The soldiers of the Blood Moon Court were weary from fight, muscles strained, and eyes drooping -- but there was the unmistakable tremor of excitement in the room. It echoed in the abandoned warehouse. As the senshi fell seamlessly into their ranks, Sailor Ares crossed to the center of the room, flagged on either side by the rest of the Inner Sanctum Senshi.

She gave this speech, even as blood trailed down her thigh from a battle wound:



“Blood Moon Senshi.

Today, we have done something that no other senshi living in Destiny City has ever accomplished. Not Chronos and her Zodiacs soldiers. Not Chibimoon and her Amazons. And not Endymion, not even the supposed Prince of Earth. Where others have only failed, we -- all of us -- succeeded. We did it without royal magic. We did it without princesses or princes or the guidance of Serenity. We did it without a Great Crystal.

We are just senshi. Normal, hard-working senshi. And we accomplished what the others were never even ambitious enough to try.

General Tanzanite! Perhaps the most feared Nega outside of the General Kings and Queens, and Beryl herself. She fell before us. She is OUR prisoner. Wolframite, Uranophane, Dioptase -- captains whose murderous hands will never rip the life from a senshi or civilian ever again. And two lieutenants -- dogs of war well on their way to being honed into killing machines.

By capturing these six, we have saved hundreds of our own.

Tonight, we should be proud. Yes, we lost two of theirs in the chaos, but tonight, we hold our heads high. We are a force to be reckoned with.

I wish I could tell you that the capture would be the hardest part of this. But it isn’t. I won’t lie to you. These next weeks will be hard, perhaps harder than anything we have done before. The Inner Sanctum will ask you to do things that you may have never thought yourself capable of doing -- but that is what the BMC does. We do the things that others aren’t capable of.

None of this would have happened without each and every one of us. Remember that as these weeks go by. YOU did this. YOU -- a senshi without title or crown -- did this.

Cadets. I have told you before that our Court was organized by the Blood Moon Queen, a ruler who once had great power but sought to instead motivate regular senshi to rule where she could not. This, my comrades, was a lie. There is no Blood Moon Queen. There never has been. She was a figure created to give legitimacy to our faction in a time when only those of royal blood were given any credence. Tonight, you proved that you don’t need this lie. The Blood Moon Court does not need to hide behind a false crown anymore. We are all greater than any prince or princess could ever be.

We proved that tonight.

Because tonight, the Blood Moon Court has dealt the Negaverse a terrible blow -- and we did it in memory of Cadet Rota.

FOR ROTA!”



Ares punched a fist into the air, followed by the rest of the ISS, and then the rest of the faction. Some were more spirited than others. Some looked skeptical, others worried. But the time of the Blood Moon had just begun. The Inner Sanctum Senshi filtered out into the crowd, giving assignments, pep talks, and medicine where needed.

It had only just begun.