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It was a stroke of luck that Signature's new inspirational "You Can Do It" section had just enough different free cards to give a separate one to each of Crystal Academy's fencing team. If they hadn't Larissa would've had to divide them up into divisions that made sense and distributed cards accordingly, because you couldn't give all but two of them distinct cards, after all. That defeated the whole purpose. So it was lucky indeed that Larissa found herself toting a handful of different cards, bearing different messages, with different-colored ribbons tied in bows around them. They were destined for different people -- the teal, for instance, would find its new home in Melanie Whittaker's locker in the center, whereas the red would end up in Miriam's in the far right corner. The colors all went together passably. Larissa did think about these things.

She expected she'd be the only person in the locker room at this late an hour. Miriam had probably been expecting this too. When Larissa opened the door the dark-haired girl's head snapped around to stare at her from where she was seated, or hunched, on one of the benches.

She was dressed like Cavalier Kunzite, with her sword -- now her bloody sword -- balanced on her knees. She looked terrible. One of her eyes was swelling, on its way to be swollen closed, and there was blood all over her face; her foot that had been in a cast was leaking blood, if the leak in the white boot that encased it was any clue. Her neck, from what Larissa could see of it, was covered with bruised-in handprints and blood: Miriam was holding a white towel up to one side of it under her chin, like a compress or a tourniquet.

At the sight of Larissa the other girl blinked and then, promptly, powered down into her normal clothing, as if this would do something. She said nothing. In fact, for a moment both of them did.

"No." Miriam reared back like Larissa had raised her hand not to comfort her, but to strike her. She sounded shaken -- one drawback of having perpetually the same quiet monotone meant that it was all the more obvious when your voice was shaking. This was true right now of Miriam Jacobs. Larissa could tell her voice was shaking. "No, I am not calling an ambulance, you are not calling an ambulance," she snapped at her, staring at her with a look of mixed horror and disgust, "I am fine. I've weathered worse. That's a horrible idea. I just need bandages. I need some bandages."

She got, or leapt, to her feet, and the towel slipped from her neck; she sponged at her wounds with it frantically but a bit distractedly. The bloody marks were clear. Bite marks. The imprint of a set of human teeth, as clear as if they were on an episode of CSI or NCIS. Miriam had weathered worse before Larissa had been awakened to her life as Sailor Proxima, before she'd known the lonely fencer was an even lonelier warrior -- but she'd weathered that with the help of the medical facilities of Destiny City Memorial Hospital. Some people had looked at her after the revelation that she'd taken down a corrupted senshi in battle with a mix of admiration and wariness. Larissa had been less impressed (and not, unlike a few less-bright senshi, creeped out). What Miriam had told her was scarce and strung-together, but it was pretty clear that she'd been a hair's breadth away from being taken down by a corrupted senshi.

And now she was stumbling around the fencing locker room, bleeding, pushing things around on the shelves haphazardly. "There's a first aid kit around here," she said. "Help me find it."

Miriam sat down. She didn't wince visibly, so either Larissa hadn't hit a wound or she was too dazed to care. Either way she blinked up at Larissa like she was a coach yelling in her face and said, "Lieutenant -- no, Captain. Captain Obsidian. That's what he called himself." Her eyes came into focus a bit more when she spoke, so something was working: she still looked like a talking dead body from the Green River killer, but at least she was talking. Miriam had very pale skin, Larissa had always noticed, and it meant the bruises stood out more angrily -- and the blood. And the punctures.

"He found me after I'd fought a monster," she said, "over by the Old Town trolley station. He had a sword. Wasn't that good." She spat onto the tiles in front of her: a splash of red, blood in her mouth. "Lost his weapon in about five seconds flat, turned into a brawl, pah, not much of a Cavalier. I was going to kill him, you know? I was going to kill him. But the b*****d teleported. He teleported."