Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tanzanite was sitting in the Negaverse subspace, looking significantly better than she had on the day they'd returned from Elysion. Granted, it would have been nearly impossible for her to look any worse. Wolframite's careful (and borderline obsessive) care of the General had paid off; her bruises had faded to a brownish-yellow, and the gray patches of skin on her arm were almost as black as the rest of it. She did not look healthy – it was almost impossible to look healthy when half of your body originated as a parasitic infection – but she certainly looked better.

It almost looked as though she was meditating, sitting cross-legged upon the floor of an empty room. Her eyes were closed, but they had never needed sight to tell them when another officer or a senshi was near. It was part of their training to learn to feel them, to understand the difference between energy signatures and use them to size up their opponents. This energy signature told her that a Captain approached, and a slight opening of her eyes revealed that Captain to be Zinkenite.

“Captain,” she greeted him casually, lifting her head from where it had been resting back against the wall.

One dark brow arched smoothly, and the General unfolded her long limbs. She lifted herself to feet slowly, stretching her arms above her head and bending backwards until her vertebrae made several small popping noises. She was curious as to what would ever prompt Zinkenite – or anyone else, really – to come to her for help. Of all of the agents of the Negaverse, Tanzanite had perhaps the weakest grasp on her sanity, the least control over her human life. She was a mess.

“Speak freely, Captain. As Captain Scheelite said,” she glanced at the wall as she spoke the blonde man's name, hiding the flash of emotion in her eyes, “We are a family, are we not?”

Or kill without consequence.

Tell that to the Lieutenant whose heart she had eaten, Tanzanite thought, but immediately forced the image from her head.

Tanzanite seemed to have infinite patience as she listened to the Captain, watching with interest as he tried to explain his situation. While Tanzanite had little balance to her life, she had slowly become proficient in combat. It was.. well, pretty much the only thing the violet-haired General had those days. She lived for the war they waged against the senshi, but did so largely because she had nothing else worth living for.

“Then you have to start with that you're afraid of. What holds you back? What do you fear losing? Your life? The respect of your Lieutenants? What scares you, Captain?”

“Well, that's an easy fix,” she said, “Fail the Negaverse and Queen Beryl kills you.”

Tanzanite had a strange sense of humor.

“You're going to fail, Captain. What matters is what you do with that failure. You either get scared and let it breed more failure, or,” she held the blackened hand out in front of her face. That had been the price of her own failure. She had failed to defeat Kunzite. Failed to kill the Zodiac Captain Aries. She had fallen to the cavalier's sword, and she had paid the price, “Or you learn from it. Adjust. Evolve.”

The General leaned back against the wall, watching her own black fingers, “The senshi get stronger over time, we must do the same. Even our weapons aren't enough, we need to know how to fight. Hand to hand. A broken neck kills just as well as a magical weapon. ”

“Books?”

The single word was twisted, spat from her mouth as though foul of taste. Tanzanite stared at him, wide-eyed in both amazement and amusement. It was surprising enough to cause the General to actually facepalm, her forehead resting in the palm of the youma's hand. It was the closest the youma's mouth had ever gotten to anyone's face without trying to bite it off.

“Captain, you can memorize all of the text you want, but fighting has to be your reflex. You can read every book on every martial art, but how is that going to help when your heart is beating in your throat and your entire body is shaking? You will not be fighting in a quiet library. What good is it to know the name of every kung-fu style if you can't even throw a punch? Books.”

Tanzanite sighed, pushing herself away from the wall. She spread her feet to shoulder width apart and brought her fists in close, a defensive stance.

“Hit me.”

“Lesson one,” Tanzanite began, slightly amused, “Don't punch armor. Not that the senshi seem to have much of it. Or much clothing at all.”

Said the woman who could have been entering a bikini contest from the waist up.

“Writers write books, Captain. Fighters fight.” It was an incredibly simple statement, but the point behind it was one that Tanzanite believed to be true. There simply was no replacement that could compare to just throwing yourself into the fray and hoping you lived long enough to learn something. It was the way she lived, and in one particular situation, it had been the way she died.

The armored foot came out in a hard kick, enough to push the Captain back.

“There, now you've failed, and embarrassed yourself in the process. You should be disappointed. You should be angry. Now use it, and hit me.”

The blow hit to the left of Tanzanite's stomach, glancing against her lower ribcage. It was enough to draw a sharp exhale and a small wince, but not enough to bring the woman down. The General used the opportunity to grab Zinkenite's arm, using both his own momentum and the youma arm's exceptional strength to try and whip the Captain around and send him flying towards the far wall.

“A missed attack is an opening for your opponent. It leaves you defenseless. A good fighter would have taken you out. Castor or Ares would have broken your neck just now. It is not just your own life that you are fighting for, Captain. It is Scheelite's. Alkaid's. Wolframite's. Mine. When you fight, you fight for all of us. So stop thinking about it and start feeling it.

Again.”