Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ares had been watching Tanzanite silently for awhile now. The imprisonment had worked on the Negaverse General, that much was certain, but Ares couldn't tell if that would mean success for the Blood Moon Court or not. And success was paramount. The purple-haired foe was as obstinate as ever, but her resistance now came in indecipherable mumbling and cryptic whispering. The sharpest minds in the Blood Moon spent hours sitting with her or listening to the recordings, each one trying to find the diamond of information in the rough. So far, the results had been inconclusive.

Confined to her chair, Tanzanite looked so much smaller. She was a tall woman, taller still on the battlefield. When Ares looked at her, she was constantly distracted by the arm, how it twisted and gnarled. She had never taken notice of the thin contours outlining the muscle in her human arm, or the delicate slope of her neck. It was not that Ares felt attracted to Tanzanite, but it was the humanity of her, the glimpses of vulnerability, that Ares had failed to notice until now.

It did not soften her resolve to do what must be done. This valkyrie for the Negaverse would die just the same as Ares might kill a feeble lieutenant. So long as Beryl and her Negaverse lived, the senshi could not regain control -- and control, like success, was paramount. Who else could lead the civilians? Who else could rule the universe?

Thanks to Dioptase, the Senshi of Smoke had a new kernel of information that she needed to make pop -- and Tanzanite, crazy or not, was the key to that. She couldn't do this one alone. She needed back up from someone she could trust, someone whose gut was a solid as her own.

That person was, naturally, late.

The day had come and gone when Tanzanite's last hope for her own life had faded, and the General was forced to turn her thoughts on how she was going to get her Captains and Lieutenants out of there alive. She had spent hours listening to Wolframite scream, hearing Uranophane cough, hearing Dioptase's cries even when her own body had given up and shut down, plunging her into cherished sleep for a few brief moments before Ares' hard slap woke her up.

Never any ******** rest for the god damned wicked.

It was not Ares' voice that caused the General alarm, that made her head snap up and her eyes widen slightly. Had this been a battlefield, Tanzanite would not have blinked twice as the unfamiliar yet recognizable woman strode through the door. She had expected Scylla, given the power signature, but there was no mistaking that voice. The one that had told Tanzanite that the senshi could have gone home all along. The one that revealed the name of the man who had shown them how.

Nemesis, the eternal senshi of decay.

For only a brief moment, her breath caught in her throat. In a battlefield, her confidence would not have failed her. She would have trusted in her superior fighting skill, in her teleportation and instincts that were beyond human... but this was not a battlefield. This was a prison cell, where Tanzanite sat drugged and chained to a wrought iron chair. This was a basement of an abandoned factory, miles outside of the busier parts of town, where she was too weak to teleport and in too much pain to even breathe half the time.

Tanzanite had always considered the battlefield her domain, but this? This was theirs, and she was a captive within it.

“Nemesissssssss,” Tanzanite hissed the name, the youma's voice carrying out the wicked sound until it tapered off to an unsettling silence. That cocky smile, the way her boots thudded softly against the concrete floor; there wasn't a single thing about her that didn't make Tanzanite want to jump out of that chair and plunge her claws into those dark blue eyes. She strained against the chains, and had the chair not recently been bolted to the floor to prevent her thrashing from tipping it over, it would have been on it's side.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she chided, “The bigger they are...”

She left the sentence unfinished as a fit of coughing brought fresh, black blood to her lips. Her head lolled back, wild purple hair spilling over her shoulders, matted and knotted with grease and dirt. It had been hacked away bit by bit, strands taken off to convince the others that she was dead or – in the most honest statement the senshi had probably ever made – dying. What was left hung around her face like a tangled curtain as her head tipped back and a wild laughter escaped from her throat.

“Sing me to sleep, sing me to sleep, I'm tired and I wanna go to bed,” her voice was hoarse, but there was a strangely melodic quality to the two-tone voice that echoed through the room.

Nemesis, odd enough, was not trying to override Ares' authority when the senshi started talking to Tanzanite. In fact, in seemed like the show of words would be Ares' alone now. The gears in her head were turning, locking themselves into a new mode. Now was not the time to undermine Ares' authority, it was time to get down to business. No matter what cocky attitude Nemesis carried, she had a job to do. Tanzanite would be made to suffer today, suffer in a way no one else had yet endured.

Tanzanite should feel privileged, beyond Ares, she was the only person at the moment who knew that Nemesis had obtained a new level of power. The change had been recent, and had taken Nemesis by surprise. Granted, it was a pleasant surprise, and Nemesis was reveling in her new power and abilities. "Well, less talk and more..." the tips of her fingers were beginning to glow softly, little sparks of blue light.

Something was happening, and it was guaranteed to be unpleasant. Her hand lifted, and testily she waggled her fingers. Whatever she was going to do, it was clear that Tanzanite was going to be a test subject of sorts. Nemesis had yet had a true opportunity to test what her power could do on an actual enemy. Tanzanite would be the first, and Nemesis hoped that the general would feel privileged.

A few moments passed after Ares asked her question, and with an arch of her brow Nemesis' gaze drew itself back to their prisoner. "Uh, I'd answer her if I were you."

This moment was the product of tireless preparation, and one very difficult week of systematically breaking down six Negaverse agents to squeeze every drop of information free. Dioptase would be fondly remember by Super Sailor Ares. She was the little Nega who cracked -- and it was wonderful. For the first time in a very long time, the Senshi of Smoke had something on General Tanzanite, and she could see its importance in the subtle shift of the Negaverse General's face.

Well, what remained of her face.

Ares tilted her chin up when Tanzanite spoke of Dioptase, a spark of defiance flashing in her otherwise flat stare. Before she could respond, the General lashed out at Nemesis. Ares glanced over to the Senshi of Decay for a moment, but offered her no reassurances. Nemesis didn't need them. Ares wasn't in the business of handing them out either. Both girls knew that Tanzanite was about to eat those words, and then some.

Only after the harsh snap of Tanzanite's unnatural voice stopped resonating off the cold stone walls did Ares respond. "She's alive," she said, offering no explanation. Tanzanite wouldn't expect one. They both knew each other well enough to predict this exchange now.

The Captain of the Blood Moon didn't have time to waste. She was on a schedule. "Tanzanite," she said sharply, trying to guide the General's attention back to the task at hand. "You traveled to Europe to work under Laurelite alongside Dioptase last summer. In that time, you killed one guardian cat and four senshi. So let's be honest with each other." Her eyes narrowed. "Where else has the Negaverse eliminated the senshi presence around the globe?"

The hand at her side was firm, unwavering. Ares had no intention of relenting, not until she got exactly what she wanted.

“Honesty... is your species even capable of it?” Tanzanite's disgust was clear in her voice, and the General did not bother to hide it. She had no reason to spare either of the women the full measure of her loathing, and she knew neither of them expected it. They expected exactly what Tanzanite gave them; a cold stare and a stiff upper lip. Her eyes narrowed as Ares spoke, as she revealed what Dioptase had told her, and Tanzanite could only begin to imagine what they had done to the young Captain to get such details.

What they had done to a seventeen year old girl to make her talk.

She was about to speak, when Nemesis' eager hand covered her face. For a brief moment the General attempted to bite, thinking to take a chunk out of the senshi's palm before her face began to itch. The itching became a burning, and the burning went from a flickering match to a raging wildfire as Tanzanite's world exploded into a pain unlike anything she had ever experience. Even the pain she had felt when Charonite had forced the youma's starseed into her body paled in comparison to what she felt right then.

The left side of her face was slower to begin, but the magic caught onto Tanzanite's youma half like fire on gasoline. Pale skin blackened and fell away within seconds, and the General clenched her jaw against the pain. She could feel as it burned through her muscles, fibers snapping like overstressed elastic, peeling back from her bones. Her skin melted and peeled back as though fleeing the magic, twisting away like burnt plastic. The smell of her own death filled Tanzanite's nostrils, before they too collapsed and gave way to the gaping hole of her sinuses. It ate through her skin and down into the flesh of her cheek, until she could feel her teeth slowly dissolving away.

Every nerve ending was on fire, as though someone had taken a fork and was digging it into a cavity.

Tanzanite tried not to scream, and the effort was admirable. She made it until the decay ate through her skull, and she could feel the liquid of her collapsed eyes running down her cheeks. Until she could feel the magic seeping into her exposed brain tissue and the world collapsed into madness as synapses fired in desperation, sending signals to a body that did not know how to respond.

It was an admirable effort, indeed, but ultimately a failed one. Tanzanite screamed like surely no person had ever screamed, and Nemesis' hand could not muffle it as holes opened in her throat and released the sound of pure agony. There was not a soul in the building who would not hear it and know, instantly, that something wicked had just transpired. Surely, she could not survive this? Surely this must be the end she had been waiting for, that she had come to accept would find her there.

Nemesis stepped back, and what was left of Tanzanite's face fell forward as the scream tapered off into a series of coughs that shook her body. Dead flesh and blood splattered the floor, and Tanzanite found herself gasping for breath as the skin and bone suddenly crept back into place. It was as though there had never been any damage at all... and that was the worst of it.

She was not dead.

She was alive and well, everything that she had felt suddenly undone. The end that she had prepared herself for would not come, and that was the most horrible realization of all. Her reformed eye opened wide to stare at Nemesis with a look that was not so much fear as a mix of disgust and horror. What kind of monster was born with the power to do that? What kind of vile creature possessed such an ability, entirely of her own evolution?

For a long moment, Tanzanite could not speak. Her body trembled, and it was only after a few minutes of stunned silence and slow recomposure that Tanzanite found her words.

“And you call me a monster,” the words came softly, a mix of amazement and disgust in the tone, before she turned her head to Ares.

“Killed?” Tanzanite's smile was unsettling, given the ordeal that had just transpired. Black blood filled the crevices between her teeth, “That's putting it awfully kindly, Ares. Didn't Dioptase tell you that much? Didn't you torture her into spilling about how I crushed that girl's skull beneath my fist until I was hitting only the bloody pavement beneath a decapitated corpse? Was whatever agony you inflicted upon her not strong enough to convince her to tell you that I threw another off of a forty-story building and listened to him scream the entire way down?”

Tanzanite closed her eyes, and the memory that had once haunted her now filled her with a grim pleasure.

“And I felt guilty about it. I felt bad for the fifteen year old girl I forced to watch as I unraveled her own intestines through a hole in her stomach. Thank you, Ares. Thank you for showing me what they would have inevitably become. The monsters you are all inevitably going to be, corrupted by the same powers you claim will save this world from us. Thank you for taking away all of that guilt, all of that pain. Thank you for showing me the true nature of your kind,"

Her eyes went to Nemesis, to the wretched and wicked thing that she could no longer even conceive of being even partly human. They had shown her pain, as Nemesis had wanted to for so very long, but they had also shown her something much more.

"Truly, I am in your debt.”

"A true monster is one that makes the decision to be one, not someone who is born with the ability." It didn't bother her as much as she though it would, to have Tanzanite liken her to a monster. She knew that the true evil sat bound to the chair in front of her. Even her features screamed 'demon', the grotesque youma arm, the blossoming of purple over the skin of one of the sides of Tanzanite's face. The real monster was right in front of her, and Nemesis was doing the world a favor by returning all the agony Tanzanite had inflicted on other people onto the general.

Tanzanite's face had returned to it's normal form, well, as normal as it could be considering that quite a few other people had beaten her senseless. It didn't help Tanzanite's cause that she healed so easily. The pain that Nemesis had given the woman could not be so easily erased from memory as the damage had been erased from her face. Nemesis' hands had stopped glowing, and they alone seemed to be an indicator of when Nemesis would use her attack.

Their captive had no idea that Nemesis' attack was lorded over by a time limit. She needed to gather that precious energy back, the energy that she unleashed on Tanzanite's face. Likewise, Tanzanite probably did not fully realize that Nemesis could and would use her attack again, if need be. All Ares had to do was ask, or all Tanzanite had to do was rightly piss her off again. The anger that had coursed through her veins was momentarily sated by being able to physically and mentally hurt Tanzanite.

She felt good, even better because the b***h deserved every last bit of what Nemesis was going to do to her.

Nemesis was glorifying in her new power. She'd always been frustrated with her limited abilities before. Being able to halt someone's movements was effective, to a point. But, Nemesis had to follow up quickly by beating her opponent senseless. Now, well, there was a little bit more to her punch.

"Why, thank you," came her purred response. Her gaze flickered to Ares, a smile curling at her lips. In that moment, she was happy to be under Ares' leadership. No other senshi would have gone to these measures to get the information they needed out of their enemy. No other senshi had the balls, had the strength of will and a steel heart to do this. Ares was a senshi that Nemesis could respect, and could look up to. She viewed herself as the stronger, but in some ways she viewed Ares as the better. Nemesis was Ares' man, through and through, at this moment.

"Answer, Tanzanite," Nemesis prompted, leaning over to the woman to tap her fingers tauntingly against the more youma part of the general's face. It seemed like the Senshi of Decay had clued in to how much more damage that side had taken than the other. If it was not clear that Nemesis could use her attack again, now it was. Her fingertips were starting to glow again - Tanzanite had a minute or two to answer before she'd be forced to endure another half minute of pain.

"If you are so determined to see me as a monster, to validate your own twisted beliefs... I'll be so kind as to oblige you, and become your monster."

It was a terrifying thing to see Nemesis and Ares working so seamlessly together. If they were capable of replicating this on the battlefield, surely they could do more damage to the Negaverse than either of them might be capable of on their own. Like Nemesis, the Captain of the Blood Moon considered herself to be the stronger senshi, but she did not count superiority in the same way that the Senshi of Decay did. She saw her own power as a balanced one. Ares could fight hand-to-hand with ferocity – and did so, often, until she thought she might fall over – but she also had the sense of battle, the ability to hold back, to allow a punch to hit so that she could retaliate with a stronger one. Above all this though, the Senshi of Smoke had the mind of a commander in war. She could make hard decisions. She could see the bigger picture.

But, in spite of herself, Ares knew that Nemesis threw the harder punch. She remembered well what it felt like to be knocked clean off her feet by the Senshi of Decay. She knew the pain of loss to have to stare up at those gleeful eyes from the floor. In a battle of strategy, Ares might win, but when it came to brute strength, she had to grudgingly admit that Nemesis was the better of the pair. Yet, just as Nemesis saw herself as superior because of this difference, Ares considered her balanced strengths to be, well, stronger.

Yet here, within the dank walls of this prison cell, the girls were not fighting with each other. They had a common enemy, one that they both probably hated with equal veracity. Ares watched Tanzanite with less hatred than her shorter companion. She did not loathe Tanzanite, not as she loathed Wiseman. She simply saw her as a particularly unsightly blemish on the things that she was trying to accomplish. She saw her as a chess piece to be moved and pushed and conquered until checkmate. Rage had never been Ares’ primary motivation in facing down Tanzanite. Yes, she despised the General and all that she stood for as they supported opposite sides of a war, but she needed to destroy Tanzanite because Tanzanite was a goal of conquest. Her death meant a large step forward for Ares’ faction. She was a bullet point on Ares’ check-list for taking over Destiny City.

But she needed to start answering questions.

The Senshi of Smoke pursed her lips. She could sense Nemesis’ waning patience, and so she spoke up quickly to hold the eternal senshi from using her attack prematurely. “Destiny City is not the only home to senshi,” she said flatly. “What other strongholds does the Negaverse hold globally? You destroyed the presence in Europe… you believe.” Ares was putting words in Tanzanite’s mouth, words that Dioptase had allowed her to put there. She repeated them now, waiting for a spark of something to clue her in, to open up her realm of understanding. If the Negas had outposts across the globe, then the Blood Moon Court needed to know. It was paramount.

She only hoped Nemesis could control her rage long enough to maintain this line of questioning.