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Moments like this were what made the Negaverse as powerful as they were.

It was not their raw energy or their weapons. Both were terrifying and powerful in their own way, but they fell by the wayside when laid next to the conviction and loyalty that truly empowered them. It was their ability to act as one. More than an army, more than some ragtag militia of Earth-loyal defenders; they were a family. They fought with the fierceness that their loyalty and closeness afforded them, and there was not a senshi on Earth who Tanzanite believed could truly stand against them.

Not even Castor and his traitorous harlot. Her name would not be spoken. Her name would not even be though. A brown-eyed face flashed briefly in the General Queen's mind, and she suppressed it with a frown.

Never again.

Yet still the senshi persisted. Still they thought to educate Earth's warriors on the power of love and friendship as though they did not feel such things at their very core. Tonight, they would prove once again that they knew mercy. They knew affection. They knew what it meant to change a life instead of merely taking it.

It was not hard to hear Tanzanite as she approached. Between the feathers and chains, every step came with a low whir of movement; an echo of her presence. Even had she been silent, any powered individual within a mile radius could have felt her. There was no hiding the energy signature of a General Queen. Certainly not that of the woman who had taken on the mantle of Youma Queen. She reeked of the Negaverse's particular type of energy, a black hole into which hope might get sucked in and never escape.

“I will make it as easy as possible,” she murmured, her voice surprisingly soft despite the rasping echo. Her human hand settled upon the girl's shoulder, a reassuring squeeze given, “But nobody can take away the pain entirely. To be truly reborn, we all must die."

For all of her monstrous features, there was a softness in Tanzanite's eyes that had always been reserved for the Negaverse alone. It was the last remaining spark of her humanity, stoked into a wildfire when it came to the protection of those who had devoted themselves to the cause of the Dark Kingdom. It extended, apparently, to those chosen few that would soon be brought into their fold. To see the boy standing before her, visibly shocked and ignorant of the war that raged around them, would have pulled on the General Queen's heartstrings if she'd had any left. There was a hatred that burned in her for the humans who would not fight for their own planet, but it was tempered by the understanding that they did not know.

They did not understand.

They were blind, deaf, and dumb when it came to the fight for Earth. In that way, Tanzanite pitied them.

Other than that slight glimmer of emotion in her eyes, her strangely altered features were set in a calm mask. There was no rush now that the boy had shown. He had no chance of outrunning either of them, and not even the fastest car on Earth could have kept Tanzanite from catching up. He was trapped now, and any attempts to be kind or gentle or persuasive were an act put on for Fluorite's benefit. There was no choice, only the illusion of one. The boy could kick and scream and run if he so chose, but the Negaverse was not keen on spilling its secrets and then allowing those who knew them to escape.

As it stood, Matthew's only real choices were corruption and death.

For a long while the General Queen remained silent, allowing Fluorite to take the lead as she tried to make her brother see sense. Only when silence lingered between their exchanges did she finally speak, her words punctuated by the click of her heels against the asphalt as she circled around the boy.

“Within the year, everyone you know could be enslaved. Everyone you've ever loved could become nothing more than a broken pawn serving an empire both ruthless and cruel. The planet itself would be stripped of everything beautiful, everything useful, and left as a hollow shell on which the majority of humanity would someday be left to wither and die.”

Sadness curved the corners of her lips, for she truly believed that this was the fate of Earth should the Negaverse fail.

“What would you give to prevent that fate, Matthew? What would you sacrifice if it meant saving this planet. Your sister included, for she is among those who stand to suffer the most."

Some people dreamt of that moment. Of the day they would be walking home, and a figure would emerge from the shadows. Of the day they would be declared the Chosen One and their life would be forever changed. It was a common fantasy, and some people spent their entire lives waiting. Until they grew old and frail, and realized that the time had long since come and gone that they could have ever been meant for something more. Until they died, having never made even the slightest impression upon the world.

That was the fate the Negaverse would spare Matthew from that night. He would never have to grow old still staring hopefully into every shaded nook, waiting for the day that he could be someone meaningful. He would know what it was to be more than he could ever have been as a human. He would know what it meant to be not corrupted, for Tanzanite found the word to be a foul description perpetuated by the senshi, but chosen.

Chosen to defend Earth from any threat, no matter what that meant. They would do the unthinkable in the name of their planet, and their blood would pave the way for a new world, free of the senshi's oppression.

“I will explain everything to you in time, but first you must be able to feel the power that enables us to fight. You must feel the connection we have to this planet, only then you can understand what it is that must be done.”

Another step brought her close enough to press the palm of her human hand to Matthew's back, her voice surprisingly soft.

“I need you to trust me,” she said quietly, the slightest nod of her head in Fluorite's direction following the words. She wanted the girl to be a part of that moment. This was, after all, her family, and she would bear the weight of what happened to him from that moment on.

It had never been so easy before. There had been a time in Tanzanite's life when she could remember what a normal Destiny City had been like. Hell, by the time she had been chosen for the Negaverse, there were only whispers of the strange occurrences that were now considered everyday life in the strange, supernatural city. There had been a time before Barren Pines, when the majority of the city never saw anything more than the slightest movements in the shadows.

Before the bodies began piling up.

Before fights broke out, and entire blocks were destroyed.

Before monsters became an everyday reality.

There had been a time when it was not a ritual to hold your family close as you listened to the nightly news, and simply hope that you didn't recognize the names added to the already long list of missing people.

That time was over, and Destiny City was now the setting for perhaps the most important war Earth had ever seen. It was a fight for their right to exist, for humankind's ability to live without the constant oppression of senshi rulership. It was a fight they had no choice but to win, even if it meant bringing every friend and family member into their fold.

The sensation of having ones starseed touched, though Tanzanite was gentle as she eased her hand into the boy's chest and waited for Fluorite to do the same, was never a pleasant one. It was violating when not downright painful, knowing that your life was held in the hands of a person fully capable of destroying it. Tanzanite pulled on the power that lived within every agent of the Negaverse, drew on more of Metallia's power to channel it into the young man. For a brief moment, things felt shockingly normal, before a familiar sensation struck Tanzanite just a moment too late for her to do anything about it.

Suddenly, it felt as though they had shoved a fork into an electrical outlet. There was a shocking backlash, as the boys starseed fought violently against the small amount of energy Tanzanite thought would be enough to change him. It had, of course, not been enough. It had not been nearly enough.

Because as Tanzanite's eyes widened and her dark lips split into a wide smile to reveal those sharpened teeth, it was clear that something about Matthew was different.

Something was special.

“Senshi.”

“It's alright,” Tanzanite spoke softly, finding some place in her dark heart from which to pull up some pity to convey for the girl. It was like finding out that ones loved one was simply... evil. Wrong. An outsider. That single word, when spoken in the ear of an agent of the Negaverse, was like poison. It spoke of a grim and bloody fate... but not for Matthew. Like Alkaid and Lyra before him, Matthew would be one of the lucky ones.

The chosen ones.

Tanzanite wrapped her free arm gently around Fluorite's shoulder, a wing settling around her like some strange feathered cape. Tanzanite remained calm; it was a situation she had encountered before. Though she now no longer had Charonite's guiding hand to show her how to do it, she no longer needed it. That power was her own, earned through a loss of anything and everything else she might have ever relied on, and she knew how to use it. Though still fresh-faced for a General Queen, Tanzanite was not a stranger to getting her hands dirty.

Hell, it was practically her only purpose those days.

“We can save him, Fluorite. With Metallia's power, we can save him. We caught it early, we can stop it without him losing so much as a thought. Hold his hand, Lieutenant, he will need you now.”

Her silver eyes focused back upon the boy whose starseed she still held firmly in her grasp.

“Because this is going to hurt.”

Everything's gonna be alright.

Tanzanite did not smile at what should have been a touching moment between brother and sister, because she knew better. She knew that once the Negaverse had touched you, there was never going to be anything such as alright ever again. Alright was something reserved for the blind and dumb, those who would never know of the war that went on all around them. How could anything be alright once you understood what was on the verge of happening to the planet you called home and everybody on it?

Her expression was flat and emotionless as she called upon the power that had been granted to her. It was a tidal wave of dark energy, strong enough to crash through the natural defenses of an unawakened senshi's starseed and penetrate to its very core. Even without a direct connection, Fluorite would be able to feel it in the General-Queen's aura. All Matthew would be able to feel, though, was pain.

A pain unlike anything he could have imagined.

No matter how much one tried to prepare, there was simply no way to be ready for that trial by fire. It was an experience shared by every officer and every chosen senshi. It burnt a person up from the inside out, scouring away weakness or doubt. It was a rebirth, in a way, every time it happened. For Tanzanite, it had happened four times now, and it never became any easier to bear. The deeper the corruption, the worse the pain.

But when the pain finally subsided, there waspower. In Matthew's case, awakening directly into the Negaverse, it came with a sudden rush of it. He was suddenly stronger, his senses keener. He could feel the magic that he could call upon, and somehow knew the words to unlock it. It was as though a door had been opened into some strange new world, and with it came nearly unlimited possibilities. It was, in the General-Queen's opinion, a moment of unparalleled significance.

“What is your name, Matthew? Your real name?”

“Alunite,” she repeated, a soft smile on her lips. Something about the name fit the boy all too well, and it eased her mind to know that he felt it too. Unlike Fluorite, Tanzanite's stomach did not quiver at the sight. If there was any benefit to what the Blood Moon Court had done, it was that there was little that remained that could shake her. Her constitution held fast, and Tanzanite draped the more human of her two arms around the young mans shoulders.

The young Chosen Senshi's shoulders, and what a lovely one he was. Granted, Tanzanite probably only thought this because of all of the purple, but that was besides the point. It was always risky to convert a senshi. Their starseeds were hardwired against it, and the cracks in their skin were a manifestation of the way they must first be broken and then rebuilt in the image of the Negaverse. To some, they were unsightly scars, reminders of their treacherous White Moon roots.

To Tanzanite, they may as well have been beauty marks.

“Let's go home. A new world awaits you, and it begins now.”

And suddenly, the three of them were gone, whisked away to that have deep in the Earth. Left behind was only empty space, a Destiny City now deprived of one more would-have-been hero.