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[There is torture here. Proceed with caution!]

Birhan Isat was reporting to Ares their early findings: That the Negaverser wouldn't talk. He was resistant. They all were, she thought; the point of talking to Ares was over Gunn's head. They didn't have anything to say, so why take up the leader's time? But Birhan Isat was reporting to Ares, which meant Gunn was alone with the prisoner Wolframite, the one who'd been captured in place of the Negaverser who'd murdered Cadet Rota.

She'd never met Wolframite on her own time--not like Tanzanite, whose youma arm had marked Gunn with a bite that had almost healed--but the way he'd been captured was enough to earn him her ire. Even more so than Tanzanite. It was arrogant of her to consider a Negaverse general annoying, but other than that one encounter all she'd had to do with... any of the captured Negaversers... was picking up their messes, meant to outrage the populace against the senshi. Gunn did not intend to have to keep that pattern up. People were dying, human beings who had lives and families and dreams and places they wanted to go. She destroyed livelihoods, but people could rebuild. There was no coming back from what the Negaverse did to them.

The redheaded senshi leaned against the door, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She didn't bother to torment the officer with water or food--she knew someone would, eventually, and she had other methods. Didn't she?... He looked pathetic. Dark hair, green eye--the other was covered by an eyepatch. She wasn't curious about what was under the patch, but figured she would find out. He looked sort of like her cousin. Kres was at home, probably dreaming about snuggling up to his paramour and living his normal life. Kres, for whom there were no paranormal wars. No monsters in the closet. Just his job and his lover and his dreams of the future.

"Do you know who I am," she asked finally, taking a few steps towards the Negaverse Captain, heels clicking on the pocked and cratered floor. When she was close enough to the chained Captain, she leaned forward and set her hands on her knees to put her sky-blue eyes level with his green one.

That was new. Arsonist senshi, she figured... well, most civilians seemed to recognize her. The police siren was becoming a near-constant companion, she thought as she lifted one hand to rest it on his hair. She couldn't feel texture through the long cotton gloves, but it looked fairly greasy. The sweat of the fight, compounded by the sedatives the captives were given at night? Maybe. She couldn't imagine... For a moment, revulsion flickered across her face, across her thoughts. How old was this boy, even?

Old enough to murder. The revulsion faded to resolution, and she let her hand drift to cup his cheek for a moment. A gentle grip, for a moment, one that turned taut and angry. "I know who you are. Wolframite..." He'd been protecting Bismuthite. The murderer, Bismuthite. The name rolled between her teeth--it tasted like sweat and blood to her, the tang of copper enough to make her want to gag. Instead, she steeled her face, straightened up.

"I'm Super Sailor Gunn," she said, a little carelessly. She fished out her constant friend, the matchbook, and looked at it for a minute. Maybe later. A couple minutes from now, later. "We're going to be great friends." The matchbook made a noise that was barely audible as it slid across the desk, coming to a stop against the wall. She placed one hand over Wolframite's, curled her fingertips under his smallest finger.

She hesitated, blue eyes hooded. This was a line; she was standing at a line. If she stepped over it, she risked becoming like them. Becoming... well, a monster. He looked so young, he looked like Kres, her cousin who cared for her... Her red hair was a curtain between his face and hers, hiding the pained grimace. She had to think of why they were doing this. For all those civilians whose bodies she'd burned. For the senshi this beast had murdered.

For Adelaide Rijnder... for Rota. Rota had had green eyes. A green eye, like this boy. Rota was dead, murdered by a monster. And that monster had been protected by this one. It was like disabling a youma. She'd done that a million times, hadn't she? Break the legs and crush the head. She'd get there with Bismuthite someday. Someday...

Gunn gripped the second knuckle of Wolframite's finger and wrenched it back. The snap was sickening, but when she lifted her head to look at Wolframite's face, the tiny smile was still playing around her lips and there was a frightening light in her brilliant blue eyes.

She had braced for the sound, but she hadn't accounted for how... human his reaction would be. Gunn slapped her hand over his wrist, pushing to keep all four legs of the chair on the ground. When he was calm again, she let go and circled around him, hands behind her back, the left hand clasping her right wrist loosely.

What the ******** was wrong with her? Gunn burned to answer it, but didn't dare to. She couldn't give away any information to this Negaverse scum, even if he was shortly to die. The only thing that was wrong with her was that people like Wolframite existed. Because without them, she wouldn't have to fight at all, she could just be at home with Kres. She could be doing normal things! Painting--she wanted to paint so badly but she'd had to put everything away because she never knew when she might need to fight, especially after that youma in her closet. When was the last time she'd gone shopping? Or seen any of her friends in civilian form?

It sucked that she couldn't even remember that.

It was rich, though, that he was appealing to her honor, or something. That queer light was still in her eyes as she gripped the ring and middle finger of that same hand and pushed them back until they began to resist. The threat was clear, even without her saying so. "Who is Bismuthite," she asked, resting the palm of her hand on his knee. "His civilian identity."

Gunn had looked up torture as soon as she'd heard they were going to do this. Captured Negaversers wouldn't talk if they were just deprived of food and water. Captured Negaversers would be as stubborn as they could until they starved. So there had to be something else in the Blood Moon's arsenal, and she'd been very thorough with her Special Forces members as she instructed them in what, exactly, they could do.

True, Wikipedia and Google were not all-knowing gods. But they were good enough... for this. She snapped his fingers, bending them back until the tops of the knuckles brushed the top of his palm; because he annoyed her, she snapped the index finger, too. The thumb she left, just because she wasn't quite sure how one went about breaking that particular finger. Then she turned to go to the desk, leaving the Negaverser to thrash if he pleased.

Squeeze, Gunn--she thought as she picked up the matchbox. She slumped over it, shoulders hunching forward over her trusted friend as if to protect it. Wolframite was still making that noise, that grating noise, it was ringing through her head, and she forced her thoughts back to the beating path: Squeeze, don't kill. Don't waste the monster, just drive him into submission like the animal he is. She had to be... she had to be a carnivore. Never stopping, never showing mercy. Mercy... it was like an animal itself, wasn't it? It could be defeated by tears and hunger and thirst. Gunn could not be swayed by such things...

She walked back into Wolframite's view, the matchbox open. One small stick was in her hand. "Okay. Let's try that again," said Gunn, holding up the match so he could see. She leaned against the wall, the box pressed just under her ribcage. "What is Bismuthite's civilian name?" She felt sick, but there was that light in her eye. Her stomach wanted to rebel, but in her head, she was singing.

His weak tone was a little more convincing than the defiant tone. But he didn't sound broken enough for her liking, not after that fiasco when they'd gone to catch the goddamn... Ugh. If only she had that smug-a** silver-haired b*****d here, she'd kill him. Of course Ares would be pissed off at Gunn pre-empting any knowledge gathering, but probably the woman would understand.

Maybe.

"You protected him when we captured you," she said, her tone remarkably level. The annoyance was obvious on her face in the pained grimace, eyes narrow and dark. "But okay. We'll try a different tack." She tipped his chin up with her fingertips--the room was so small she just had to lean forward-- and struck the match. "I'm going to count to three, and you're going to tell me his civilian form, or we'll see what catches when I throw this at you."

She looked at his uniform for a moment, then back up to him. "One."

She gave him a disappointed stare, then, as if with great reluctance, flicked the match at him. It bounced off his knee, guttered out on the floor, and she sighed. "Lucky, that time. But I have..." The redheaded senshi shook her matchbox, peering inside it. "A lot more matches to go." Forty-nine, actually. Enough to do some decent damage, if she wanted to. ... Decent. Ha. That was a little bit amusing. It'd be way better than decent.

Sure, if it came down to her or Ares, she'd pick Ares. Ten times, one hundred times, a thousand times--she was no leader. While some of the ISS could maybe step up and take Ares's place, it was the super senshi of smoke who had brought all of them together. Whose ideas had give all of them the strength to fight: whose ideas had brought all of them here, to this moment, to flicking matches at a teenage boy. "We'll try a different tack," she decided, flicking a match. This one caught in the fabric over his right wrist, but was burned out by the chains.

"You know what I'm going to tell your comrades?" She quirked an eyebrow, shrugged as she lit another matchstick and paced around the room, more a caged tiger than the calm torture-master. "I'm going to tell them exactly what I'm doing. I'm going to tell them you cried, that you're weak, that you told us everything. You think they couldn't hear that scream? Any noise you make, that's going to help us break them, just like any noise they make will help us break you. You're all going to break. It's just a matter of time. Then the BMC will know everything it needs to know, and you... you'll just have a countdown until the day you die." The clicking of her heels stopped and she dropped the match onto the bow at Wolframite's waist.

She paused to watch the fire greedily eat up the fabric of the ribbon. It burned an odd color, and she wondered what exactly the bow was made out of for a moment. She didn't think of the person she was standing in front of being Kres, even as her subconscious drew the comparisons. "Except maybe I won't ever let you die. Maybe I'll keep you here, as a pet. If you're good, maybe I'll even make it so you don't have to watch when I eviscerate Bismuthite and burn his still-breathing husk."

Gunn watched the bow burn, watched him try to pat it out. She considered for a moment, and then reached over and smothered it with one hand. Her gloves gave her some small amount of fire protection, and she couldn't have him faint just yet. "They won't believe me?" He didn't sound confident. That was something she could use, wasn't it. Her smile was back, unnerving and oddly strong. "Who won't believe me? When I tell them what I did to your hand... will that make Tanzanite angry?" She was striking another match, and leaning in. The flame was dangerously close to his face; barely an inch away.

She smiled, the light of the flame dancing in her eyes. "You're not going to be able to use it again. Not without someone breaking your fingers to set them properly... And ooh, that'll hurt. Happened to my cousin, once. They had to break his jaw in three places and his arm in five. All because they hadn't set properly the first time..."

The redheaded senshi considered it for a moment, tipping her head. "But that won't matter. A wolf's only one step away from a dog, isn't it?..." Her face hardened, her eyes going narrow and lips tight. Her knuckles around the matchbox were white. Was she really going to do this? Could she really--he looked like Kres. This close up, could she really burn him?

Her match guttered out. This time, she lit two, and held them in the same place. "Do you know what my power is?... You'll find out. Tell me Bismuthite's civilian name, or I'll burn your face. And this time, I won't be so kind as to put it out."

She quirked an eyebrow at him, straightened up to examine the matches. Really, it was such a pain to waste material. Kres was already wondering where all of her lighters and matches went. How was she supposed to explain she exploded them in an attempt to rid the city of evil? She sighed, heavily, as she walked over to the desk to set her matches down. Clearly this would be a two-handed operation, which was a little bit bothersome. She didn't want to be sooo up-close and personal while he screamed. Because he would, and honestly, they hadn't let the captives brush their teeth in so. very. long.

(Also, that feeling in her stomach was only getting stronger and while puking on a Negaverser would not be pleasant for the Negaverser, it would certainly not add to her badass rating with the other Inner Sanctum members. Gunn was attached to her badass rating.)

Maybe she'd find some caffeine-free gum. Would that count as food?

Keeping her thoughts light stretched out the time between choosing her matches and walking back over to Wolframite. What was it like? Was he afraid? She knew she would be, if an enemy held the power of life and death over her. Gunn closed her eyes, remembered the first time she'd had to burn one of Tanzanite's corpses. The burning flesh-- "Your loyalty commends you," she said, still fussing through her matches to find the two she wanted. "Unfortunately, no one else will ever hear of it." Gunn found two matches and struck them against the matchbox, took a deep breath. Then she returned to her place in front of Wolframite.

Her actions were as sudden as they were vicious. Her free hand found a place around his throat, thumb wedged in the soft space behind his jaw. It wasn't design to choke, just to hold as she held the matches close to his face and whispered the incantation to her attack. She dropped the matches once the flame caught, and walked over to the small bucket. Stale water, really. Now she just had to count... fifteen seconds, and she'd douse him. After all, she couldn't have him die just yet.