medal for which she had never really run.

You've tried to get me angry enough to hit you.

She had: Jude's ability not to hit a woman was pretty solid. But it had never been really tested; when was the last time Sailor Sagittarius had really gone up against Queen Beryl? The sailor senshi of old might have been a little sour at this one. Try Mistress Nine. Try the Black Lady. Try the Four Sisters. But that was then and this was now --

Prove to me.

Curls of white smoke were drifting up from his cigarette.

Something had gone wrong. Every Zodiac senshi had the pull every time they saw the wide pink eyes of Serenade Soriano, watched her walk, watched her smile: the deep, terrible ache of I will follow you into Hell, or walk in front of you so that you don't have to. There was nobody as stubborn as Jude for -- love, maybe, or duty, or being pinned down. Won't be a part. This was a deep, violent, serious resistance, and as she looked at him they both knew. He was not ******** with her. He was deadly serious.

So was she.

Jude had died more than the others. He had -- Aurelia might have said, he's come back wrong. He has come back wrongly. As though he now had a part of his soul that was missing, which he might have desperately tried to fill with Hero and going hand-in-hand with Hero as though that would create. It hadn't. She had entered into the wrong type of fraternization: an old voice filled her head --

Love not singly. Love all. Spread your love amongst the others, for your fellow soldiers, your men and your women. Monogamy is another term for isolation.

It was a stupid damned memory to have, that was all.

"Before we go on, I'll ask you one question. Forgive me my tangent. I'll address it." Her voice was low, intent. "What do you feel when you look at Princess Chronos?"

There were a lot of men who struck women across the faces because they loved them, but this generally ended up the subject of police investigations and women's shelters. Aries was subjectively a great, great deal more lucky than the long, bitter tradition of women who had received those hits: she staggered back, the edge of his wristguard buckle a bright red slash across nose and cheek. He was a man who had just hit a woman. He was a soldier who had just hit his captain. A boyfriend who had just hit his girlfriend; a friend who had just punched his friend, just about cold-cocking her.

Ask me again.

The jungle was Sagittarius' own, so for this reason she didn't run. Instead Aries walked forward, the Exploration zodiac still relaxing his fist back from the blow, her hands held forward in the universal supplication of no: suddenly the smooth back of her right horn-dagger smashed into his face, crunching the bone of his nose. His captain did worse than fight him. Aries humiliated him. He was taller, heavier. The other hand came up after it and mashed his chin up in an uppercut, knocking back the hefty left blow (was Jude even a southpaw? she distantly had forgotten) and slamming one sandalled foot down above his knee.

It wasn't a fight. She would have taken off her daggers for a fight.

It really wasn't.

She circled around him, pressed one sandalled foot down on his back to press him down into the sand -- he didn't cry out. She knew he wouldn't cry out. They both knew he wouldn't cry out, even if his hands were still concerned with his face. He was a senshi, an awakened one: so long as they got the bone back in order, it'd probably heal within a few days perfectly. He did it by himself. Silently. Usually that was something you stamped with hardkore. She wasn't done.

There was the familiar ripping noise -- of material -- and then he felt her sit heavily down on the back of his thighs before reaching around to his mouth, forcing his jaw open, wadding up the cloth there. It seemed like one hell of a stupid way to gag someone -- unless you were meant to use it to gag yourself. More ripping. The back of his shirt. Stout material, didn't give a damn: the points on her hornblades were shallow, too wide to stab, but sharp. They were slashing weapons.

"Here's a lesson," she said. "Your Prince gave up everything so your Princess could keep on. She deserves everything. Stop lying to yourself." She was pushing away the two halves of the shirt, exposing his back. "I am your leader. I am a failure. I am nonetheless your leader. Don't even pretend you just fought me. I don't even know why you stopped, boxing rules be damned. I know all your stances -- I know how you hit -- "

Her hands were pressed to his shoulderblades.

Aries said: "Respect or mutiny. I recognise your offer of disrespect. Overruled."

That also sounded familiar:

Respect or mutiny, girl. I recognise your dissatisfaction. Overruled.

"You've forgotten exactly what you are."

Er.

What was she doing? She was smoothing out his back with her fingers as though he were a picture, or a map. Canvas. When she spoke again he recognised her curt, clipped contralto as Hero, not Aries. There was a difference. "Do you know, the Barretts are very odd," she said. "My mother and father have. Eccentric ideas. About love. Ownership. They don't discuss them with me frankly." Well, that was a relief? "I came to my own conclusions."

And then Sagittarius felt the point of her weapon break skin, scoring into it deeply. A line. A diagonal. Another line. It was agony.

Z.

Just like Zorro, except room for more.

"What's your conclusion, Sagittarius?"

O.

The other hand kept his head pressed to the cold concrete. Concrete, not sun-warmed leaf detritus.

D.

At least it wasn't Zorro, zoo or Zork, as cool as it might have been to have a reference to a hip-happenin' 1980s text adventure game. Actually, nobody would have appreciated it. Not even Topher. Or Pierrette.

The I went right over the side of his spine. It wasn't deep. It just hurt. Only for a week -- a little more -- would he have this decorating his back. Wouldn't even be a reminder when he looked in the mirror. Just when he got dressed.

"Since I'm your Captain, I'll make an allowance." A. "I will no longer physically abuse you, or touch you in an untoward way, unless in the realms of combat meant for exercise." A slow curve. "I will treat you as a military man should be treated."

C.

Aries leant her mouth down to his tousled blue head.

"Everything I have said to you, I have meant."

Head drop.

He felt the weight of her lift as she pulled herself off him, stood up. He was a crumpled, bleeding pile on the ground of some abandoned lot, in the cold and ice. Another crumple of cloth -- she'd tossed her cape down over his bleeding back, hidden it from exposure, and when she spoke again her voice was clinical.

"It'll heal. Use a topical antibiotic. Bactrim's good." He heard Aries crack her knuckles. "I'll do whatever you ask of me, all barring treason, the day you beat me in a fight. Until that extraordinarily far-seeming day arrives, I remain your captain. Keep training. Eat." Aries was clinically psychotic. "Vitamin C. We'll talk about your living arrangements later. I'm going to walk home. Was there anything?"

She had turned away from that expression. And she had stopped, as though what he had said had been the blow that finally got her down and kneeling as he had knelt before her. She did not flinch, but her careful stillness was even better than flinching. It was a loss. Aries kept staring away into the nighttime, struck down --

And then she walked away. She disappeared around down past a half-constructed building, a red splash through a skeletal old steel frame, and then his Captain was gone.